Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists

If there is one bias they have (and of course they have a lot more than one), anti-radiocarbon is it. It's almost a demon to them.1: They don't understand how it works and lack the basic science education to currently trust how it does works (I'm working on that with them as well.).
2: They have been lied and lied and lied to about it and their ignorance (see #1) has left them vulnerable to those lies.To educate them about it, I'm imagining I may have to start them out in the hypothetical to avoid this bias. I'm trying to figure out a way to start them thinking of trees as clocks (but not calendars). In other words, I'll explain that I'm not attempting to prove any particular begin date but rather let's think about how we can just check to see how accurate our 'tree clock' actually is. We'll worry about figuring out dates if and only if we can determine of our clock is accurate.One way to check any timepiece is to compare it to another timepiece. We can check with someone who has a clock nearby. If we are worried that there might be a local anomaly impacting all clocks in the area, we can compare to a clock in a totally different geographic region - perhaps a clock on the other side of the valley, country or even the other side of the world. If we are fundamentally concerned about the design of our clock, we can compare to a clock of a totally different design. The alternate design might be a 'clock' based on historical records (the year without a summer for example). Perhaps our alternate clock is based on seasonal placement of organic matter (varves). It could also be a clock based on other known and experimentally verified natural laws.Obviously I'm giving the short version here, but that last sentence is where I introduce isotope decays - just another clock. I still don't care about dates (that's where they start to sweat), it's all just clocks.We've observed scientifically that trees are pretty good clocks. We know that varves as we watch them, are pretty good at keeping track of time. Using carefully recorded history with all it's varied inputs has proven to be a pretty good clock as we've watched it. We've observed that isotope decays are pretty good clocks. The question is, what has happened to these clocks while we WEREN'T watching them? Is there any way to use all the clocks together to confirm/deny the accuracy of any/all of them? As all of us on this thread know, there actually is.I'll l be back in a bit with some rough version of visual aids I'm thinking of using.Thanks to all for helping me with my through process here.JB

Ah, so the rapid cooling makes the end product structurally weak (my guess). Interesting.Thanks
JB

Of course one is never sure of an investment, but I'm OK with that. In this case I have one family member who is essentially drinking it up as fast as I can learn to serve it (and I'm being damn careful exactly how I serve it so as to not blow it). A second member who is listening and observing from across the room and asking the occasional questions, and a few others who in conversation don't seem quite as sure of themselves with regard to their beliefs as their YEC labels might imply (similar to someone identing as a Christian while also being unable to quote a single verse of the bible, not even John 3:16)Yep, they can dismiss my evidence at any moment (and I'm sure some of them will). I'm cool with that. I like to learn and I feel I can make a difference in this arena if I up my knowledge. Thanks to all who are helping with that.JB

So interesting you posted that pic of the Slumgullion earthflow. Last summer I backpacked over a thousand miles in Colorado and went right through there -- resupplied in Lake City, went up that road along the lake and up and over Cinnamon Pass.Had no idea I was so near such a point of geological interest, but then until now I haven't attempted to learn a damn thing about geology so it wouldn't have caught my eye to any degree.JB

And that is a VERY important distinction you bring up.I had this conversation with one of the more important family members just a couple days ago - important to me because she is a school teacher (Principle), teaching kids ID in a private bible school. She actually seems to me to be intellectually honest but just plain ignorant (word not used pejoratively).I asked her if her beliefs on the YEC topic were faith based or evidence based. I asked her if she believed that the evidence actually pointed to YEC. She said yes. I asked her of the overwhelming science evidence contradicting YEC was just a misunderstanding (or lies) and she roughly answered two part: A: there really is very little actual evidence for old earth. B: what is presented as evidence is being lied about and misunderstood. I also asked her if evidence mattered to her - in other words, did she believe *because* of the evidence, or because of faith. She said "evidence". She also made it clear through answering my questions that she does not believe in a god that will make things look different than they are just to test us.All of the above leaves me extremely cautiously hopeful.Interestingly enough, she volunteered her school's science textbook for me to look over - chock full of ID and PRATT. I managed to control myself and only gently reference one point and ask about another. I could have gone on for hours but want to allow her to breath. LOLJB

I do and it's a VERY good one that I need to keep in mind. I tend to think "lies" when I see them using all this PRATT, but as you point out you might have to go back 'generations' to find the lies. Also, it may be misunderstanding rather than lies.Having read the Ronald Numbers book though I just have a hard time believing that guys like Price and Morris and Gish and Lammerts and Baugh and Burdick and Hovind and Juby and Hamm didn't/don't know on some level their crap is well, crap.I mean when you hear this indoctrination chant: "Billions of dead things buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth.", over and OVER as support for the world wide flood, you have to wonder if they don't know that they needed a catchy sound bite to teach kids rather than reality.Just today I used a variation of that on a friend to support the obvious existence of one (and only one) world wide tree: "Billions of dead leaves laying on the ground, laid down by gravity all over the earth." If you keep your eyes focused directly at the ground and never, every look around, the 'leaf evidence' fits the one tree theory perfectly.JB

