The Case for a Young Earth Due to the Soft Tissues and Biochemicals Found in Fossils

As we said in the Part 4 response to Dinosaur Book and the Age of the Earth, the soft tissues and biomolecules we find in fossils don’t surprise young-earth creationists, but old-earth scientists struggle to reconcile this reality with their worldview. On pages 29–30 of his book, Dr. Rana begins his meager effort to report and discount the young-earth creationist case that these soft tissues and biomolecules discovered in fossils are consistent only with a young earth and the recent global Flood cataclysm. First, he makes these accurate comments:

Young-earth creationists point to the discovery of soft tissue remains in dinosaur fossils (and fossil specimens of other creatures) as prima facie evidence for the scientific community’s philosophical adherence to an old-earth framework, contrary to the evidence. They are quick to highlight how strongly some paleontologists (and other scientists) resist the compelling evidence for soft tissue remnants in fossils—a resistance they claim arises out of a deep concern about the implications of the soft tissue discoveries; namely, that the fossils cannot be millions of years old.1

Dr. Rana even credits Dr. Brian Thomas, a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research, with having “written—in my opinion—one of the most comprehensive, scholarly reviews of soft tissue finds and, in light of these discoveries, presents one of the best-articulated arguments for the YEC paradigm.”2 Indeed, as Dr. Rana correctly reports, Dr. Thomas provided meticulous documentation of several key studies that experimentally determined the decay rates of collagen under a range of conditions. Then, Dr. Thomas correctly concluded that there is absolutely no likelihood that biomolecules such as collagen could survive more than hundreds of thousands, let alone millions, of years. Thus, those fossils cannot be millions of years old, if the soft tissue remnants genuinely grew within the organisms that are now fossilized. And as Dr. Thomas rightly maintains, as does Dr. Rana, these soft tissue remnants and biomolecules found in these fossils seem to be genuine, despite the disbelief of some uniformitarian paleontologists.

Thus, Dr. Rana recognizes that for young-earth creationists, the implications are astoundingly significant. So he quotes the late Dr. Kevin Anderson, formerly of the Van Andel Creation Research Center and former head of the Creation Research Society’s iDINO (Investigation of Dinosaur Intact Natural Osteo-tissue) project:

If the soft tissue is original, then a very plausible interpretation is that these dinosaur fossils are actually young (i.e., no more than a few thousand years of age). This younger age contradicts the standard dating methodology used to originally establish the fossils’ ages as more than 65 million years. Such contradiction draws the entire geological dating paradigm into question and further exposes the error of accepting evolution as a presupposition for the dating paradigm.3

Of course, this is why Dr. Rana had to then strenuously defend the radioisotope dating methods that yield the millions-of-years ages for the strata containing the fossils with the preserved soft tissues and biomaterials. That is also why the claims he made in his defense of radioisotope dating have already been soundly refuted in Part 2 of this series.

Nevertheless, Dr. Rana accurately enunciates that the argument that young-earth creationists advance depends on the validity of two scientific conclusions:

(1) the soft tissue remnants in fossils are genuine, derived from the original tissues (i.e., not contaminant); and

(2) the decay rates—even under the most favorable burial conditions—of these biomolecules are too rapid for them to survive for millions of years.

Rescuing Devices

Dr. Rana defends the millions-of-years survival rates because he believes the fossils are millions of years old.

Since Dr. Rana and young-earth creationists agree about the first conclusion, then what about decay rates of biomolecules? Does the breakdown of blood vessels, cells, and organic molecules take place too rapidly for these materials to survive for millions of years? Dr. Rana defends the millions-of-years survival rates because he believes the fossils are millions of years old. So the soft tissues and biomaterials that have been discovered must be able to survive that long. He thus must champion the supposed processes by which the soft tissues and biomaterials may have supposedly survived, which we will come to shortly. Dr. Rana has to take issue with and attempt to critique the well-documented observational and experimental evidence that organic molecules break down and decay too rapidly for these soft tissues and biomaterials to have survived for millions of years.

Dr. Rana starts that quest by acknowledging that Dr. Brian Thomas, whose papers Dr. Rana declares are among the most comprehensive, scholarly reviews of soft tissue finds,4 quite correctly turned to the work of biochemists who have studied the breakdown of collagen found in the mineral matrix of bone. As Dr. Rana says, collagen is the most abundant protein in animals and is highly durable. Thus, it is the most likely biomaterial to survive in fossils.

Observational Science

Biochemists regularly recover collagen from animal remains found at archaeological sites and use carbon-14 dating of the bone collagen to determine the age of the finds (assuming that they are less than 50,000 years in age, which is considered the upper limit of carbon-14 dating). Biochemists use collagen in bone as a source of genetic information about the organisms found at archaeological and fossil sites. Thus, they have recovered ancient DNA from neanderthals and animals such as cave bears and the woolly mammoth. But as Dr. Rana admits, DNA is fragile, so its survivability in fossils is limited. Collagen is far more durable and occurs at extremely high levels in bones, where 25–30% of their dry weight is collagen. Because the amino acid sequences of proteins such as collagen are determined by the stored information in DNA, the amino acid sequences provide indirect genetic information.

