The science is also "settled" on when dinosaurs went extinct?

[redrumloa]

Lawsuit: CSUN Scientist Fired After Soft Tissue Found On Dinosaur Fossil

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 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!”

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Lawsuit: CSUN Scientist Fired After Soft Tissue Found On Dinosaur Fossil

I think this story is horribly mangled (perhaps by the lawyers?). As the article, and the abstract of the paper indicate, this is not the first find of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils. I remember a report from several years back. The article even mentions the suspected mechanism of preservation.

The implication, if made by the microscopist, that the age of the fossil is therefore only thousands of years old is unfounded.
The article says that shortly after the discovery the microscopist was told by an official that the would not tolerate his religion. No context is given, i.e. was it the official position that they would not stand for him making religious claims to students in lectures or official papers? That seems completely reasonable. Were they saying that they didn't want him proselytising under CSUN's name? There is no context and only an unsupported implication that he was fired for holding religious beliefs and not for any other reason - or whether he was fired at all instead of merely not rehired since, as the article points out, he was hired on a short term basis.

 

[metalman]

Finding Dinosaur fossil skin & feathers is very rare, but have been found in a few instances

Rare Dinosaur Find: Fossil Covered in Feathers, Skin

Fossil Hunters Uncover Rare Dinosaur Skin
"Amazing" Dino Fossil Found With Skin, Tissue in China
Scientists study rare dinosaur skin fossil to determine skin colour for first time

all dinosaur fossils are found before the geological Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction boundary event 66m years ago, when 3/4 of all plant and animal species went extinct