Valentine Pontifex

I do a little lurking in ARN and found a nice thread on <a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000300" target="_blank">dinosaur blood claims</a> by Dr. GH who is a poster on this board as well.

Dr.GH

Thank you. I am most pleased that you liked it.

As you have experienced, we fling these things out into the cyber ozone mostly into the teeth of hostile creationists. (ok slight exaggeration. I am also a fisherman and we do exaggerate.)

I tallied up the other day; $14 for the book in six days that had the Baumgardner chapter, a trip to the UC Irvine science library ($5 parking, $5 lunch, $9 copying fees) a couple of emails to the relevant scientists (Collins was most helpful, and we may do some joint work down the line (or so, these things have a greater likelihood of not happening)), about 6 hours reading (including a nearly 50% material not used), about 8 hours writing (I am a terribly slow writer.)

Totals, $33, and around 20 hours of unpaid work to produce 4 pages (~2 original text pages) to refute one paragraph of creto lies out of a 380 page book. Sheesh.

This should now go into rants and whatever.

Nic Tamzek

Hey, that is a great post. It deserves to be saved from obscurity on a UBB and put in as a short t.o. article IMHO. Just snip the stuff about Douglas and start with the Baumgartner quote and you're set.

On ARN, creationist references this article:
<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0325rbcs.asp" target="_blank">http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0325rbcs.asp</a>

...but it doesn't seriously discuss the preservation of osteocalcin fragments and the specific conditions under which this happens, which makes it pretty useless as a refutation.

nic

tgamble

It should definitely be an article on talkorigins.

Maybe you can have it published in SA or other such magazine. Reach as wide an audience as possible.

Maybe it'll actually get through to some creationist.

Valentine Pontifex

I agree with the others. It is a good candidate for the Archive. Post a version to the newsgroup talk.origins with the subject of "Proposed FAQ: Fossilized Dinosaur Blood" or something to the like would be the best way to go about that.

You might add a mention this in the article. The point being that it is far easier to make uncritical claims than to carefully examine them as you have done.

Also there has been some discussion in the t.o. newsgroup on this issue that can be easily found by doing a google search on the newsgroup for "dinosaur blood".

Dr.GH

Thanks some more. I had wondered about adding a bit about heme, specifically the Schweitzer et al 1997 PNAS paper, and the absurd mess that the gang of loons at AiG have made of it.

As there are already good responces to the heme paper, I could just reference them. I'll mess with it some in the AM.

I haven't looked in at T.O. newsgroup for many months (I know that that is supposed to be the satan inspired hub of the evilolution coven). That should be fun as well.

P.S. Prof. Weird posted a good link with information on dino heme and Ken Ham:
<a href="http://www.bibleandscience.com/ken%20ham.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bibleandscience.com/ken%20ham.htm</a>

P.P.S. I keep forgeting to mention what I find to be a wild irony: Aig and their followers regularly claim that scientists are a mix of the demonic and stupidity. But, in the case of both heme and osteocalcin, creationists are not only accepting findings that real science was hesitant about, they grossly exaggerate heme into whole red cells, and calcium bound g-carboxyglutamic acid from bone that has not been permineralized into "well-preserved protein" from "unmineralized" bone.

I like to go fishing, and that means I also apprieciate the fine art of exaggereation. But these guys are too much, you can't catch marlin in a trout stream.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Dr.GH ]</p>

Albion

If you're going to add something about heme, you might find this e-mail exchange helpful:

<a href="http://homepages.ius.edu/ADRIAN/g180/jackhorner.txt" target="_blank">http://homepages.ius.edu/ADRIAN/g180/jackhorner.txt</a>

Valentine Pontifex

It would probably be best to mention them directly though that should not take more than a paragraph: heme ain't blood.... Or you can quote them. Or maybe be solicited to write a section?

That one is interesting.

Everyone take a look at it if you have not done so. The next time the creationist whine about evolutionists changing their answers that page might be a great one to point to.

Also notice that Ken Ham was still refuting continental drift in 1990. This was years (at least five) after continental drift was directly detected. Also notice that Snelling was a co-author. He is one of AiG/ICR's pointmen on geology with a Ph.D. in the subject as well as being the former editor of AiG "technical journal." Anyone who read Science News would have known about it years before these people.

Valentine Pontifex

Thanks for that. I tried to find that in the Google archives of t.o. without success. I guess I was looking at the wrong spot.

Valentine Pontifex

The 19th century novel that never really seemed like it was written in the 19th century Three Men in the Boat had a bunch of information on the rules of exagerating one's catch. Maybe some good humorist can rewrite them into how creationists fish for evidence.