A Triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, has been controversially dated to around 33,500 years, challenging the view that dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago. The finding radically suggests that early humans may have once walked the earth with the fearsome reptiles thousands of years ago.
The Triceratops brow horn was excavated by palaeontologist Otis Kline Jr, microscope scientist Mark Armitage, and microbiologist and avocational palaeontologist Kevin Anderson, in May 2012, and two horn samples (GDFM 12.001a and GDFM 12.001b) were given to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Montana. The samples were then sent to the University of Georgia, Center for Applied Isotope Studies for Carbon-14 dating, which yielded an estimated date of 33,570 ± 120 years for the first sample and 41,010 ± 220 years for the second.
Triceratops, a name meaning “three-horned face”, is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur that is said to have first appeared during the late Maastrichtian stage of the late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago in what is now North America, and became extinct in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago. However, scientists from the Paleochronology Group, a team of consultants in geology, paleontology, chemistry, engineering, and education, who perform research relating to “anomalies of science”, maintain that dinosaurs did not die out millions of years ago and that there is substantial evidence that they were still alive as recently as 23,000 years ago.
Classical reconstruction of a Triceratops (Wikimedia Commons)
Until recently, Carbon-14 dating was never used to test dinosaur bones, as the analysis is only reliable up to 55,000 years. Scientists never considered it worthwhile to run the test since it is generally believed that dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years, based on radiometric dating of the volcanic layers above or below fossils, a method which the Paleochronology Group states has “serious problems and gross assumptions must be made”.
“It became clear years ago that paleontologists were not just neglecting to test dinosaur bones for C-14 content but were refusing to. Normally a good scientist will be curious about the ages of important fossil bones,” Hugh Miller, a research and consulting chemist and Head of the Paleochronology Group, told Ancient Origins in an email.
YouTube video explaining results of carbon testing on dinosaur bones
The results of the Triceratops Horn analysis are not unique. According to Mr Miller, numerous C-14 tests have now been carried out on dinosaur bones, and surprisingly, they all returned results dating back in the thousands rather than millions of years.
“I organized the Paleochronology group in 2003 to fill a void with regards fossil wood and dinosaur bones as I was curious as to their age by C-14 dating. We thus have used C-14 dating to solve the mystery why soft tissue and dinosaur depictions exist world-wide. Our model predicted dinosaur bones would have significant C-14 and indeed they did in the range of 22,000 to 39,000 years BP,” Mr Miller added.
Results of C-14 tests on dinosaur bones provided by the Paleochronology Group.
Numerous independent researchers have long argued that there is evidence man and dinosaur once walked the Earth together, such as hundreds of ancient artworks and artifacts that appear to depict dinosaurs, long before modern science had pieced together dinosaur fossils and conducted analyses to produce detailed reconstructions of their appearance.
Top left: Relief carving at Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1186 AD). Top Right: Textile from Nazca, Peru (700 AD). Bottom: Tapestry in the Chateau de Blois (1500 AD)
However, even more intriguing is the discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils. In the March 2005 issue of Science, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer and her team announced the discovery of soft tissue inside a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, a controversial finding considering scientists had thought soft tissue proteins degrade in less than 1 million years in the best of conditions. After recovery, the tissue was rehydrated by the science team and testing revealed evidence of intact structures such as blood vessels, bone matrix, and connective tissue.
More recently, Mark Armitage and Kevin Anderson published results of a microscopic analysis of soft tissue from a Triceratops horn in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Histochemica. Mr Armitage, a creationist, claimed that the preservation of cells is a scientific impossibility if the dinosaur really walked the Earth over 66 million years ago. On this basis, he opened a discussion with colleagues and students about the implications of such a finding being that the creationist perspective is correct and that dinosaurs existed much later than mainstream science maintains, a move that promptly saw him fired by the University of California.
While the Paleochronology Group says it is not “of any particular creed or denomination”, there are undoubtedly those with creationist beliefs among the group, a fact which critics may say could bias their results. Nevertheless, the group has urged any and all scientists to replicate their results by carrying out rigorous C-14 testing on any dinosaur sample.
“Every sample tested yielded significant original Carbon-14 by extensive cross-checking of their ages in bone collagen, bulk organics and carbonate from bone bioapatite on AMS units and obtained concordance. Thus, the overwhelming odds are that most if not all unpetrified or even supposed petrified dinosaur bones in museum and university collections will show the same result,” Mr Miller told Ancient Origins. “We urge therefore that all those in charge of such collections see if they can replicate our findings. The implications are immense.”
