Bacteria — Another Excuse for Soft-Tissue Fossil Remains

Way back yonder, we were told in school that for a fossil to form, something had to die, then sink in the water to the bottom, get covered, and after millions of years, there's yer fossil, Festus! Does it happen that way? Not hardly! Scavengers eat things, bacteria gets to them, water turbulence breaks them up, and so on. Ever find a fish in your aquarium that's been dead for a while and was hidden in that goofy fake rock thing? Sometimes they look like they're growing a kind of fuzz, and barely resemble a fish anymore. No, critters have to be buried quickly to become fossils.

Diplomystus dentatus with Knightia in its mouth. Image Credit: US National Park Service

The best explanation for the millions of fossils that exist is the global catastrophe of the Genesis Flood. But that's bad medicine for uniformitarian geologists, because the biblical timeline is recent, and secularists want long ages for evolution to happen. It appears that the US National Park Service (who hosts the above image of a Green River fossil) aren't aware that things don't cotton to cooperating with secular fossilization ideas. A caption for this image says:

This fossil fish was not found in a mass mortality (beds that contain hundreds of fish on one surface) suggesting it did not die in a catastrophe. It most likely died from starvation or suffocation because it could not spit the Knightia out. (Diplomystus is approximately 17 cm long)

Wait...what? The logic fail is strong in this one. Because it wasn't found with others, it didn't die in a catastrophe, and "most likely died from starvation and suffocation"? That's just guesswork. But worse, they still avoid the fact that it had to be buried quickly to avoid predators and getting all fuzzy-like in decomposition.

Then we have the problem of soft tissues in fossils, which evolutionists and other old-earthers frantically try to cover up or outright denial. Some scientists are proposing that intestinal bacteria can act as a preservative. However, they ignore contrary evidence and perform all-around bad science in their propaganda efforts.

Why do some fossils leave soft tissue remains? It takes guts, some scientists propose.

Given that bacteria are the enemies of fossilization, could they actually play a role in preserving them? A new study thinks so. Science Magazine says,

The overwhelming majority of organisms will never fossilize. Preservation of an animal’s anatomy in rocks is a rare event requiring a strict set of geologic and chemical conditions. Fossilized soft tissues like skin or muscle are even rarer, as they decay very quickly beyond recognition before mineralization occurs. It would be tempting to assume that microbes—the great mediators of rot and recycling—would be a natural enemy to high-quality fossils, but [Philip] Donoghue’s time spent watching shrimp waste away seems to hint at exactly the opposite.

Donoghue’s team at University of Bristol, with others from Uppsala University, tested the rapidity of decay with brine shrimp. As expected, microbes quickly rendered them unrecognizable. If deprived of oxygen, though, the microbes could act as preservatives, the team thinks. PhysOrg explains:

Sorry, to find out what PhysOrg explained, and the other details of this bad science, you need to click on "Rare Fossils: Dead Animals Decay Rapidly".