Evolution’s Issue with Soft Tissue

The material inside the bone, found in Hell Creek, Montana, was soft and stretchy—completely unfossilized. The remains of blood and flexible blood vessels also were intact inside. This was powerful evidence that these poster creatures for evolution hadn’t died out millions of years ago because there would be simply no way soft tissue could survive that long in a hot, dry environment like Hell Creek, one of the most fossil-rich areas in the United States.

Dr. Schweitzer admitted, “When you think about it, the laws of chemistry and biology and everything else that we know say that it should be gone, it should be degraded completely.”2

While shocking to evolutionists, soft tissue in fossils is no issue for biblical creationists. This discovery demonstrates how the evidence we see in God’s world matches the history in God’s Word.

It’s Biofilm!

Unsurprisingly, some evolutionists denied Schweitzer’s discovery. Skeptics claimed that what she’d found must be the result of some type of biofilm,3 an intrusive organic material that had infiltrated the petrified remains of the T. rex.

However, the biofilm brigade was permanently silenced shortly thereafter, as Schweitzer’s team made an even more staggering discovery in 2009. This time they found soft tissue, blood cells, and proteins inside a supposed 80-million-year-old hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur).4 To quell all doubts, Schweitzer’s team was meticulous in their work, making sure to account for anything that could discredit their research.

The Dam Breaks

By 2015, evolutionists were reporting on how an accidental discovery of blood and collagen in several dinosaur bones could “rewrite textbooks.”5 Soft tissues have now been found in well over 100 fossils—including dinosaurs, mammals, birds, plants, reptiles, amphibians, clams, insects, sponges, worms, and more.

Not only that, but these fossils have been found all over the world, exposed to a wide variety of environmental conditions—cold, hot, wet, and dry. They have been found throughout the fossil record, from the Cambrian to the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous period, and at all different levels—the oldest being a marine worm supposedly 551 million years old!6

The discovery of soft tissue inside dinosaur fossils is a kill shot for evolution’s deep time, since soft tissue breaks down very rapidly—certainly much faster than a million years.

All of this devastates the evolutionary narrative. According to a 2011 article, an experiment established that at 10°C (around 50°F), only 1% of the original collagen in a bone sample can survive for longer than 700,000 years in an optimal burial environment.7 It’s a tad hotter than that in Hell Creek, where Schweitzer’s soft tissue was recovered. The discovery of soft tissue inside dinosaur fossils is a kill shot for evolution’s deep time, since soft tissue breaks down very rapidly—certainly much faster than a million years.

A Way Out?

Evolutionists fight back by claiming they have discovered several ways these soft tissues could have been preserved. For example, Schweitzer has proposed that “iron might help preserve dinosaur soft tissue, both by helping to cross-link and stabilize the proteins, as well as by acting as an antioxidant.”8

As one article noted, “Schweitzer’s latest research shows that the presence of hemoglobin—the iron-containing molecule that transports oxygen in red blood cells—may be the key to both preserving and concealing original ancient proteins within fossils.”9 Schweitzer also compares hemoglobin to formaldehyde, which preserves tissues. Formaldehyde links, or cross-links, the amino acids that compose proteins, making those proteins less prone to decay.10 Schweitzer claimed that “haemoglobin (HB) increased tissue stability more than 200-fold, from approximately 3 days to more than two years at room temperature (25°C [77°F]).”11

Cognitive leaps

However, Schweitzer’s explanation fails upon even cursory inspection. Her paper presents experiments that do not accurately represent the conditions which preserved these dinosaur remains.

A LiveScience article described the experiment this way:

“[Schweitzer’s team] soaked a group of [ostrich] blood vessels in iron-rich liquid made of red blood cells and another group in water. The blood vessels left in water turned into a disgusting mess within days. The blood vessels soaked in red blood cells remained recognizable after sitting at room temperature for two years.”12

But soaking blood vessels in hemoglobin prepared in a laboratory hardly represents decomposing bones. And while hemoglobin that is highly concentrated might act as a temporary preservative, natural hemoglobin doesn’t have the same effect. Tissues, such as lungs and gills, that contain many blood vessels, often deteriorate rapidly.

Researchers make a phenomenal cognitive leap when they suggest that blood vessels that remained “recognizable” for two years could illustrate that they could last for 35 million years. Furthermore, iron cannot preserve as well as formaldehyde, because iron does not directly form covalent cross-links between protein chains. Even if it did display the same preservative power as formaldehyde, iron could not preserve soft tissues for millions of years. Formaldehyde simply slows down decomposition, it doesn’t prevent it entirely.

The Toast Model

Recently, Schweitzer’s research group offered a new hypothesis based on their latest research. They say that the kinds of reactions that transform sugars and lipids into bread crust in an oven also occurred in some fossils, possibly accounting for this miraculous preservation of soft tissues. These Maillard reactions, as they’re called, happen when proteins react with sugars to form dark-colored polymers.

But the Maillard effect happens between 280°F and 330°F (138°C and 165ºC). Granted, these are temperatures that some fossils may have reached while buried deep beneath the earth. But what happens if you “leave the bread in the oven” on and off for over 65 million years?

Neither the iron nor the toast models directly preserve the original biochemistry of the tissue. Instead, they transform it into biomaterials that would preserve merely the original shape. But what’s been found inside these supposed millions-of-years-old creatures is original soft tissue that hasn’t been transformed into tougher biomaterial.

As a solution, some now suggest that perhaps these two models somehow worked together to create a shielding effect that preserved the original soft tissue. The absurd “scientific” proposals continue.

The Bottom Line

The story of evolution desperately needs millions of years. In the face of devastating evidence, evolutionists continue to clutch at straws to explain soft tissue, no matter how ridiculous the proposals.

Soft tissue found all over the world at all levels of the fossil record fits neatly within a young earth timeline. These creatures were buried in the global flood roughly 4,400 years ago, showing once again that what we see in God’s world matches what we read in his Word.