Incontrovertible Dinosaur DNA Reported

Darwinists have changed strategies. They no longer deny the existence
of dinosaur soft tissue. They just embrace cognitive dissonance.

Deep time is to Darwinism what oxygen is to earth’s atmosphere. Without it, evolutionary theory asphyxiates. They know this. That is why no matter the evidence, they cling to their precious millions of years as if their lives depend on it.

Since the late 1990s, with increasing frequency, evidence of primordial biological material in dinosaur bones has percolated up through the scientific journals. At first, evolutionists ignored it. Then they impugned the motives of the researchers, like Mary Schweitzer. When she wouldn’t back down, and demonstrated her case with more tests, they acted as if expressions of surprise would suffice to change the subject. Then they tried to deny it was dinosaur tissue, claiming it was bacterial contamination that just happened to look like red blood cells and blood vessels. When cartilage was reported (which bacteria do not have), they invented implausible theories of how it could survive millions of years under special conditions of chemistry. All the while, more reports of soft tissue have kept coming, including micrographs of osteocytes, melanocytes, and even (gasp) DNA. Evolutionists and other believers in deep time had long been adamant that DNA could not last millions of years—only one million at most, but certainly not back to the time of dinosaurs.

Now that incontrovertible evidence of primordial DNA in dinosaurs has reached a tipping point, evolutionists have changed their strategy again – more on that after looking at the latest evidence.

Nuclear preservation in the cartilage of the Jehol dinosaur Caudipteryx (Nature Communications Biology). Some will dispute the classification of Caudipteryx as a “feathered dinosaur,” but for present purposes, its assumed age is what matters. The fossil from the Jehol Biota in China is claimed to be 125 million years old, well before the alleged extinction event 66 million Darwin years ago. And yet the Chinese scientists report finding (and photographing) collagen fibers and cell nuclei with chromatin intact. Chromatin is the combination of histone proteins and DNA that make up chromosomes.

Previous findings on dinosaur cartilage material from the Late Cretaceous of Montana suggested that cartilage is a vertebrate tissue with unique characteristics that favor nuclear preservation. Here, we analyze additional dinosaur cartilage in Caudipteryx (STM4-3) from the Early Cretaceous Jehol biota of Northeast China. The cartilage fragment is highly diagenetically altered when observed in ground-sections but shows exquisite preservation after demineralization. It reveals transparent, alumino-silicified chondrocytes and brown, ironized chondrocytes. The histochemical stain Hematoxylin and Eosin (that stains the nucleus and cytoplasm in extant cells) was applied to both the demineralized cartilage of Caudipteryx and that of a chicken. The two specimens reacted identically, and one dinosaur chondrocyte revealed a nucleus with fossilized threads of chromatin. This is the second example of fossilized chromatin threads in a vertebrate material. These data show that some of the original nuclear biochemistry is preserved in this dinosaur cartilage material and further support the hypothesis that cartilage is very prone to nuclear fossilization and a perfect candidate to further understand DNA preservation in deep time.

No one is disputing these claims. Since the paper is open access, you can look at the photos for yourself. The authors say,

Based on the size, the morphology, the location of the structures seen in the dinosaur cell and based on the H&E staining pattern of the avian cartilage cells, the most logical conclusion is that this Caudipteryx cell preserves an original dinosaur nucleus (Fig. 4c). It sits within the cell cytoplasm, is delimited by a nuclear membrane and further contains darker stained material showing the morphological characteristics of condensed chromatin threads (Fig. 4c, d).

Exceptional Fossil Preservation Suggests That Discovering Dinosaur DNA May Not Be Impossible (Forbes). If a science story gets reported in a business magazine like Forbes, it’s significant.

Organic molecule remnants found in nuclei of ancient dinosaur cells (Phys.org).

This means the 125-million-year-old dinosaur cell has a nucleus so well-preserved that it retains some original biomolecules and threads of chromatin….

…. So far, these methods have only worked for young fossils (not much older than about one million years), but they have never worked for dinosaur material. Dinosaurs are considered way too old to retain any DNA. However, the chemical data collected by the scientists from IVPP and STM suggest otherwise.

Even though more data must be collected, this study definitely shows that 125-million-year old fossil dinosaur cells cannot be considered 100% rock. They are not completely “stonified.” Instead, they still contain remnants of organic molecules.

Scientists find cells of a 125M year-old dinosaur that contains remnants of organic molecules (The Daily Mail). Alida Bailleul, one of the paper’s co-authors, had co-authored a paper in National Science Review (April 2020) claiming “Evidence of proteins, chromosomes and chemical markers of DNA in exceptionally preserved dinosaur cartilage.” Of the current find, she says,

‘Let’s be honest, we are obviously interested in fossilized cell nuclei because this is where most of the DNA should be if DNA was preserved,’ Bailleul explained.

‘So, we have good preliminary data, very exciting data, but we are just starting to understand cellular biochemistry in very old fossils. At this point, we need to work more.’

Switching Strategies

It’s become clear that evolutionists don’t have any options left to deny that this is original, primordial tissue from dinosaur fossils. The current paper admits this, and makes the problem even worse for deep time believers:

The preservation of cell nuclei in long extinct organisms is currently considered rare and exceptional. Due to the fragility of nucleic acids, nuclei are thought to degrade extremely rapidly after death (sometimes within hours postmortem), leaving almost no chance for these structures to enter the fossil record (e.g., ref. 1). However, the paleontological literature is full of histological reports of fossil tissues with exquisitely preserved nuclei and even sub-nuclear structures like nucleoli or chromosomes in multiple stages of cell division. These examples are numerous and include nuclei from permafrost-preserved Cenozoic mammals, Mesozoic dinosaurs, various Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic plants, and even embryo-like fossil cell clusters that are more than 600 Million years (My) old (e.g., refs. 3,4,5,6,7).