The discovery of soft tissue remains in dinosaur fossils has encouraged biochemists to continue their efforts to determine how long collagen can survive in bone matrix. Thus, many biochemists have joined the debate over the authenticity of dinosaur soft tissues and the possible mechanisms that enable them to survive supposedly for millions of years. When an animal dies, its soft tissues rapidly decay, leaving behind its bones, which also gradually decay. Biochemists believe they have a reasonable understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms that cause the breakdown of bone.5 Because bone is a composite material, both the organic and inorganic components must deteriorate before the bone completely disintegrates.

Obviously then, Dr. Thomas relied on such research to demonstrate that the decay rate of collagen in bone matrix is much too rapid for collagen to survive for millions of years.6 For example, one investigation studied the question: How long could collagen survive in fossils?7 So collagen loss was measured in cattle and human bones at 90°C (194°F), close to the boiling point of water, to gather kinetic data in a reasonable period of time. From the data generated in about a month, it was calculated that the bone loss at 10°C (50°F), which is the average temperature of archaeological sites in Britain, would result in 99% of the original collagen decaying in only 200,000–700,000 years. Thus, those researchers quite rightly questioned whether Schweitzer and her colleagues actually recovered collagen from T. rex leftovers that are supposedly 68 million years old. In fact, they stated that the 20°C burial temperature for the T. rex specimen recovered from the Hell Creek Formation would have guaranteed the loss of all the collagen (except for 1%) in about 14,000 years.8

Furthermore, even if destructive chemical and biological pathways were somehow inoperable, biomolecules could not survive for millions of years because radiation causes rapid destruction of soft tissues as buried animals fossilize. Indeed, according to experts in amino acid analysis from environmental samples, bones readily absorb uranium and thorium. Such an internal dose would wipe out biomolecules.”9

Unbelievable

However, having acknowledged these empirical studies, Dr. Rana conveniently ignores the other studies reported by Dr. Thomas that likewise demonstrate soft tissues and biomaterials cannot survive for millions of years. At least he notes that Dr. Thomas commented that, based only on thermodynamic considerations, no soft tissue is expected to survive for millions of years, because “if original tissues can avoid being processed by scavengers, microbes, or chemicals, they nevertheless fall apart according to universal entropy, which describes how systems that are left to themselves spontaneously disorganize over time.”10

Yet other studies cited by Dr. Thomas overwhelmingly support his case. For example, a rigorous investigation of 158 fossils of the extinct bird, the moa, determined that the half-life for the mitochondrial DNA in their bones at 13.1°C, the average temperature in New Zealand where the samples were collected, was only 521 years.11 However, several indicators suggest that even 521 years represents an unrealistically long half-life for DNA. Forensics studies show that DNA degradation in natural environments (including domestic settings, in water, and in ice) imposes relatively narrow time restrictions on expected DNA recovery for analyses.12 Thus even this unrealistically large 521-year half-life refutes many claimed ages for DNA found in fossils.

These young radiocarbon ages for these dinosaur fossils are consistent with the dinosaurs being buried and fossilized during the biblical global Flood cataclysm only about 4,350 years ago.

Nevertheless, Dr. Rana does cite the study by Dr. Thomas with Vance Nelson of 14 dinosaur fossil specimens from seven dinosaurs, including two from the Triceratops horn discovered by Mark Armitage. These specimens yielded soft tissue remnants, all supposedly tens of millions of years old, and were sent to a commercial laboratory for carbon-14 dating.13 Their reason was that carbonaceous materials from any level of the geological column that was supposedly deposited millions of years ago should contain zero ¹⁴C atoms, except in rare instances of contamination. Yet radiocarbon was measurable in all 14 samples, ranging from about 20,000 to 41,000 years in age. Of course, as already discussed earlier in Part 3, Dr. Rana tried to argue that because the dinosaur fossils were tens of millions of years old, the radiocarbon detected had to be due to contamination, background carbon-14, and/or carbon-14 produced by conversion from nitrogen-14 due to exposure to radioactive uranium and thorium. All of these objections have already been soundly refuted in that previous article. Instead, these young radiocarbon ages for these dinosaur fossils, though inflated due to earth’s past stronger magnetic field suppressing the atmospheric radiocarbon production rate, are consistent with the dinosaurs being buried and fossilized during the biblical global Flood cataclysm only about 4,350 years ago. But this evidence also explains why soft tissues and biomaterials have survived in spite of their known propensity for very rapid degradation.

