Originally posted by RJHinds
Here is another true fact about the cuttlefish.
A team of paleontologists found a supposedly 34 million-year-old fossil cuttlebone that still had both the original aragonite and chitin. This is significant, because one might expect the hard aragonite to persist in the fossil record, but not the organic chitin or protein. The chitin, which is made of sugar ...[text shortened]... d been long gone after only thousands of years.
http://www.icr.org/article/6509/
The moron
The link is a creationist propaganda link (I wouldn't have read it if I had known beforehand ) therefore must contain lies or at least deception. Here is a link about that fossil that is NOT a creationist propaganda link.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/ci-uer020711.php
"...Washington, D.C.—Surprising new research shows that, contrary to conventional belief, remains of chitin-protein complex—structural materials containing protein and polysaccharide—are present in abundance in fossils of arthropods from the Paleozoic era.
Previously the oldest molecular signature of chitin-protein complex was discovered in
25 million year old Cenozoic fossils and remnants of structural protein have also been discovered in 80 million-year-old Mesozoic fossils...."
In other words, they were unsurprised that chitin can survive for millions of years rather than just thousands of years but rather were merely surprised that it came from as far back as the Paleozoic era.
Therefore:
The chitin, which is made of sugars tightly bonded into molecular chains, would have spontaneously degraded and been long gone after only thousands of years.
-is, like so much of what creationists say, just yet another one of their lies, plain and simple. There is absolutely NO reason to think that chitin couldn't survive for millions of years in a fossil and, in fact, chitin is routinely found in many fossils that are millions of years old
exactly as it is expected to. They (the creationists ) must be getting desperate.
In addition, it says:
".. that the vestigial protein-chitin complex may play a critical role in organic fossil preservation by providing a substrate protected from total degradation by a coating waxy substances that protect the arthropods from desiccation. ..."
In other words, science can give a perfectly plausible explanation of how chitin could have survived from as far back as the Paleozoic era. Of course, your creationist propaganda link failed to mention that fact and that, in addition to their lie,
also shows the dishonesty (as well as showing they are getting desperate ) of those creationists.
There, sorted.
01 Nov '13 20:00Here is another true fact about the cuttlefish.