But, to clarify, I object at the lack of detail that these stories have.
Instead, we are simply presented with the result - tada - and we are meant to make 'ooh aah' sounds. A baby chick, curled up, 66 million years old! It _feels_ manipulative.
But when you think about what is being suggested there is so much that is simply passed over and not explained.
I genuinely am a skeptic, about everything. I want the evidence, I want to know how I can test it, etc. As far as I can tell this just seems like a highly implausible story.
Here's the primary literature. https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)01487-5
Similarly, news articles aren't textbooks on paleontology, if only because otherwise every article on fossils will need to have pages of identical introductory material.
You are the most boring kind of skeptic - the one who wants the world to spoon-feed you information until you're happy.
If you're a real skeptic, then apply that skepticism to your original questions.
You asked:
> How would you be able to distinguish it?
Why do you think they couldn't be distinguished? Haven't you ever seen a rock with multiple minerals in it, like mica in granite? Or the individual components that make up coquina?
> the egg would not likely be egg shaped, imo?
Why do you think that? If I read the paper correctly, the rock was mostly made of river sediment. The egg would have been buried, sat for a long time to fossilize (>10K years), and over a much longer period that sediment turned to rock. Why must the fossil, which is a rock by this point, change its shape?
> preserved in something like mud
I believe that means you didn't read the primary article, which describes the rock as: "red, fluvial, coarse clastic deposit (He et al., 2017), and mainly consists of a red conglomerate and glutenite, interbedded with a small amount of sandstone, siltstone, and locally interspersed tuff. The formation preserves dinosaur bones and eggs, and fossil plants (Department of Geology and Mineral Resources of Jiangxi Province, 1997)."
In other words, yes, "something like mud."
> it would still be so much less dense than the matter around it
You do not understand what fossilization means. By this time the original materials of the egg have been replaced by minerals, preserving the form, but not the original density.
> if it is a stone, how were the scientists able to cut open the stone to expose the fossilised skeleton system etc? After the fossilisation process, its all stone, right?
Again, have you never seen a stone with multiple minerals in it? The minerals that become the fossil are different than the minerals of the surrounding stone. That means they can be distinguished.
They can be hard to tell apart, yes, but as https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/bone-vs-stone-... comments "fossils are often different in color and smoother than rocks from the same deposit", "A rock ... will be solid, and the inside of the rock will look like the outside. Fossil bone, on the other hand, will probably preserve the internal bone structure", and "The porous nature of some fossil bones will cause it to slightly stick to your tongue if you lick it".
And those aren't the only differences.
> it's not like archeology where there is material that can be brushed away.
Archeology doesn't only brush things away. And in any case, shouldn't you be skeptical that your understanding of archeology is relevant?
Do you really believe that an egg can sit in mud for 10,000 years and not degrade?
> The formation preserves dinosaur bones and eggs, and fossil plants
It sounds like we have a genuine slice of pre-history. If they had said that they had preserved an insect being eaten by a chick being eaten by a dinosaur - ie 3-in-1 - would you believe that too? At what point do you try to establish your understanding with information that aligns to your experience?
>> it would still be so much less dense than the matter around it > You do not understand what fossilization means. By this time the original materials of the egg have been replaced by minerals, preserving the form, but not the original density.
An egg is mainly fluid, right? From what you say, you seem to think that the fluid would a/ stay in the egg for 10,000 years and then b/ be converted to solid stone. Is this really a plausible argument?
You provide an example of how much trust there is in the purported authoritative sources, even though they are impossible to believe.
If I said to you I had a 20 year old egg, that I had preserved on my bookcase, that it still had liquid in it - you would think we a fool or a liar. But a 10,000 year old egg in mud? No problem!
Only that the fossilization is faster than total decay.
And no one agrees with you that a news article is supposed to include the full paleontological details.
> would you believe that too?
But, they aren't, so your question seems pointless.
> Is this really a plausible argument?
Like I said, you clearly don't understand fossilization.
It's a slow process. Precisely zero of the descriptions at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permineralization match your characterization.
> even though they are impossible to believe
You have yet to used your skepticism to analyze your own arguments. If your understanding is wrong, then your conclusion about what is possible to belief is likely also wrong.
For example, you still haven't explained why you think any fossil rock should be uniform, with no way to distinguish between fossilized bone and its surrounding matrix.
> you would think we a fool or a liar
No. Again, use your skepticism on yourself.
My first thought is that you sealed the egg, heated it up to kill any bacteria (but below 60C, which is when the egg white starts to congeal) and then ... let it sit for 20 years. No bacteria can come in. No fluid can go out. Why couldn't there be liquid after 20 years?
My second thought is you had it in a jar of lime water, which is an old way to preserve eggs, yes, even for years. https://theoldwalshfarm.com/water-glassing-eggs/ claims still edible after 2 years, so I can believe still with liquid after 20.
