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Author | Topic: Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined:
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Hi folks, I'm new to the forum and have a very particular topic I'm interested in, but first a bit of history:
I'm mid '50s in age, was raised in the south in extreme bible belt conditions (Seventh Day Adventist Branch Davidian cult stuff). Private bible/home school my only education, and with an almost cartoonish rule set (no secular music, no dating, no TV/radio/newspapers, etc.). Other than the bible, education was literally evil. I got absolutely zero science, no math beyond simply addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, no history (other than the bible version), on and on. I was a curious kid and LOVED anything related to how things work and was SO frustrated when not allowed to explore. Short version: Left home at 15. Estranged from most family. Educated myself. Ended up spending more than 30 years in high tech in the silicon valley in various engineering and management capacities where I was fortunate enough to hang out with some of the brightest minds doing freaking amazing things with cool science. Due to family reasons I returned to the South a year or so ago and am momentarily semi-retired (or underemployed, depending on how you look at it). I guess the bubble of the Silicon Valley skewed my perspective because I have been absolutely STUNNED at the level of science education I witness among friends and family back here in the South. I guess because I saw science education highly valued amongst my peers and their kids I assumed that real progress had been made country wide. Of course I'm sure it has in some sense, but not amongst the demographic I have returned to. While the old guard are as stubborn as ever, I do notice a shift with the younger crowd. They are starting to question (perhaps not openly) an entire layer of nonsense fed to them and are carefully open to hearing new things. I have been successful in raising the curiosity level of several of the younger family group by simply showing them how totally and completely false some of the things they have been told and accepted as fact (Darwin converted on his deathbed sort of nonsense). Now those of you who have followed the history of the creation 'science' movement will know that the fundamentalist side of the Seventh Day Adventists practically invented it. ( BioLogos - Not Found (404) - BioLogos). Price and Clark (both SDA) started it off before Henry Morris based much of his work on the Price 'model'. SDA fingerprints are on practically every hoax and shyster artifact referred to by the Hovinds, Baughs, Steins and Hams of today. Burdick (Paluxy), BF Allen (ark), Wyatt (kitchen sink of nonsense), ICR, AIG, CRI, all indelibly fingerprinted. This is all the stuff that this younger generation has been force fed. I have a passion for educating (always have). I'm told I have a knack for educating and explaining things. Though deeply experienced with science, I have never been educated or particularly well versed in the earth sciences. I have spent the last months boning up as fast as I can so I can answer questions accurately and fairly. Talk Origins and EvC have been two excellent sources for me. So here's my question: If you had a nephew or niece (we'll call the age group late teens, early 20s) who was both open and interested in spending say an hour a week on the topic of creation vs evolution, what sort of 'curriculum' would you attempt to put together for them? I have actually said give me an hour a week for a year and I'll think you'll find you are able to make better decisions for yourself in these areas. Keep in mind that if you rock their world too hard, they turn you off so you can't blast in with cog dis sermons and the like (though it's the truth). Currently, where I've had success is in merely showing them the absolute false information they are being given. When Doug Batchelor (SDA tv preacher) in the process of mocking evolution crows about how if you take the current population growth and work it backwards to the flood it works out to precisely 8 people, I just say ... Ok, let's do that math shall we? with predictable mathematical results. The more I do this, the more they seem to trust me and not him/them (but it's a slow process). I'm trying to challenge them without being in their face about it (though I want to just scream much of the time). My thoughts are this: 1: Initially forget anything related to billions of years — that just blows their minds. I just need them to question 6,000 years. If I can get them to consider 20,000 years it blows their familiar model to bits and that's all I need — the sky is the limit after that. I really think dendrochronology may be the key to this, followed by C14 (I can hear them howl already lol), varves and ice cores. I actually am asking to open this thread because of the apparent emphasis and knowledge of some of the active EvC members on these dating sciences. 2: To get past the biblical flood notion, education on how geological layers form starting with the dramatic examples (chalk, etc). You don't get the White Cliffs of Dover by mixing everything up in a flood bucket and letting it settle out. Then perhaps the fossil distribution throughout the layers sorted by complexity . 