The challenge, so far, has been met with rejection, and previous attempts to publish C-14 test results were repeatedly blocked. Raw data without interpretation was blocked from presentation in conference proceedings by the 2009 North American Paleontological Convention, the American Geophysical Union in 2011 and 2012, the Geological Society of America in 2011 and 2012, and by the editors of various scientific journals. The Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, who conducted ‘blind’ C-14 tests on dinosaur bones, without knowing what they were, refused to conduct further C-14 tests after finding they were testing dinosaur bones. Paleontologist Jack Horner, curator at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies, who excavated the Tyrannosaurus Rex remains that contained soft tissue, even turned down an offer of a $23,000 grant to carry out a C-14 test on the remains.
“[T]he public should be made aware that the discovery of soft tissue, C-14 in dinosaur bones and dinosaur depictions world-wild renders current beliefs about how old they are obsolete,” said Mr Miller. “Science is about sharing evidence, and letting the chips fall where they may.”
While there is a possibility that the C-14 test results were a result of contamination or error, (even though the results were replicated and rigorous pre-treatments were carried out by the University of Georgia to control for this), or are perhaps due to some other factor not currently understood by science, it seems reasonable to expect scientists to attempt replication of such groundbreaking test results. Failure to investigate or even acknowledge such significant findings unfortunately suggests that some scientists are more interested in holding on tight to current perspectives, rather than seeking to advance knowledge and understanding in this field.
Featured image: Triceratops horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, which yielded C-14 results of around 33,500 years.
By April Holloway
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As a Bible-affirming Christ-follower, this article discourages me greatly. There is so much pseudo-science, dishonest quote-mining, and what appears to be a deliberate deception by means of omission of important FACTS. I am a former "creation science" speaker/debater/activist and, sadly enough, I was guilty of many of these same kinds of mind-numbingly erroneous arguments. I know that my remarks will be immediately dismissed (if not outright censored) as those of "not a TRUE Christian" and even "an atheist Poe!" and all the other labels I was once guilty of misapplying when someone dared disagree with my Young Earth Creationism.
But my greater fear is what I saw as a university professor at both secular and Christian institutions: Once students from "creation science" supporting churches get to a place in life (whether as undergraduates or even years later) where they are looking at ALL of the data and NOT just getting their "science" information filtered through Young Earth Creationist websites, they reach a crisis of faith.
When I was still teaching, such students who were NOT my own students or advisees would ask for an appointment with me because everybody knew that I was a Bible-believing, born-again, evangelical Christian. (Some even knew of my YEC past.) Their distress and dilemma was always the same: "I am very saddened [some said "very angry"] that my parents/church/pastor/peers fed me so many outright lies about science and I believed them purely because they believed the same Bible doctrines I believed. The fact that they chose to believe the earth is 6,000 despite the evidence doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that once I investigated so many quotations in context and saw how 'evidence' was used deceptively and dishonestly, I now feel misled and deceived." They would go on to ask, "All of this has made me wonder how many OTHER LIES and mere man-made traditions were taught to me even though they are not in the Bible….and in some cases ARE in the Bible but maybe those things aren't true??? Can you help me sort this out? I feel like the more I research, the more I realize I was lied to." (I can only imagine what such students are saying nowadays after being discouraged by such foolish, fib-filled assaults and man-on-the-street interviews of Ray Comfort in his "God vs. Evolution" video. I regularly must explain to non-Christians that such childish arguments and dishonest propaganda strategies should in no way be considered endorsed by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Truth matters. It is no surprise, based on being caught red-handed in the past, why Ray Comfort refuses to disclose the UNEDITED interviews with scientists where the editing has produced sound-bite answers which no REAL SCIENTIST would ever claim. We as Christ's disciples must end our silence and let the world know that we are very willing to rebuke our brethren when they lie and mislead. It is sad that it took the federal government to end Kent Hovind's fraud-fest. Though we can be pleased that justice was served and the criminal is in prison but we SHOULD have rebuked him far more forcefully long ago. Yet his son continues his sad legacy for pathological lying and fraud.)
