Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists

Thanks for your response RAZD, but it seems to focus on the claim of Cook and I'm actually uninterested in the Cook claim (it's PRATT). I'm actually only interested in the assertion of the NCSE in 1982. I probably should have not confused the issue by even including Cook's nonsense - my bad.The article makes the 1982 claim that "C-14 is forming today faster than it's decaying." I find this claim contrary to the posted chart which documents a steadily declining percentage of C14 in the atmosphere. Surely if C14 was forming faster than it was decaying, the chart would have to show a increasing trend rather than decreasing. Exactly my point. Why does the NCSE claim the opposite is my question.Is the problem caused by chart resolution? In other words, on average through the surrounding years it *was* decaying faster than it was forming, but in specifically 1982 there was a increase that the chart doesn't show? There certainly is some 'noise' in that data but I can't zoom in far enough to make that case. Seems doubtful.Again, I'm not talking about Cook's claim at all -- only the NCSE claim of rising levels of C14.Thanks
JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.Edited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

Yeah, piss poor (at best unfortunate) wording IMO if you're trying to refute the claim.The logical conclusion of his statement "C-14 is forming today faster than it's decaying." is that concentrations of 14 were rising in the atmosphere, and while that could have been true during the single day (or perhaps even year) he wrote that, big picture truth is that he wrote it during the most dramatic decline in 14 concentrations in recorded history.JB

I'm sure this tidbit is old hat on this forum, but I thought it was really cool and useful to my project.Apparently, this excursion was first noticed in Japanese cedars (I could be wrong) and then confirmed on a worldwide basis by testing in both the other core dendrochronologies (not sure I've applied the right term there).Here's the link:
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/....arizona.edu/files/JullAGU.pdfAnd an image from the paper. JB

That's what I thought was so cool about it. I'm looking for ways to demonstrate that totally different people and institutions in various parts of the world can investigate an apparent anomaly and end up confirming the accuracy of both dendrochronology and carbon dating. This flies in the face of quotes they've heard all their lives that say some version of "You can take an item of known age and carbon date it and it will come out wrong.". (though yes I understand that it is possible to make that quote true if one is either careless or wishes to).Thanks to everyone here for their knowledge. I'm learning so much.JB

Ok, I've got salt questions. Saline giants / halite evaporites / etc.Been digging my way through the geology wikibook that Dr. Adequate suggested (wrote?). As I read sections I also google things that interest me and questions I have. As Google search would have it, YEC material often rises to the top of the results and if I think there is something that doesn't look like PRATT and might help me with my curriculum I scan it. Often I will follow up that with a quick trip to the Talk Origins list of creationist claims to read that material.On evaporites, this link came to the top of one of my searches:Magmatic origin salt deposits - creation.comThe two search terms I gathered from that link were of course the author "Stef Heerema" and "igneous halite magma".First red flag was that the search term "igneous halite magma" returned only two results with that exact name and both of those were to the very same article I got the term from. Apparently no one on earth other than one Stef Heerema uses that term - not a good sign for the idea.Research on Heerema returned a slew of references and articles on just this one topic and nothing else. A linkedIn profile lists him as the owner of an engineering firm in the Netherlands (whose listed name returns zero results) and shows no relevant education. A bunch of YouTube videos exist of him presenting this topic and I finally found one in english.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfN0MIOnRNQA few minutes into the video I noticed the name "Hovland" accompanying a chart. That search brought me to Hovland's website and an article on Researchgate.netThe Hydrothermal Salt Theory
Just a moment...Additionally I found a critique of Hovland's work (openly referenced on Hovland's own site).Just a moment...I could use some help from the geology experts. From my (inexperienced) research, it appears that Hovland is a legitimate scientist with some relevant cred. It appears that he has thrown out a researched hypothesis regarding the formation of *some* saline giants (and having nothing to do with YEC). It also appears (as usual) that one YEC creationist has run to the mountain tops with this hypothesis as written in stone directly from God and the creationist web sites have picked up on this one guy as a writer of gospel.This started near a decade ago (original paper) and so I'm wondering if it's been largely dismissed or confirmation is in process? Not sure how slow things move in the geology world.It would seem to me that geologists might have ways of looking at the the crystal structure (ignorance alert here) in the salt that could determine if salt was laid down by evaporation or the supercritical process, but from the critique article, it may not be that simple.Thanks
JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

Well, I can say for certain what is motivating Stef Heerema to take Hovland's work and make YEC gospel out of it - there's no need to guess on that one if you read or watch him, but since there's nothing in Hoveland's material anywhere referencing YEC, nor can I find any statements he has made to any YEC site (they would surely promote them), I'm not yet ready to impune Hovland on the basis of any theology.That of course isn't an endorsement of the quality (or not) of Hovland's work in any way. I ask that question so others with more experience can read and comment.JB

quote:

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Large, buried salt bodies occur in numerous offshore rift-related sedimentary basins, worldwide. For most practical purposes, the conventional evaporite (solar evaporation of seawater) theory is adequate for explaining these occurrences.

