3 replies to this topic

[Seeker25]

Perfectly preserved fossil mammoth has been found. It's always good to hear what you all think about this new discovery. I'm aweful at researching and drawing conclusions so I'll leave that up to you all. Just sharing the information.

http://news.yahoo.co...m-30340674.html

[JayShel]

Perfectly preserved fossil mammoth has been found. It's always good to hear what you all think about this new discovery. I'm aweful at researching and drawing conclusions so I'll leave that up to you all. Just sharing the information.

http://news.yahoo.co...m-30340674.html

It's always interesting to see what sort of glaring errors are mixed into news reports. I laughed when the reporter claimed that the scientists were going to use radiocarbon dating to determine "exactly the age of the mammoth". Any scientist will tell you there is error margins when using radiometric dating. I personally have less faith in the accuracy of such methods (not to be confused with the precision).

It also found the woman's claim that the fossils were deffinitely "at least 10 thousand years old" interesting. She never provided enough basis for her claim to be able to determine the veracity of it. Thus is usually the nature of news reports, you are just supposed to take it or leave it.

It is certainly exciting to find more mammoth fossils. I am predicting we will see tissue, cells, and blood vessels if we crack it open.

Those are the main thoughts I had when watching this. Thanks for sharing.

[jason777]

Yes, Jayshel...But we now know that soft tissues and proteins that have half lives of 500 years can survive for millions of years.

[JayShel]

Yes, Jayshel...But we now know that soft tissues and proteins that have half lives of 500 years can survive for millions of years.

I am curious about the details of this. What causes proteins to decay? Isn't it oxidation? Is there no way of encasing a bone to be air tight so it would effectively stop this oxidation? I would think that oxygen would eventually get to them. I try to verify creationist claims before I start using them myself, explore all the angles to verify if the claims are airtight. Without a doubt, in order for evolution to be true, DNA must be able to be preserved for millions of years somehow.