It was hard to blame my troubled student visitors for being angry and afraid, sitting in my office and hearing about what they were told about science in their church young groups. It reminds of the children who eventually realize that Santa Claus as a legend and magical creature is not a reality. So they ask their parents, "Is God also just a fun fantasy? Is everything you told me about Jesus also a lie and merely meant to make a child feel safe?" That is the danger when the TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL and the Bible in general get mixed with tangential pseudo-science like "Bible-believers should accept that there was only one Ice Age and it was associated with Noah's flood", despite the lack of either Biblical or Scientific (that is, creation-based) evidence for such a recent Ice Age tied to Noah's Flood. Yet some of the same pseudo-science sources cited above PREACH these recently-fabricated traditions of the "creation science" movement. The more bold, detailed, SCIENCE-DENYING, detailed "creation science" local churches feed to their young people, the MORE OPPORTUNITIES for Satan to expose the lies and thereby encourage those same young people to question whether the Gospel of Jesus Christ is yet another such fabrication from professional liars who collect millions of dollars from gullible followers. (It is no surprise that one of the most famous scientist heroes of Young Earth Creationist and IDers is a Mooney false teacher. He's even invited to speak at many Bible-based churches who should no better. But that is how Satan is using false teachers to expand the "creation science" domain.)
It is easy to see why the Apostle Paul emphasized "I only preach the cross of Jesus Christ". He also warned "If anyone teaches any other Gospel, let him be accursed!" Yes, everyone claims "We are not saying that these 'creation science' beliefs are necessary for salvation"….and yet they always have a huge BUT where they say "…but if anyone denies the teachings of scripture that tell us that the earth is about 6,000 years old and etc etc etc .etc…, then they might as well throw out the entire Bible!"
Yes, such "slippery slope arguments" are always dangerous because they produce FALSE DICHOTOMIES that lead to what I saw in my students. For years they had been told "You must choose between the BIBLE and ________", where that "evil alternative" is The Theory of Evolution or "billions of years" or "atheist science" or other contrived contrasts. Let's be honest and admit that what they are REALLY saying is "You must accept MY FAVORITE MAN-MADE TRADITIONAL BELIEFS AND BIBLE INTERPRETATIONS or you are rejecting God's Word!"
As a retired professor who has published in both scientific and Biblical studies academic venues—and especially as one who once used much of the same pseudo-science argumentation as those appearing the above article—-I am so weary of having to point-by-point expose the fallacies in the propaganda nonsense repeated in one "creation science" website after another. (Despite being repeatedly debunked for half a century now, far too many naive Christ-followers are innocently reposting the same rubbish that appeared in Morris and Whitcomb's THE GENERAL FLOOD in 1962, the book that led me to devote a sad portion of my life to teaching pseudo-science and unscriptural lies. "Lying for Jesus" has even become a common term with thousands of hits in Google. I'm partially to blame. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit convicted me of the dishonesty that plagued the movement AND YET IS SO MUCH WORSE TODAY.
I pray that we will return to the Gospel message and the things the Bible clearly STATES, not the pseudo-science of a sad tangential, cult-like diversion promoted by millionaire, science-ignorant and scripture-illiterate entrepreneurs who prey upon gullible Christians.
Such a small 4096 character limit for these comments obviously would require dozens of posts to provide a point-by-point thorough shredding of the pseudo-science claims in the above article. But I would be willing to review them for any reader who wishes to post them at the Bible.and.Science.Forum blog….or I can recommend some Facebook venues.
If you think I'm wrong, or want to challenge the SEVEN DEADLY QUESTIONS which YECs AVOID, you are welcomed to confront me (or even debate me) at the Bible.and.Science.Forum blog at https://bibleandscienceforum.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/a-trip-down-yec-memory-lane/
Here’s the truth of the matter. Human science (knowledge) is based solely on and within the natural world and the evidences, or “appearance” of the evidences that remain “after the fact” and must be interpreted through a fallible, natural lens. God created the universe in 6 literal days. Why? Because that is how Genesis in the Bible records it. If one rejects this then their contention is with the Author of Genesis. If one denies this and clings to a fallible system of “observation” and “testing” without having the ability to actually observe and test, then that is also a contention to be had with the Author of Genesis. Supernatural events cannot be measured by natural actors bound to natural understanding and capability. The creation “process” itself is a mystery to us and as such, we cannot know how it would affect the materials or elements upon which it was imposed.