I certainly agree that this could be a component. They can blow off radiometric dating and it's millions of years as pure fantasy, but Rcarbon deals in years that include things they claim to be true. Not speaking about my family directly, but It's always amazed me how YECs can crow about Rcarbon dating when it agrees with what they like and then say it's fundamentally flawed when it disagrees with them. Yes, I think that's how I'll start - sticking with just the 'clock' aspects of Rcarbon and leaving dates out of it.Thanks
JB

Yes, I do believe that would help.In putting together my 'clock' presentation, I like to come up with say a half a dozen solid instances (agreed upon without Rcarbon) that Rcarbon has then confirmed or sharpened. Not sure how well this can be done considering my reading of the Thera dating controversy. Perhaps there are other less contentious examples. I understand that the Thera dating issues are arguments over deltas that have no impact on YEC arguments, but I'd still like to find some less fuzzy examples to give them if possible.Similarly I'd like to come up with a few instances where weather patterns have locked three ring data into the calendar (as in the 1816 summer).I would use those instances as my examples of a clock based on historical records/events, and then tie them in with the other clocks.Thanks
JB

Awesome - thanks SO much. I will get to those links hopefully later today.JB

I'm familiar enough with plants to know that they uptake C02. I also know that decaying plant material produces C02. I'm trying to roughly figure something out in my mind and I'm hoping there is a reasonably simple answer - I just can't find the right Google search term that will pull up an answer.(Note: though the core purpose for my question circles around C14 dating, when I refer to C02 in this question, I'm not referring specifically to C14)Core question: In a general world wide sense, are plants
A: a net user of C02?
B: a net producer of C02?
C: just a reservoir?I hear in the climate discussion that the deforestation of the world is at least partially to blame for rising C02 levels in the atmosphere. This would make sense to me knowing what I do know about biology, however as someone who has only observed the arguments on the climate side from afar I can see that there is a lot of weird religion going on over there as well so I'm hesitant to just trust what I hear.I'm reading all this crap from Morris, etc. regarding how the vegetative state of the world pre-flood (and just after that it) would have been so different that the C02 ratios would have been all screwed up. Now, frankly they can't seem to make up their minds what exactly the starting point is, for instance: Do they think the flood cause great burial of vegetation causing sequestering of C02 that would have normally been produced by decay (C02 goes down?), or do they think that the flood deposited much decaying vegetation on the surface (C02 goes up?). Either way, they always seem to imply that the results always go in their YEC favor carbon dating wise. All I actually see is the FUD principle in play frankly. Now know that I recognize the validity of the calibration charts which answer these charges definitively, but in my current crowd I need to be able to understand and explain the implications of these charges without just pointing to the calibration charts.At any rate, I'm not looking for any answer to the above paragraph (I don't think there is one), I'm just looking for a biologically sound answer to my core question -- with that answer I can prepare myself to address the YEC claims as they arise. Perhaps there is not simple answer - I'm aware that's one possibility.Thanks
JB

I'm seeing a paper by Dr. Robert Lee quoted time and time again in YEC circles and I'm trying to find the actual paper.

quote:

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Lee, Robert E., 1981. Radiocarbon: Ages in error. Anthropological Journal of Canada 19(3): 9-29. Reprinted in Creation Research Society Quarterly 19(2): 117-127 (1982).

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Any help would be appreciated. I'm always suspect of content when a paper is quoted and quoted but never shown the light of day - when found they never quite seem to say what it is said they say. I went though this with the widely quoted Lammerts paper on bristlecone rings and once found my suspicions were again confirmed in that case.Any help would be appreciated. The only option currently is to by the entire CRSQ back catalog and I'm pretty sure I don't want to pay for that much slime.Thanks
JB

Thanks for sharing that pollux. It's always good to hear from others on the same path.JB

Yes, I got a real kick out of that as well.I saw a study somewhere (it's very old) showing that of the many thousands of samples dated, only some small fraction were in the extremely old (50k or so as I recall) and up range. The argument seemed to be that since according to geology almost everything is much older than that, almost every sample should come back older than that. I almost choked I was laughing so hard. You see, scientists are generally not total idiots -- they are not going to blow wads of money sending is samples of rocks in to be carbon dated. I suspect (guess actually) that the greatest number of sample would come from archaeological sources where there is ample reason to believe that the dates will fall in the testing range.I thought that train of thought there (and I use 'thought' loosely) was a bit like saying: "We know that the general populace is only sick about 15% of the time, yet the hospitals report a far higher percentage - clearly the tests they administer in hospitals are flawed."JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

Oh that would be awesome if you could. Much appreciated.Thanks
JB

I tried that earlier, but it says right on that link that single issues can only be bought back to 1984 and what I need is from 1982.Thanks for those other links, I'll check them out.JB