So what are evolutionists to do? They didn’t predict this. They didn’t expect this. Since fossils as young as a few million Darwin Years old to fossils 600 million Darwin years old (Precambrian, before the Cambrian explosion), all have this primordial cell material, it looks like none of it can be anywhere near as old as claimed. They all look a few thousand years old at most.

Classic book on Darwinism by the late journalist Tom Bethell.

In this predicament, evolutionists are squeezed in a vise grip. They know they cannot follow the evidence where it leads. The price is too high. It would collapse the whole Darwin house of cards in an instant. Most repugnant to them, it would give aid and comfort to the hated creationists, showing that the Darwin timeline is wrong and the Biblical young-earth time frame is correct. Nearly 200 years of dogma about millions of years would unravel, and Darwinism itself would collapse, not having the time needed for chance to work its miracles. It would totally embarrass evolutionists before the watching world, and the ripple effect would impact evolutionary geology and evolutionary cosmology as well. They cannot let this happen! What to do?

The apparent strategy is to engage in cognitive dissonance: indeed, to embrace it. In other words, they’re saying, “We know that DNA cannot last long, but it did.” The paper demonstrates this:

These data show that some of the original nuclear biochemistry is preserved in this dinosaur cartilage material and further support the hypothesis that cartilage is very prone to nuclear fossilization and a perfect candidate to further understand DNA preservation in deep time.

This is a classic example of a Big Lie. The question is, will the public accept it if they keep repeating it enough times?

Update 10/27/21: The Scientist today referred to an article at Gizmodo that doubts the techniques the team used. Reporter Isaac Schultz does not rule out the claim, but says that bacterial contamination could be mistaken for dinosaur DNA. It’s good to be skeptical of a spectacular claim. One must consider, however, possible philosophical bias against the inference to a young age. A similar thing happened years ago when old-agers offered up alternative explanations for soft tissue discovered by Mary Schweitzer, who is quoted in the Gizmodo article. They complained about her conclusions, too: It was bacteria, some said. It was iron preserving the remains, others said. What is really motivating the skepticism? Does this excuse sound familiar?

Paleogeneticist Love Dalén from the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden was part of the team that extracted million-year-old mammoth DNA. He calls the notion of DNA enduring in dinosaur remains almost “impossible,” adding in an email to Gizmodo, “We know from both massive empirical studies and theoretical models that even under completely frozen conditions, DNA molecules will not survive more than ca 3 million years.”

That represents a line in the sand by the consensus. If additional tests confirm that the DNA really is from the dinosaur, the only possible conclusion would be that the fossil is not 125 million years old.

Deep time is a pillar that must stand no matter how strong the Samson of evidence pushes against it. It is the balloon that must fly even when the furnace has run out of fuel. The consequences of loss of faith in deep time are so drastic, it makes one shudder to ponder them. So they keep asserting it. They keep repeating it. They keep teaching it. It is their Law of the Misdeeds and Perversions that cannot be revoked (Daniel 6:8).

Here’s what normal people not yet brainwashed can do about this. Print color sheets of dinosaur soft tissue, with the references included, and hand them out to friends and even strangers on college campuses, parks, or wherever it is appropriate to greet people. Tell them in a friendly, winsome manner, “Hey, see this? This is a photo micrograph of DNA and proteins. Guess where scientists found it? In dinosaur bones.” Pause and let the fact sink in. If the person looks stunned or befuddled, say, “This was published in the journal Nature a few days ago.” You don’t need to say any more. If the person is interested, you can add, “Not long ago, scientists were claiming that DNA decays so rapidly, it could hardly last one million years. But they say dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. These cells here are claimed to be 125 million years old, twice as old as that. What do you think?” If appropriate, you can add that cells and original material has also been found in fossils said to be 600 million years old. As a clincher, you can say that carbon-14 has also been found in dinosaur fossils, and in diamonds, but it decays so quickly, it cannot last more than 100,000 years even if you started with a whole planet made of carbon-14.

Play it by ear, but the pictures alone can have a lot of influence. This is how pro-lifers have made progress against the seemingly implacable abortion industry: sharing photos of babies in the womb, and showing what abortion actually does. A grassroots effort can effect major change. That’s how Christianity brought down the Roman empire with all its idolatry and persecution. It succeeded one soul at a time.

Radio pastor Bob Enyart maintained a great page of journal references to dinosaur soft tissue, which is (for now) still available here. Tragically, Bob died of Covid-19 two weeks ago, which he contracted while caring for his wife who got it. He was not, as critics claim, an anti-vaxxer. According to his co-host Fred Williams, Bob was not against vaccines in principle, but was striving to be consistent with his pro-life position and not support any activity that depended on using fetal tissue, which was implicated in the production of the coronavirus vaccines. Bob caught a severe case of Covid and passed away quickly.

Fred and Doug McBurney also clarified Bob’s position on homosexuals after hate messages went viral on Twitter. They explain that Bob was attempting to combat the lies in the media claiming that HIV had nothing to do with homosexual activity. They also share how Bob personally helped an HIV patient and won him to Christ. If you have heard any of the slanderous statements about Bob Enyart or have doubts about his reputation, please listen to the Sept 24 broadcast of his long-running radio program hosted by Fred and Doug, “Farewell, Bob!” The scientific research he collected on his website about dinosaur soft tissue, whale evolution, big bang cosmology and other subjects remains online for now. We hope it continues.