Posted on 10/10/2012 8:32:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.
The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of -5 °C, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier -- perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.
"This confirms the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient insects trapped in amber are incorrect," says Simon Ho, a computational evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. However, although 6.8 million years is nowhere near the age of a dinosaur bone -- which would be at least 65 million years old -- "We might be able to break the record for the oldest authentic DNA sequence, which currently stands at about half a million years," says Ho...
"I am very interested to see if these findings can be reproduced in very different environments such as permafrost and caves," says Michael Knapp, a palaeogeneticist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Moreover, the researchers found that age differences accounted for only 38.6% of the variation in DNA degradation between moa-bone samples. "Other factors that impact on DNA preservation are clearly at work," says Bunce. "Storage following excavation, soil chemistry and even the time of year when the animal died are all likely contributing factors that will need looking into."
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Wow, this might be some kind of record for drawing disruptors. :-))
Hey, we could top it if we tried harder. ;’)
Then what the heck are you doing on FR reading about DNA?
Apparently you are not supposed to know about DNA or molecular degradation because it isn’t in the Bible!
Sorry, for all those so narrow-minded that they may see anyone willing to discuss and mix science WITH faith as somehow disrupting.
I see it as a natural extension. The more we learn about His creation the more we learn about His Awesomeness. The care He takes in fine-tuning the Earth and Universe as well as the measly half billion lines of living DNA code enabling even the smallest of lifeforms.
Apparently I just see and take His Words much more literally than some of you!!! :)
Way to have you cake and eat it too.
So how do you determine which are the parts that are true and which are not?
What criteria do you use to pass judgment on the word of God?
What is your absolute standard of truth on which you base your judgments and what qualifies you to be in such a position to pass those judgments?
Define "literal truth".
Science doesn’t even tell truth.
Why?
What criteria do you use to pass judgment on the word of God?
Obviously, any criteria you use to judge the Word is being put above the Word in authority, and therefore must have more knowledge than the Word. I don't think I want to have to try to defend that.
While Ussher’s chronology is certainly up for grabs in its interpretation, that does not mean that by default any other dating method offered up in its place is correct.
The dating method used by scientists has no more basis for accuracy and does not necessarily have to be accepted as true or accurate because it’s basciallly the only other one out there. It is just as liable to be wrong as Ussher’s.
I do not accept Ussher’s chronolgy for a number of reasons, mostly because of assumptions made on which it is based. For the same reason, I do not accept the scientific assessment of the age of the universe; too many assumptions made which can not be verified.
So perhaps some evo would like to try answering these questions....
On the day that God created man, as an adult human beng, how old was man? Was he one day old as anyone who accepts the truth of Scripture would say? Or was he some decades old, as a mature, adult male would be if evaluated “scientifically”?
No doubt from a scientific viewpoint, Adam would be some 20-30 years old, all based on the physical appearance of age. But is that accurate and is God a liar or trickster for creating Adam as a mature adult human being with the appearance of age? Or did it ever occur to those who choose to accuse God of deceit that He simply created man as an adult for purely practical reasons, like He could not have simple laid a sperm and egg on the ground and expected anything to happen?
Is the Bible believing creationist correct for stating that man is one day old in contradiction to the “evidence” of age? Or is the scientist correct in dating the man at decades old when in reality the man was one day old?.
Science works on the presumption that the physical evidence we are confronted with is an accurate representation of the facts. Is that a safe assumption to make and why?
When Adan and Eve sinned, corruption entered the world; entropy, if you will.
What with all the talk of alternate dimensions and universes by scientists, why is it such a stumbling block to them that the physical laws of the unverse could have changed whe sin entered the world?
Exactly.
While everything is more or less correct, so much detail simply had to be left out for the Bronze Age audience. That and a full account would be a bit difficult to transport even by a large camel train caravan.
Science works on the presumption that the physical evidence we are confronted with is an accurate representation of the facts. Is that a safe assumption to make and why?
Wow. Just wow.
For the same reason the Big Bang theory and black holes so unpalatable to most of the scientific community.
They require that the rules be different, undefined, and/or undefinable.
“just wow” is not a scientifically acceptable answer.
My apologies please, I should have said absolute rather than literal - absolute truth is the widely accepted theological viewpoint of the Bible.
I do believe the Bible is absolute truth, divinely revealed, and inspired of the Holy Spirit however recorded and translated by mere men so, yes, not literal but something much deeper actually.
BTW the the Merriam-Webster website is fairly exhaustive on the term too.
IOW, the rules change and the scientific community cannot make any statements of absolutes that it likes to put forth with stunning regularly. Science then becomes a house of cards and everything scientists like to put their faith in evaporates and they are left defending smoke and mirriors.
On what scientific basis do scientists conclude the rules have NOT changed?
The anti- God types have coined the phrase of “literal truth” to force a definition which is not realistic and nobody accepts and then they force it on others.
FWIW, the comment in that post asking for a defintion of “literal truth” was not directed to you. It was directed towards the individual who disingenously applied it to those who disagreed with him as if it were a fact, when in reality, it is a strawman.
Well, I now see why absolute rather than literal is the acceptable viewpoint. So a happy accident and/or coincidence b/c the last line of my post #144 spoke literally iso absolutely.
I’ll prolly be more careful now too! :’)
So glad to have you back too.
OK, How about “What are you going to believe, your own lyin’ eye, or what it sez in this here Book...”
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