Oops I forgot to send this to the asa
> -----Original Message-----
> From: glenn morton [mailto:glenn.morton@btinternet.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 6:46 AM
> To: Dale K. Stalnaker
> Subject: RE: Halloween/Evolution Tract
>
>
> Hi Dale,
>
> You wrote:
>
> > While listening to a local (Cleveland) Christian radio station this
> > evening, I heard
> > about a evangelical Christian ministry called "Halloween
> > Outreach!". Their
> > web site
> > is at <http://www.halloweenoutreach.com/>.
> >
> > During this time of the year, this ministry sells packets of
> tracts called
> > "Halloween Outreach! cards" to spread the Gospel (see
> > http://www.halloweenoutreach.com/cards.html). One card is an
> > anti-evolution tract from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). It
> > has the caption "They're Big, They're Ferocious, and They're real!" and
> > questions
> > whether or not dinos are million of years old. According to the ICR,
> > evolutionary theory has "one slight problem...recently a
> dinosaur bone was
> > discovered that still contained blood cells!"
> >
> > This sounds very bogus, but does anyone at ASA know the real story about
> > this "fossil evidence" for a young earth?
> >
> > The tract concludes with "Where did life begin? Scientists point to a
> > giant explosion, and millions of years of evolution. Christians hold to
> > the biblical account that God personally created the animals... that we
> > know today." This implies that young-earth creationism is necessary for
> > Christian faith and that it is impossible for Christians to
> accept either
> > the Big Bang, evolution, or a multi-billion-year-old earth.
> Since the ICR
> > is so successful propagating this nonsense, it is no wonder that many
> > scientifically-literate people have a difficult time with Christianity.
> >
> > Dale Stalnaker
> >
> >
>
> Like much of what ICR does, it is a mixture of misreading,
> misunderstanding, and pure fiction. The authors did not find
> blood cells. The original report is to be found in Proc. Natl.
> Acad. Sci. USA Vol 94 pp 6291-6296 June 1997. The authors found
> Heme compounds, not cells.
>
> Here is what the NY Times said about it. This article is no
> longer on their web page, but can be found at their archive site.
> This is not the entire article.
>
> June 10, 1997
>
>
> Blood of Tyrannosaur Recovered From Montana Fossil
>
> By NICHOLAS WADE
>
> Scientists say they have recovered elements of blood from the
> bones of a dinosaur that died some 65 million years ago. This
> is the first time that blood components have been recovered from
> dinosaur bones, and the nearest that science has come to the
> science fiction fantasy of recreating the creatures from the
> genetic information in their blood cells.
>
> The dinosaur, a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex, was buried in
> conditions that prevented its bones from being converted to
> mineral, as is the case with most fossils. The interior of the
> bones are preserved largely in their original form.
>
> Dr. Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at Montana State
> University in Bozeman, recovered the specimen from the Hells
> Creek formation of eastern Montana. Because of the bones' state
> of preservation, she decided to look for direct signs of life,
> like cells, DNA and protein.
>
> The recovery of ancient molecules is fascinating but treacherous
> terrain on which many scientists have stumbled. The more
> sensitive the analytical technique, the higher the risk of
> picking up molecules that have contaminated the original
> specimen. The DNA that a team of Utah scientists recently
> asserted that they had recovered from 80?million?year?old
> dinosaur bones was later said by other researchers to be of human origin.
>
> Because of such setbacks, Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues
> proceeded with caution and took several years to
> publish their results.
>
> Earlier hopes of finding cells in the dinosaur bone have been
> dashed. Dr. Schweitzer said she could see no direct sign of
> cells, although a chemical stain that recognizes DNA picked up
> something in the holes where the bone cells would have rested.
>
> But she said she had been unable to retrieve DNA that could be
> identified as originating in a dinosaur.
>
> She and her colleagues had better luck in looking for heme, the
> oxygen?carrying part of the hemoglobin molecule of the blood.
>
> They report finding evidence for the presence of heme by six
> different chemical tests in an article published in Tuesday's
> issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
> **end excerpt
>
> glenn
>
> see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
> for lots of creation/evolution information
> >
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