Misreading Soft Tissue

When organic remains are found in fossils said to be hundreds of millions of years old, what questions should be asked?

Scientists were stunned when soft tissues were found in a T. rex bone in 2005. Numerous studies since then have confirmed the presence of collagen and other original proteins in certain fossils. Should these discoveries not call into question the long ages assigned these remains? Instead, Darwinists have simply accommodated them into their web of belief, claiming it sheds light on evolution.

Note: Some of the news items below regard original soft tissue; others regard mineralized impressions of soft tissue.

Gut glands illuminate trunk segmentation in Cambrian fuxianhuiids (Current Biology). Carbon impressions of internal organs in a Cambrian arthropod from China show clear detail of the gut. The paper says, “the midgut is preserved as carbon compressions associated with iron deposits resulting from the pyritization of internal organs.” It should be remarkable to find such detail in a fossil said to be 500 million years old, but the authors seem fixated on evolution: “improving understanding of segmentation in extant organisms, reveals that euarthropods had already acquired a substantial degree of developmental flexibility early on in their evolutionary history as informed by the Cambrian fossil record.” How is this a revelation about evolution, if the animal “had already acquired” complex traits? And how could such detail be preserved for hundreds of millions of years?

Soft tissue fossil clues could help search for ancient life on Earth and other planets (Phys.org). Bouncing off of soft-tissue impressions in the Burgess Shale, this article admits that “soft parts such as internal organs, eyes, or even completely soft organisms, like worms, tend to decay before they can be fossilised.” But instead of asking why any soft tissue impressions remain at all after such a long time, this article again looks for clues to evolution. “To expand their understanding of the exceptional preservation of soft organisms, the team are currently delving further back into Earth history, to investigate the preservation of microbes before macroscopic organisms with skeletons or shells evolved.” The focus is on the type of rock that allowed the soft tissue impressions to survive, not on the complexity of the organs preserved. Logically, this has nothing to do with life on other planets. The following quote commits a flawed syllogism: Major premise: soft tissue remains are preserved in some Earth minerals. Minor premise: Mars might have those minerals. Conclusion: Mars might have fossils.

Of the project’s wider applications, potentially supporting the search for life beyond our own planet, Anderson adds: ‘For the vast majority of Earth’s history, life has not possessed hard shells or skeletons. This means that if we want to look for fossil evidence of life on other planets like Mars, the chances are we probably need to find fossils of entirely soft organisms, and Burgess Shale-type fossilisation provides a way. NASA’s Curiosity rover has the ability to record mineralogy on the Martian surface, so it could potentially look for the types of rocks which might be most conducive to preserving these fossils.’

Fossilised plant leaf wax provides new tool for understanding ancient climates (Science Daily). Ask scientists these days to comment on new observations, and they will find a way to fit it into climate change. That’s what we see here in this article. “The new data confirms the expectations of climate models, that atmospheric cooling is coupled to less atmospheric moisture,” the scientists claim with joy. But what about that leaf wax?

A method of estimating ancient moisture content based on these plant wax compounds overcomes the limitations of other methods because plant waxes are commonly found in soils and sediments stretching back tens or even hundreds of millions of years and across many environments.

How do they know that leaf wax can last hundreds of millions of years? They don’t. Evolutionary dating demands that the fossils be that old. Only in recent decades have paleontologists come to grips with the fact that believing long ages requires major revisions to thinking about how long biological organic remains can survive.

Evolutionary thinking distorts science. Evolutionary thinking distorts logic. Evolution News posted a quip about the Darwin scientific method:

1. Introduction: Start by stating confidently that evolution is true.
2. Methods and Results: If (as often happens) some of your results are inconsistent with evolutionary theory, describe them in the most obscure technical language available.
3. Discussion: Make some clever guesses about why some of your data seem to be inconsistent with evolutionary theory. If that doesn’t work, claim that your data expand and enrich our understanding of evolution. (Optional: Insert a disparaging comment about intelligent design.)
4. Conclusion: Evolution is true.