Dinasour soft tissues and DNA prove their recent existance

Clause 1:"Con and I agree on the presented findings except for DNA, and we obviously do not agree that these findings disprove a 65Myr old extinction for dinosaurs. "Here my opponent continues to assert that sufficiently preserved dinosaur DNA has been discovered, citing a paper by Dr. Shweitzer published in 2012. He supports his statement with the following assertions.1. "one of these chemical tests and specific antibodies specifically detect DNA in its double"stranded form. This shows that it was very well preserved, since short strands of DNA less than about 10 bp don"t form stable duplexes. " Here my opponent alters the findings of the paper to and reports a section that seems to support his contentions. Upon reading the paper, the voter will discover that my opponent has attributed to the paper that which it did not say. I will clarify. The paper never claimed to find DNA. It claimed to find the protein residue of once existant DNA, and expressed optimism about one day finding a preserved peice of DNA. It is unfortunate that copyright does not allow me to post the paper here, for voter reference.2. "They also detected a special protein called histone H4, which is a specific protein for DNA. " Here my opponent cites the fact that a histone has been recovered from a fossil, and tries to use it as evidence to support the idea that DNA was recovered from said sample. The rebuttal to the is quite simple. A histone is a protein, not a Nucleic Acid. The histone protein is a binding agent, who's main function is the bundling of DNA, and unpackaging sections of it at a time for mitosis. It is often found attached to DNA. However, DNA is much larger than a Histone protein. See the following visual representation. In light of this, I will assert that if DNA were present, attached to the Histone, researchers would have recovered the DNA before the Histone. This is not the case. The researchers reported that they recovered a histone, not DNA. According to this evidence, the logical conclusion is that DNA was once present in the sample, but decayed, leaving behind the longer lasting protein skelaton. This is also the conclusion of those researchers.3. "Furthermore, antibodies to DNA show localized binding to these microstructures," Here my opponent refers to a DNA detection technique known as blotting, in which researchers tag an antibody designed to bond with certain proteins within DNA, often TLR9. Here is an example of a western blot. s://encrypted-tbn1. gstatic. com. .. ; alt="" />Just as with the histones, this technique works by locating protiens that are often connected to or closely associated with certain genes. The same argument that I used against the histones applies here.4. "These data support the presence of non-microbial DNA in these dinosaur cells" As I have illustrated in this clause, these data support the presence of DNA in the cells at some point in the past. DNA has not been recovered by the researchers in this paper, they have recovered protein skelatons of DNA. I light of this I will establish contention one. Contention one: Sufficiently preserved dinosaur DNA has not been recovered from any sample to date. Clause 2:As for osteocalcin, a bone concentration of 0.2% at 0 degrees C would not be detectable after 110,000,000 years, but again, at a more realistic temperature of 20 degrees C, osteocalcin would not be detectable after 580,000 years (. http://www.google.com......). I believe the other soft tissues can fit within the ranges of both collagen and osteocalcin. "Here my opponent cites a scientific paper establishing an average degredation rate for the proteins found in bone. He uses this article as evidence that bone tissue and proteins could not have remained preserved for 65MYR+. The rebuttal to this argument is actually quite simple. Had my opponent read and properly understood the paper, he would notice that the experiment was very explicitly measuring hydrolysis-based decay rates. I have already addressed the idea of hydrolysis based decay rates in round two. I will refer the voters to my statements there. "Hydrolysis is not the only reaction which causes tissue degradation"I provided a reputable, respected academic source stating that it is. My opponent has not supported this denial with any evidence or source. Bacterial degradationBacteria use hydrolysis to degrade proteins. thermo-degradationThermoradiation is a type of radiation, so i will include the rebuttal to this under the rebuttal to radiation. Radiation I agree that radiation does indeed degrade materials. It does not, however, do so chemically. See the following. Radiation damages materials by literally knocking bits and peices out of their atomic structure. This happens to all things exposed to high doses of radiation, not simply soft tissue. However, the amount of radiation necessary to degrade protein in such a manner is extremely high. The necessary level of radiation has only ever existed on this earth once, that was a one mile radius around the ground zero of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs at the time of detonation. Never before and never since has the earth experienced levels of radiation necessary to complelty decay protein. If it had, why does nothing else in the recovered sample show signs of radioactive damage? This point is baseless. Oxidation A simple review of basic chemistry reveals that proteins do not oxidize. Enzymatic Degredation Hydrolysis is an ezymatic-catalyst reaction. All hydrolysis is enzimatic degredation, and all enzymatic degredation of protein is hydrolysis. "Are you implying that hydrolysis could not have taken place for the cited examples? Can you provide evidence that the conditions in which these specimens were preserved were in fact "devoid of the components necessary to initiate and maintain hydrolysis? " Here I will ask my opponent to carefully review the instances he cited of the discovery of dinosaur protein. Each of these specimens were found under extraordinary circumstances, in which they had been sealed by various methods. They were kept dry, cold, sealed of from any bacteria or anything else that could have initiated and maintained hydrolysis. This concept is a key idea that is conveyed by the researchers who discovered these samples. It is made very clear, especially in the video that my opponent cited. Are you saying that the environment remained anhydrous for millions of years? That's very hard to believe. It should be noted that these specimens were all partly fossilized, and water is a key element in permineralization. Am I missing something here? "It should also be noted that these tissues were not fossilized, thus did not have anything to do with permineralization. The outside of the sample fossilized in such a way as to seal off the inside, forming a barrier preventing any element of hydrolysis from contaminating the sample, where all of the proteins were found. Conclusion:I have illustrated in detail that the cited study makes no claim whatsoever as to the presence of intact DNA. It very clearly states that no actual DNA was recovered from the sample. I have clearly illustrated that the only possible way proteins can be degraded is hydrolysis, I have supplied reputable evidence to support the claim in round 1, and i have illustrated that my opponents "other methods" are either impossible, or in actuality hydrolysis. and your third contention is unsubstantiated as it is quite implausible to think that ubiquitous ground water, or water of some source, was not present in the fossil's environment for millions of years. My opponents own sources refuted this claim for me, as I have very clearly illustrated.