A study involving North Carolina State University reported evidence that certain soft-tissue remnants in dinosaur fossils may persist for millions of years under rare preservation conditions. A. Scientists are not saying fresh, intact dinosaur flesh survived unchanged for millions of years. B. The research is usually about microscopic structures, proteins, collagen fragments, blood-vessel-like tissues, or chemical remnants preserved in rare circumstances. C. This topic is scientifically debated, especially around: 1. whether the material is truly original, 2. whether contamination is possible, 3. and how such preservation could happen over geologic time. A Debate That Has Divided Paleontology Claims of preserved soft tissues and proteins in dinosaur fossils have sparked fierce debate since the early 2000s. Some scientists argued the reported materials were modern contamination or bacterial residue rather than authentic dinosaur molecules. One of the most famous discoveries came in 2005, when paleontologist Mary Schweitzer and colleagues reported soft tissue structures inside a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. Later studies identified possible collagen and blood vessel-like structures in additional dinosaur specimens, including hadrosaurs related to Edmontosaurus. The new Edmontosaurus analysis stands out because researchers used multiple independent testing methods to examine the same fossil. By combining microscopy, chemical analysis, and protein sequencing, the team aimed to rule out contamination and strengthen the case that the molecules were original to the dinosaur itself. The findings were published in Analytical Chemistry in 2025 under the title "Evidence for Endogenous Collagen in Edmontosaurus Fossil Bone." Why This Discovery Matters If proteins can survive in fossils for tens of millions of years, scientists may gain an entirely new way to study extinct animals. Tiny molecular traces could potentially reveal evolutionary relationships between dinosaur species that are difficult to identify from bones alone. Researchers may also learn more about dinosaur growth, aging, physiology, and disease. Taylor noted that scientists may now need to revisit fossil samples collected over the past century. Cross-polarized light microscopy images taken decades ago could contain overlooked evidence of preserved collagen in ancient bones. "These images may reveal intact patches of bone collagen, potentially offering a ready-made trove of fossil candidates for further protein analysis," Taylor explained. "This could unlock new insights into dinosaurs, for example revealing connections between dinosaur species that remain unknown." The Mystery of Molecular Survival The discovery also raises a fascinating scientific question: how did these molecules survive for so long? Proteins normally break down over time, especially across geological timescales. Yet some fossils appear capable of preserving microscopic biological structures under specific conditions. Scientists are increasingly investigating whether mineral interactions inside bone may help shield fragments of collagen from complete decay. Recent studies exploring fossil biomolecules suggest that certain burial environments and microscopic bone structures may create stable conditions that slow chemical breakdown dramatically. Creationists are challenging the claims of these researchers that the dinosaur samples are millions of years old. Instead, they are looking at the rates of decay for soft tissue and means to show that dinosaurs fossils are from Noah's flood. The propose using carbon-14 dating, amino acid racemization and other chronometers to establish a young age within a Biblical timeframe.

Dr. John Baumgardner explains his Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model of the Flood of Noah to Doug Sharp and Rich Geer at Bandelier National Monument. The catastrophic plate tectonics (CPT) model is a young-Earth creationist attempt to explain much of Earth’s geology, especially the continents, ocean basins, mountains, and fossils, within the framework of Noah’s Flood. The model proposes that before the Flood, Earth’s crust was arranged differently than it is today. During the Flood year, the tectonic plates moved extremely rapidly, not at the slow rates measured today. This rapid movement caused the breakup and sinking of pre-Flood oceanic crust, the opening of new ocean basins, massive volcanism, uplift of mountains, and widespread flooding and burial of organisms. In this view, most major geologic features formed quickly and catastrophically, rather than over hundreds of millions of years. Baumgardner argues that the key driver was runaway subduction: Cold, dense oceanic lithosphere began to sink into the mantle. As it sank, it pulled more plate material down with it. This triggered a kind of positive feedback, so plate motion accelerated dramatically. The process became catastrophic, meaning plate movement happened on timescales of days to months, not millions of years. He used computer mantle-convection models to argue that under certain assumptions, this sort of instability could occur. In the CPT model, rapid plate tectonics during the Flood would have produced ocean-floor upheaval and displacement of vast amounts of water, tsunami-like flooding across continents, rapid sediment transport and deposition, burial of organisms in sedimentary layers, and changes in the seafloor that affected sea level globally. Creationists who accept CPT use it to explain the fossil record and sedimentary rock layers as products of the Flood rather than long geologic ages. The model is commonly paired with the idea that newly formed ocean crust was hotter and more buoyant, making sea levels higher; later cooling caused ocean basins to deepen; mountain building and continental reshaping continued after the Flood; an ice age followed due to altered ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions.

Dr. D. Russell Humphreys predicted the strength of the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune based upon his theory that God created the earth and planets of the solar system from water where all of the hydrogen atoms were lined up, and then decayed in strength from there. His predictions were right on, whereas the dynamo theorists fail in their predictions.

Design in the universe is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. You see it in DNA numbers, the use of Fibonacci sequence throughout nature and order in the physical laws. Where does the design come from? It has to either be Nature that makes the design decisions by random chance, or a transcendent God outside of the universe using design engineering principles that are purposeful and function. If it is a Nature god, if it is true, there would be no order to design, physical laws would be unpredictable and science would be impossible. But if there is a transcendent God, the universe would be orderly and we should be able to recognize and model natural phenomena and recognize patterns. The concept of evolution has been ingrained into society and it causes us not to take the Bible seriously. The problem extends even to creationists who incorporate terms like natural selection into their theories to where their ideas sound Darwinian in spite of the evidence against it. Rich Overman explains that there is a better model to explain variation within species called Continuous Environmental Tracking where God design resilience within the genetic code to deal with environmental changes using epigenetics, and that variability is confused with genetic mutations, which are the source of disease and death, not the introduction of new genetic information.