Limited Acknowledgement (Same Old Story)

Dr. Rana acknowledged that young-earth creationists have also been successful in finding soft tissues in dinosaur fossils, when he mentioned Armitage and Anderson’s spectacular discovery of soft tissue remnants in a fossilized Triceratops horridus horn from Montana’s Hell Creek Formation.14 But he failed to mention the earlier pioneering discovery in 2001 by Armitage of mummified collagen fibers in a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex hip bone.15 Armitage also compared what he found in the T. rex hip bone with the absence of soft tissue features in the hip bone of “Moab man,” human remains collected from Utah and thought to be less than 200 years old. Armitage concluded that these data call into question the long ages ascribed to these dinosaur fossils and support their rapid preservation in the absence of decomposers. The high level of ultrastructural preservation also implies that these dinosaur bones are simply not very old. No wonder Dr. Rana did not mention that comparative study!

Finally, it is important to mention that, since Dr. Rana’s book was published in 2016, there have been many other successful research discoveries by young-earth creationists of soft tissues and biomolecules in dinosaur and other fossils.16 And it should be noted that these discoveries were nearly all published in peer-reviewed conventional journals, contrary to the claim often made by opponents and skeptics that young-earth creationists do not do real research. To the contrary, these published papers indicate that in spite of the well-documented blacklisting of young-earth creationist scientists, there have still been conventional journals that have published this cutting-edge research. Furthermore, this young-earth creationist research is at the forefront of documenting the widespread occurrences of soft tissues and biomolecules preserved in many fossils, in spite of their vast claimed ages. It is also well-documented in the conventional literature that those soft tissues and biomolecules simply cannot survive for millions of years under the burial conditions to which they have been subjected. This includes iron oxide framboids derived from the hemoglobin of blood that dried in the blood vessels within the bones of dinosaurs when they were buried and fossilized.17

Dr. Rana closes his book chapter on this aspect of the topic by posing the question: “Is the recovery of soft tissue remnants in fossils evidence that the earth is just a few thousand years old?” We would contend the answer is a resounding Yes! Dr. Rana concurs with young-earth creationist Dr. Kevin Anderson, who notes that the

discovery of this preserved tissue has three possible general interpretations: (1) the material is original tissue that was preserved for millions of years by some yet-unknown physical process; (2) the material is original tissue that required no special preservation because the fossil is only a few thousand years of age; or (3) the material is not original tissue but is the product of a microbial biofilm or other contaminating processes that mimic biomolecule-containing tissue.18

As Dr. Rana correctly says, though not as empirically, we young-earth creationists strongly contend that the first and third options above are not supported by the scientific evidence. In fact, the remnants of soft tissues found in fossils overwhelmingly appear to have grown in place within the animals and so represent genuine original soft tissues. Yet published investigations of the decay rate of bone collagen indicate that the survival time of soft tissues is at most only about 1–2 million years, only a small fraction of the supposed 66–80 million years (or more) required for all the dinosaur fossils. Thus, only the second option is viable; namely, the fossils are only a few thousand years old. And the detection of radiocarbon in several dinosaur fossils compounds this convincing evidence for the young-earth creationist position. Thus, as Dr. Rana admits, if the fossils really are only a few thousand years old, then it demonstrates the unreliability of the radiometric dating methods used to determine the ages of fossils and, consequently, refutes the billions-of-years age for the earth.

In response to this argument, which is devastating to his unbiblical old-earth progressive creationist position, Dr. Rana had to then defend vigorously the conventionally claimed reliability of the radiometric dating methods, as well as endeavoring to discount the repeated successful radiocarbon dating of dinosaur fossils. However, the unreliability of the radiometric dating methods and the utter impossibility of them being capable of providing the claimed millions and billions of years absolute ages has already been soundly refuted in Part 2 of this response series to Dr. Rana. Additionally, there are numerous articles, papers, and books that are readily available on the Answers in Genesis website, most of which Dr. Rana has either not read or chosen to ignore.19 Similarly, radiocarbon dating of supposedly ancient materials has already been dealt with earlier in Part 4. And it has even been copiously documented in the conventional uniformitarian literature,20 of which Dr. Rana seems to be unaware, by neglect or by choice. Indeed, once it is recalibrated to account for the earth’s past stronger magnetic field, radiocarbon dating confirms that the earth and life on it is only thousands of years old.21

Indeed, once it is recalibrated to account for the earth’s past stronger magnetic field, radiocarbon dating confirms that the earth and life on it is only thousands of years old.

So how can Dr. Rana salvage the millions of years pertaining to his cherished, unbiblical, old-earth, progressive creationist position? Like us young-earth creationists, he agrees that these soft tissues and biomolecules found in fossils are genuine. Thus, Dr. Rana now has to defend and champion the mechanisms postulated by his conventional old-earth uniformitarian colleagues that somehow enabled the soft tissues and biomolecules in dinosaur and other fossils to survive through the supposed millions of years. We will now turn to that subject in the sixth and final part of this series of responses to Dr. Rana’s book.