Posted on 03/11/2009 8:50:55 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Scientists have accidently discovered a rare and perhaps unique fossilized brain of an iniopterygian, an extinct kind of ratfish or chimaera that supposedly lived 300 million years ago. When the researchers scanned the fossilized skull of the iniopterygian with advanced imaging techniques at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, nobody expected to see a brain.1 British naturalist Charles Darwin predicted that “no organism wholly soft can be preserved.”2 Yet here was fossilized soft tissue. How could this be?
One hypothesis is that the environment in which the fish died was very rich in certain compounds. The skull portion of the fossil is “almost pure calcium carbonate,” and the fossilized brain is mostly calcium phosphate. The researchers surmised that this difference arose from the acidity of the brain tissues, which were more attractive to the dissolved calcium phosphate than to the calcium carbonate from the surrounding environment. In addition, there must have been a “lack of oxygen,” because oxygen readily reacts with delicate soft tissues and quickly disintegrates them. However, this fossil brain did not disintegrate. The scanned images revealed specific brain features: “the cerebellum, spinal cords or optic lobes and tracts, among others.”3
Even with the lack of oxygen, how did calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate replace the bone and brain tissues? The chemicals, dissolved in water, were transported across gaps and pores in the fish. It is possible that the chemical content of the water could have changed rapidly during the time that the different parts of the fish were decaying. Such fast-moving and chemical content-changing water is consistent with cataclysmic flood models based on the biblical account of the Flood.
The fish would have been rapidly buried by a mineral-laden soup and covered with tons of overburden (material that severely warped this specimen and flattened most others within its rock stratum), perhaps within hours. The initial phases of the global Flood very likely sealed off the fish remains from atmospheric oxygen, helping to preserve the extremely soft brain tissues. A similar scenario would have also fossilized jellyfish, which are soft-bodied animals made of 96 percent water and which decay on the beach in mere hours. Darwin would undoubtedly be surprised to learn that such fossils have been discovered in Wisconsin and elsewhere.4
Since the Bible’s historical data is usually ignored in most scientific investigations, it comes as no surprise that this recent discovery “all happened by chance.”3 The researchers would not expect to find fossilized soft brain tissues if today’s slow processes were all that was at work in the past. However, given the catastrophic formation indicated by most of earth’s geologic structures and the massive extermination of life represented in the fossil record—as well as the preservation of soft tissue from creatures supposedly millions of years old—the biblical Flood is a valid and relevant interpretive key to earth’s past. It can be expected that more soft tissue fossils, including brains and perhaps visceral organs, will be found.
References
20 years in the US Senate
MSM
What Does It Take to Fossilize a Brain?
Making a decision to vote or support Borat Hussein Fauxbama.
Ask Teddy Kennedy or Robert Byrd ...
Become a liberal, get instant fossilization for free.
Spamming the same guff over and over seems to have done the trick for you.
It takes four year to pickel it with booze in College.
The question is about fossilization, not pickling...
Or 20 minutes watching Doprah.
Haven't seen a single NEW IDEA from any of the Democrats in a long time. Fossil brains all around!
3 hours of listining to MSNBC with no break or 4 hrs. of CNN. Or 20 minute of Obama.
I always wondered if fish think “What’s for dinner? Dammit fish again.”
3 years of High School.
Thanks for the ping!
On the biblical side, we also need to incorporate this evidence in our modeling for the formation of this sedimentary strata (more so than the brief comments in this article, though they are a start). It is helpful to have some insight into an uncommon environment for this fish fossil that was not present on a more general scale during the Cataclysm.
If they are truly looking for an answer, all they have to do is examine the brain of any liberal in this country.
==On the biblical side, we also need to incorporate this evidence in our modeling for the formation of this sedimentary strata
You are quite right. I will write to the author and see if any such research/modeling of this type is underway.
All the best—GGG
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