SOFT TISSUE, PROTEINS, AND DNA IN DINO BONES

When scientists first discovered dinosaur soft tissue, many evolutionists insisted that these findings had to be mistaken. There was no way, they said, that soft tissue could last millions of years. Of course, they would not consider the option that dinosaur bones are not that old. However, the sheer number of examples in the scientific literature, combined with lots of rigorous testing, exposes that these discoveries are quite common. At the time of writing, there are over 58 dinosaur soft tissue discoveries spanning thirty scientific journals. And most are from just the last decade.

Dinosaur soft tissue is not the only dinosaur evidence that defies evolution. To date, at least three separate tests have indicated the presence of dinosaur DNA. Two of these tested positive using a DAPI test. This is a highly specific test that allowed the researchers to confirm the presence of double-stranded, double-helical DNA.^{Display footnote number:15} The stain DAPI cleaves to the minor groove of a stable double helix, so the test confirmed the presence of original dinosaur DNA. This finding cannot be explained away as contamination since the DNA was not found anywhere else except in certain internal regions of the cells. The researchers were even able to observe dinosaur DNA in its condensed chromosomal form, suggesting that the nuclear material was largely intact.^{Display footnote number:16}

DNA is a highly unstable chemical molecule. Living creatures have many intricate repair systems to undo the chemical damages to DNA; otherwise, they would quickly die. After death, the repair machines stop working, and DNA breaks down very rapidly, as shown by the below table based on measured DNA in moa (large extinct flightless birds) bones from New Zealand.^{Display footnote number:17, 18}

As per the laws of chemistry (Arrhenius rate law), chemical reaction rates are exponentially dependent on temperature.^{Display footnote number:20} So the DNA decays much more quickly at higher temperatures. As can be seen, even under the best-preserved freezing conditions at -5oC, DNA is believed to have an upper age limit of 6.83 million years.^{Display footnote number:21} This is only about 10% of the assumed evolutionary age for the extinction of dinosaurs. But at 15°C and 10,000 years, the average length of DNA would be about 13 base pairs (BP). This is important because if it were much less than 13 BP, it could not form the groove needed for DNA to test positive using DAPI. This is a huge problem for the idea of millions of years.^{Display footnote number:22} But the observations are in the right ballpark if the dinosaur bones were only buried a few thousand years ago during the time of the biblical Flood.^{Display footnote number:23}

Article by Jonathan Sarfati and Joek Tay in Creation Vol 47 Issue 1, 2025