Hi Russ T

They’re amazing findings aren’t they? Fascinating! I’m yet to meet or hear of an ‘evolutionist’ who is confounded by this, maybe you mean astounded. The red blood cells were not intact in fact the cells were just cell like structures in the bone that may have originally been blood cells. Haemoglobin was not found though some degraded fragments of it were identified. If you believe otherwise please cite original sources and we’ll see but

The bones were not permineralized but they were fossilized, it is a misunderstanding to say otherwise. Permineralization is the process which often fills in the empty spaces in a bone with rock, this had not happened with this specimen, it may even be possible that some original material remains though none has yet been indentified. Again if you disagree evidence please.

None of that contradicts the idea that the bones are 65 or so million years old. This is supported by three independent radiometric dating methods for the rocks around the bones and amino racemization dating of the sample itself.

DNA has never been recovered from any dinosaur bone, the same is true in this case, though with luck some day it will. DNA is apparently capable of lasting for that long under the right conditions but those are very rare conditions.

Much organic tissue is fairly simple chemical compounds, even the complex carbon compounds that make up the structure of our bodies is stable for virtually unlimited time in the right conditions. Such conditions are rare but there is no reason to suspect that bone and blood could not last in a desiccated state for 65 million years under the right conditions. This is the closest we’ve yet come to finding any such thing but the finding unfortunately fall far short of the spin and hype the Creationists have put on this.

Again if you disagree with any of this please cite original material and we’ll see if you can make a case, otherwise I think people should take the original discovers words for it when they say that what they found were fragments of hemoglobin and osteocalcin (a bone protein) and some interesting cell like structures that resemble blood cells though they contain very little of the original material at least in all the tests conducted on them so far. They did not find fresh blood or preserved soft tissue just degraded fragments of haemoglobin and osteocalcin and some interesting fossil structures that look much like cells. The bones were certainly very well preserved, amazingly well preserved, but the basic creationist argument boils down to personal incredulity. We’ve already recovered similar materials and more from bones well over 300000 years old and there is no reason to suspect that they would not last indefinitely if their preservation conditions were maintained. This discovery pushes back the known length of preservation but that’s all it does. Preservation is mostly affected by factors other than age so they are not suitable for dating a sample unlike radiometric clocks.

In Reason

Russell