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Heerema also conveniently leaves out this statement which I found on Hovland's website which shows Hovland isn't doing YEC any favors:

quote:

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The Red Sea is the modern analogy of what happened to the Atlantic Ocean about 112 million years ago.

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It still appears to me that this is the rather typical YEC SOP where they take some snippet of knowledge and blow it up into something it's not. Certainly they are not applying it the way Hovland has proposed it even IF Hoveland is onto something - as I read it he's only proposing a narrow application of his idea, not an across the board "Aha! We finally know how these are made and it isn't evaporation."JB

A question driven by total ignorance on the topic:I do a Google image search on "salt mine" and in image after image I see visible layers in the walls. Would that not be impurity layers in the salt indicative of the normal open air evaporative process - dust, etc? Would halite deposited by the method proposed by Hovland show these distinct layers? Seems if it's done all underground it would be homogeneous with no orderly layers of impurities (if those layers I see are indeed impurities).Also, can this halite be dated through radiometric/other? If so I would think that would be a way to distinguish between the methods of deposition in any given deposit. Thanks
JB

So I've been studying a lot and also learning more about the specific positions that my YEC family are holding and why. (remember, I've been gone and greatly out of touch with them for near 40 years.) I'm starting to get a handle on the sorts of things I need to focus on to both keep their attention and address their concerns and biases.I've learned is that this younger crowd is somewhat open to the concept of an old earth and old universe — but old life is an issue for them. There are essentially willing to say that Ok, the sun and stars were here for millions, billions, whatever. The earth could have also been here, but as a lifeless blank. This is different from where everyone was when I left which was hard line It all arrived 6,000 years ago. Now, it's more like We'll give you that other stuff, but LIFE started no more than 6,000 (or so) years ago, it was created in 6 literal days and the Noahic flood definitely covered all and killed everything not on the ark around 4,000 years ago. They have also made a little 'progress' on the everything was created just as it is seen now position. As one of them told me a couple days ago I believe in adaptation, but not evolution. (hmmmmm). They did make it clear to me that every bit of life, down to the most basic forms were created all in the 6 days.One thing they are big on is that there was definitely no death before 'the fall' of Adam and Eve. Any fossil found was placed after the fall. Combine this belief with them accepting the possibility of an old universe and a barren 'blank' earth before creation and you have a situation where it's not productive for me to focus on anything in the realm of astronomy (unless it's used to demonstrate the constants). It also won't pay to be trying to date layers below where the lowest fossil life is found.So, my task is to create presentations that can as simply and reliably as possible show two things:
1: the evidence is clear that the layers at and above the lowest fossil bearing layers (precambrian?) could not be young.
2: the evidence shows that a Noahic flood didn't happen.That's all. In another later post I'll get into the sorts of things I'm thinking of focusing on and get suggestions.Thanks
JB

I wondered about that when I was reading that section. I was trying to figure out if the supercritical water method would also sort the dissolved content in the same way.Thanks for such a great resource btw. It's been critical to my learning process.JB

Yes. If I can get them across the threshold to understand tree rings and how carbon dating fits in with that, the same principles apply with Suigetsu varves. Ice cores follow the same path.That cave is so cool.JB

Being one of the 0.1%, I don't disagree with that at all. I happen to have several family members here who seem particular vulnerable to truth right now so I am hoping for a bit better odds in this specific case. The important thing to me is to be well prepared. When someone is vulnerable to truth and asks an idiot (or even a well meaning ignorant) an important question, a nonsensical answer can really turn them off.JB

That was my uneducated thought as well but I wasn't sure - things that happen exposed to air on the surface would almost certainly look different.(Ignorance alert!!) For instance, I would think one could tell by looking at the cooled lava around a volcano and determine to a great degree of certainty if it was an underwater eruption or not. In fact I would think there would be several ways to tell. I know that how things cool (slow or fast) changes how they look under a microscope. Also lava can flow for miles with little fall in the open air, where with rapid water cooling it would not be able to do that. Of course I know shit about volcanos, so that's mere supposition on my part based on other things I do know.My point to that above paragraph is that a great percentage of the time nature give lie to the assertion that "you don't know, you weren't there.".Thanks
JB

Oh, that topic comes up quite often and in fact is literally one of the BIG reasons that I have any credibility at all with them. I know that sounds opposite of what you would expect, but these kids have been told day in and day out how evil and selfish and hurtful and dangerous non-believers are. Along comes me who to them seems unusually kind and thoughtful and understanding and thus the entire model they were raised with seems in doubt to them. I actually think this side is dealt with quite well by science. It's rather easy to show through statistics that lack of belief in god and things like crime for instance don't go hand in hand. I was able to show through recent US prison data for instance, that atheists were far less likely to be convicted and imprisoned than members of their own SDA denomination.Excellent post and definitely something to keep in mind.Thanks
JB

Well, not so much pillars, but steep cone shape (underwater) vs shallow cone shape (open air).That was purely a guess and I accept that there are a TON of things I haven't considered in that 2 second hypothesis.JB