“We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!”

[5.56NATO]

Tolerance, open mindedness, understanding, and compassion!



"LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Attorneys for a California State University, Northridge scientist who was terminated from his job after discovering soft tissue on a triceratops fossil have filed a lawsuit against the university.

While at the Hell Creek Formation excavation site in Montana, researcher Mark Armitage discovered what he believed to be the largest triceratops horn ever unearthed at the site, according to attorney Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute.

Upon examination of the horn under a high-powered microscope back at CSUN, Dacus says Armitage was “fascinated” to find soft tissue on the sample – a discovery Bacus said stunned members of the school’s biology department and even some students “because it indicates that dinosaurs roamed the earth only thousands of years in the past rather than going extinct 60 million years ago.”

“Since some creationists, like [Armitage], believe that the triceratops bones are only 4,000 years old at most, [Armitage's] work vindicated his view that these dinosaurs roamed the planet relatively recently,” according to the complaint (PDF) filed July 22 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The lawsuit against the CSUN board of trustees cites discrimination for perceived religious views.

Armitage’s findings were eventually published in July 2013 in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

According to court documents, shortly after the original soft tissue discovery, a CSUN official told Armitage, “We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!”"
http://s8int.com/2014/07/Lawsuit-CSU...ossil-OOPs.htm

[LAGC]

CSUN spokesperson Carmen Ramos Chandler told CBSLA Armitage was a a temporary hire between 2010-2013 and worked as an electron microscopy technician. She could not comment on the lawsuit as university officials had not yet received the complaint.

The guy wasn't even a paleontologist, just a low-level technician, and temp worker at that. You can't claim religious discrimination just because your temp job ended.

And there have been several soft-tissue finds by archaeologists in recent years, including discovery last November of purported 68-million-year-old soft tissue from the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex, supposedly preserved by iron in the dinosaur's body which preserved the tissue before it could decay.

But I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a hoax either.

[Kadmos]

First, let me state clearly that if he was fired because of his religious views that is illegal, and of course wrong on a moral level.

What he actually is isn't a Paleontologist, or a "low level technician", he's an independent contractor who is an expert in microscope technology. He worked for some of the biggest names in optics, and scanning microscopes before starting his own company (I don't think he builds them, but maintains them, and manages their use).

Nor is this the first time biological material has been found on Dino fossils. There was a T rex found some time back that had traces that were found with an electron microscope. This kicked off the idea that other fossils might have traces as well, something they never looked for because it was assumed they were long gone. As it turns out, they are now estimating that roughly half of Dino fossils have traces of bio material on them.

Obviously the first thought was contamination from another source, which likely has been the case numerous times, some bacteria in the soil, etc.

However, a lot of it really is actual Dino blood cells. BTW, we aren't talking chunks of meat here, we're talking a few cells, occasionally a few layers of cells.

The current theory, which the evidence seems to support is that Dino blood was rather high in Iron, and the iron formed a protective barrier for the cells. There has been some experimentation to help prove this theory, but of course we can't work on that type of time scale for experimentation. But what was done was to try to preserve cells by dipping them in iron rich blood and compare them to cells that were not treated that way. The cells that weren't treated quickly degraded (after a few weeks), whereas the treated cells remained intact after 2 years.

With all that said, I don't blame the University for them not wanting to have him going around promoting their find, using their equipment, as "proof" of a wild theory totally unsupported by the facts. It's just bad science.

Simply because there are some cells that can be found with some newer high tech doesn't date the fossils to 4,000 years ago. It would be like me pulling a chicken bone out of the trash and saying "look it has some meat, it must be 4,000 years old".

You don't date things by guessing at how long it may or may not take bio material to degrade, not at that level at least, especially without massive amounts of data to put the observation into context.

It's one thing to pull a body out of a river and say "Ok, based on water temp, the general state of the body, and the 200 other cases like this, where we later figured out the exact timeline, I would say she was dumped between 4 and 6 days ago".

[Krupski]

The guy wasn't even a paleontologist, just a low-level technician, and temp worker at that. You can't claim religious discrimination just because your temp job ended.

You can if you're a muzzie. And islam isn't even a religion.

[alismith]

It's time to build a real Jurassic Park.

[El Jefe]

It's time to build a real Jurassic Park.

No way, those things fart and would turn the earth into Venus.

[ready]

I don't know, might be a good idea. Humans have no natural predators anymore (besides other humans). Our species is in dire need of some natural selection.

[El Jefe]

I don't know, might be a good idea. Humans have no natural predators anymore (besides other humans). Our species is in dire need of some natural selection.

I gotta believe that some virus or bacterial agent will help with that one day soon.

[FunkyPertwee]

I don't know, might be a good idea. Humans have no natural predators anymore (besides other humans). Our species is in dire need of some natural selection.

I gotta believe that some virus or bacterial agent will help with that one day soon.

[was_peacemaker]

No way, those things fart and would turn the earth into Venus.

Dang it! You owe me a monitor!