So we know that eggs can last for years, with liquid inside.
Why are you so trusting in the correctness of your beliefs?
And the claim isn't even that the egg was hermetically sealed in order to be fossilized. Over time the content of the egg is replaced with groundwater, while in an environment that doesn't easily support organic decay.
Which we know exists, as we've found 2,000 year old bodies in bogs, and the rock formation the fossil was in indicates a fluvial environment.
That's right - I don't. I don't understand how an egg can remain unfossilised yet intact with liquid in for 10,000 years. You do apparently.
> claims still edible after 2 years, so I can believe still with liquid after 20.
Yes - while I used 20 to illustrate the ridiculous point you are making, you actually said greater than 10,000.
> You have yet to used your skepticism to analyze your own arguments. If your understanding is wrong, then your conclusion about what is possible to belief is likely also wrong. and > use your skepticism on yourself.
That's not how it works. I'm not making the claim that eggs can last for thousands of years, without degrading, then be converted to stone, then be found millions of years later, then be opened up (somehow!) to reveal the stone 'skeleton' inside of the creature inside. It is fine for me to be skeptical. I'm asking for evidence of these outlandish claims. I don't think there is any.
You think you do understand fossilisation etc - so much that you accept the story above. Feel free to explain it in more detail, or how and why you started to believe these sorts of claims. I'm especially interested to hear how you verified what was said.
> Why are you so trusting in the correctness of your beliefs?
I'm not trusting anything - I even think my experience can be wrong. But the argument I am making aligns with common place understanding. You would leave an egg in some mud and come back 1-2 years later to find it as you left it, right? I'm saying the same rules apply to everything - saying 'millions of years' or whatever shouldn't mean reasoning is deferred. What are you trusting?
There's these things called books, there's even a thing called Wikipedia with a specific article to get you started[0]. Why are you being so vexatious?
You aren't skeptical. You're making boring internet arguments.
Merry Christmas.
I know there are 'experts' and lots of information, but I don't think all that is anything more than a talking shop. The information can be steered, be wrong, etc. Eg there are huge bodies of scriptural works, phrenology was a thing once, etc, etc - was that right just because it exists? Just because there is lots written doesn't mean I have to invest half a lifetime to get to grips with whatever is being discussed. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't.
Instead I take a simple position - if I don't have verified experience of whatever-it-is I take a closer look. I ask - what are the claims, what is the evidence. I'm not trusting that someone else has 'got this' even if they are credentialed.
Its illuminating. If nothing else, it illuminates just how little knowledge other people have on the subject, and yet they like to pretend they are an authority! And these pretenders will group together and dismiss the man but not the argument.
Anyway, if I've given you pause for thought, that's great.
Merry Christmas to you too :)
It’s fine to be skeptical and ask questions, but you’re asking a bunch of questions that palaeontologists have figured out years ago. I suggest you take some time to understand the details if you’re truly interested.
I suspect you may be coming from a place of mistrust in science? It’s not a good position to be in as you’re missing out on a lot of the world if you can’t enjoy this kind of thing.
I see the pictures of fish etc on the provided link. Again, I don't understand how this could be preserved on the surface of a rock, or on mud, etc.
In your experience, have ever seen some biological matter rest somewhere, without decaying? Have you ever dug into the ground or mud and found a bone there? The closest I come to that is when I step in mud, and a stick is underneath... but this would be frail and degraded. In all my experience biological matter is broken down very quickly.
From the linked Wikipedia page.
In many places, it is indeed impossible for fossils to form (for example, rainforests) due to various environmental factors. But in some places, fossils do in fact form, as evidenced by the fact that we have fossils.
Yes :) But you realise you are accepting what you are told to say that?
Are there any other possibilities though, to explain what we see as fossils? Is it possible that these photos are faked, or that the fossils themselves are faked? Or that they are real skeletons, but the story around them is wrong? Eg perhaps the fish was placed on the wall last year, and that is the mark it left.
I think it is clear that there are other possibilities. I think I can also make a case for them being more plausible than the story.
Regardless, we will not gain knowledge by accepting what we are told unconditionally - we should be personally verifying. Unless we have personally verified something, we cannot say "I know". We can I can say "I read" or "I believe" or "it is my hypothesis that". But it is not possible to truthfully say "I know".
2. How wide do you expect the fossil-conspiracy to be? This specimen was found in China by Chinese, surely they don't care about western evolutionists?
3. Have you never ever seen or found a fossil yourself? If you use sedimentary rock as wall cover you will get a fossil sooner or later.
https://southlandstone.com/using-fossil-stone-in-the-house/
3. You could travel to Michigan and just wander the beach until you find a fossilized coral. They are easy to find:
https://www.michigan.org/article/trip-idea/where-find-petosk...
