Stephen Czerkas digs dinosaurs. His early advocacy for feathered dinosaurs makes his recent reversal that much more remarkable. His reexamination of a fossil—one that had been known as a feathered dinosaur—reveals the fruits of taking a closer look at spectacular claims.

Original soft-tissue fossils continue to challenge mainstream understanding of how and when fossils formed. Secular researchers described dozens of them over the years, from mummified skin and dried red blood to still-purple retinas, and they assign them ages of tens of millions of years. However, the science of tissue decay clearly does not permit these long ages.

by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D., and Brian Thomas, M.S.*