Kim asks:
> FIRST, could the 70 million years be wrong ?
Not in any substantial way.
> Can this type of tissue really
> remain viable that long ?
What the article refers to as "tissue" is actually bone, so it would have no
more trouble being preserved than any other fragile bone, such as wing or
finger bones, which are more rarely preserved than teeth or skulls, but which we
still have found in abundance for animals much older than 70 Ma.
Among extant animals (animals living now), the medullary bone is currently
built only in ovulating female birds as a calcium reservoir. Its presence is
temporary in the animal. It's resorbed into the body during and after egg
formation.
The bone in these findings is not "viable," any more than any other
fossilized bone. It's now rock, but it does remain recognizable.
> SECOND, why must we assume that one evolved from the other ? Birds and
> dinosaurs ? Prove that birds came from dinosaurs or vice versa. Don't use
> billions of years here if you can't answer question #1.
There are a great many lines of evidence now to suggest that birds are not
only descended from the dinosaurs, but are "living dinosaurs." Quite likely, in
the very near future, Linnaeus' original designation Class Aves will be done
away with and replaced with the Class Dinosauria nomenclature.
Quoting the article:
"Dr. [Mark] Norell defended the research that favored the dinosaur-bird link.
"Every new piece of evidence - the feathers and feather structure, the
nesting behaviors, this soft-tissue stuff - all of these things are
congruent with the hypothesis," he said.
"Mr. [Jack] Horner, one of the most experienced dinosaur fossil hunters, was
more
blunt about critics.
"I'd put them in the category of the flat-earth believers," he said."
This is consensus view now among a broad swath of biologists, both
physiologists of living animals and paleontologists.
Wirt Atmar
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