4. Or go treasure hunting other coasts. Here is a video of a guy collecting fossilized ammonites in Ireland. I link to the timestamp he is opening a rock. If this is fake how do you think it was done?
https://youtu.be/OVCH98aFSRY?t=591
And if you watch the whole video you see other fossils in the big stones themselves. To reiterate: You can visit these places! Fossils are quite common.
> Under Last Thursdayism, books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and literally everything (including your memories of the time before last Thursday) were all formed at the time of creation (last Thursday) in a state such that they appear much older.
> Last Thursdayism functions both as a philosophical point on how our observations may not match with "reality" and a reductio ad absurdum of the young-Earth creationist idea of the omphalos hypothesis: if the world was created 6,000 years ago with the appearance of being made billions of years ago, what is there to stop us from claiming it was made Last Thursday?
It's boring.
Yes, there are other possibilities - the universe could have been created Last Thursday.
> I think I can also make a case for them being more plausible than the story.
And Last Thursdayists make the case that Last Thursdayism is more plausible than the usual cosmology.
So, go ahead and do it.
> Unless we have personally verified something, we cannot say "I know".
Have you personally verified that North Dakota exists? That New Zealand exists?
If you want a discussion about solipsism, go bother some philosophers.
Just Asking Questions - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions - is a form of intellectual dishonesty.
I understand your point - but there is a real point to what I'm saying. The fact is that no one is actually checking anything. Its all based on trust.
I know. Its dull, but you need to verify information before you actively promote or parrot it. Its the scientific method, and it should be applied personally. You cannot "know" unless you verify personally. You can trust, believe, etc but not know. If you say 'I know' without having verified whatever-it-is, you are in fact (unintentionally, perhaps) lying.
> It's boring.
Another way of responding is that the truth may in fact be boring. It might not be possible to say anything meaningful about stuff, especially when that stuff relates to events that may (or may not) have happened 66 million years ago.
Just because its boring, and there is not much to know, should we accept any old story that purports to explain things? Is that reason? Is it religious/magical thinking? Would it better to say 'I don't know'?
I don't trust your statement.
I don't trust your statement because everything I've done to actually check on thing shows it to be correct.
Again, does North Dakota exist? Does New Zealand exist? Was the universe created last Thursday?
> but you need to verify information before you actively promote or parrot it.
I have verified it to my satisfaction. Just because you are not satisfied does not mean I am parroting thing.
I have never been to New Zealand. I am satisfied that it exists.
> should we accept any old story that purports to explain things?
Absolutely not. Which is why I don't accept your story that "It's all based on trust.
But, surely you know about mummies, yes? Mummification has happened accidentally, including Ötzi.
Bodies are found in peat bogs which have been there for 2,000 years, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldremose_Woman . See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bog_bodies .
And it isn't that the organic material doesn't decay, but that fossilization occurs before substantial decay. The first paragraph in the Lagerstätte page even says:
> These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix.
so, no, they weren't "preserved on the surface of a rock", but buried, then fossilized.
In the fish image, the upper layer then forms its own layer of stone. In the Green River Formation, the split fish layer can "easily split along the layers to reveal the fossils" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Formation
If you don't understand the topic, that's fine. But to reject a description under the guise of skepticism, without honestly engaging in the material, is not.
But have you ever heard about Piltdown Man? I was taught this as fact, when I was at school (and I'm not _that_ old): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
It is now an admitted fake. Why would they fake it?
Anyway - it seems that sometimes this research is faked. Is it possible that in 30 years some of those examples are also admitted as fakes?
(you can also look into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars)
I actually think it is possible for a body to be buried in a bog, and perhaps be in reasonable condition after 100s of years.
Do you think an egg would last though? For 1000 years (as per another commentor), until it fossilises? And then not be assimilated into the rock that it is surrounded by? And then be found? And then be cracked open to reveal the skeleton inside?
Can I get some odds on that please!!
Here's 2,500 year old eggs from a tomb. https://www.archaeology.org/news/7502-190327-china-ancient-e... .
Here's 500 year old eggs from another tomb. https://en.dahe.cn/2019/12-12/567243.html
> And then be cracked open
It was not cracked open. Strawman exaggeration for effect is how rhetoric got a bad name.
> Can I get some odds on that please
Yes, it's low. Shall I pull a number out of my ass and say 1 in a trillion?
Now, can I get an estimate on the number of eggs laid in a 100 million year period?
I'll pull another number of my ass and say a population of 10 billion egg-laying creatures, living 10 years, with 10% of eggs making it to adulthood. That's 10 billion eggs per year, I think. Times 100 million years = 1 quintillion eggs that might be fossilized.
Times 1 in a trillion gives 1 million fossilized eggs.
Of which only a small fraction are found.
So your problem with the odds are ... what exactly? That you're not used to thinking about rare events across geologic time?
Would you say you can deform an egg without destroying it?
Why must all or even most fossilized eggs be deformed?