3: Since no science or scientist is perfect (and this is the wedge they have been hammered with all their lives), I need to develop ways to help them understand the consilience of evidence. All they've heard is they use carbon dating to prove the age of a tree and the age of a tree to prove carbon dating. or they date the fossil by the layer and then the layer by the fossil. I need to be able to show them how sciences like dendrochronology and radio carbon dating are complimentary, not circular. 4: I have to be the absolute opposite of the Hovinds and Hams. When I say something is proven science, I have to be able to produce it, document it and explain it. I can't just want them to believe what I say as truth, I want them to become convinced of it because they have seen it with their own eyes, processed it and understand how it works. I want the opposite of accept, accept, accept (which is all they've known in their force fed version of science), I want question, discover, experiment. In the end, I would like to hone and produce something that is far more scalable than just for my family. I would like to come up with some series or something that is aimed squarely at the younger offspring of the last generation of fundamentalists. I know them. I've lived among them (now I sound like an anthropologist). I'm not a product of the public school system (brainwashed as they would say), but rather I came to my conclusions from the obvious strength of the evidence and I understand that mental process. Every heard of the Khan Academy? (Google it if not) It started merely as an effort by Salman Khan to encourage and tutor his young cousin remotely and he has ended up making a difference in the educational lives of many. Ultimately, I would like to aim at something like that (one step at a time) for fundamentalists who are becoming interested in spreading their science wings. Suggestions? ThanksJB
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Admin Director Posts: 13107 From: EvC Forum Joined: |
Thread copied here from the Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You're lucky to be living in an area that is so filled with evidence that there was no Biblical Flood and that the earth is billions of years old and an area with so many folk to be taught.
Road trips (and Google Earth) will be a great aid. Google Earth is a marvelous way to show what old and young mountains look like. On the Virginia Shore stands Calvert Cliffs, great sand dunes filled with only ancient fossils, teeth from mega sharks and fossil clam shells the size of your head while at the base you can find modern shark teeth and sea shells. There is Stone Mountain. The various early pathways through the mountains let the kids see examples of bedding and layering and various non-conformities. Cumberland Gap is where I got such experiences. In South Carolina there is an ongoing dig , the the Topper site that goes back a fairly long way, to around 30,000 BCE so far IIRC. And don't forget to look up. Show them galaxies. Ask them how far away they might be? How far away from our solar system would you need to be for it to look small enough to cover with one finger? Also one of my favorite examples of the difference between Science and Creationism is Mendeleev's Periodic Table. In a post from almost ten years ago (Message 143) I said:
quote: This difference of approach is both simple to understand and also very important. Just as Mendeleev said "We should find elements that are currently unknown but will have these properties and fit in the overall picture right here.", the work of Wallace and Darwin said here is what we will see. And so far every single new discovery has fit within and support that basic framework. If someone claims to shoot an arrow and hit a target, then we must see an arrow or an arrow hole in the target. If the arrow hole is not there then they did not hit the target. Begin with the assumption something is true. If the flood happened what must we see? Take a look at No genetic bottleneck proves no global flood. If the Universe is only 6000 years old, what must we see? Take a look at the thread Exploring the Grand Canyon, from the bottom up. and see if it helps. Look at simple questions like How to make sand.. One of my favorite learning experiences came from RAZD and his thread Are Uranium Halos the best evidence of (a) an old earth AND (b) constant physics?. Another simple concept involve the fact that change leaves evidence and was touched on in Message 5 of Physical Laws ....What if they were different before?. Anyway, maybe these might help jumpstart a pathway.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Tempe 12ft Chicken Member (Idle past 584 days) Posts: 438 From: Tempe, Az. Joined: |
ThinAirDesigns writes: Initially forget anything related to billions of years — that just blows their minds. I just need them to question 6,000 years. If I can get them to consider 20,000 years it blows their familiar model to bits and that's all I need — the sky is the limit after that. I really think dendrochronology may be the key to this, followed by C14 (I can hear them howl already lol), varves and ice cores. I actually am asking to open this thread because of the apparent emphasis and knowledge of some of the active EvC members on these dating sciences. There are some threads that have been started on this site with a wealth of information about ways that the correlations between dating different dating methods, such as varves and dendrochronology, show that the Earth must be at least a certain amount of years old. I believe they were started and are maintained by RAZD, so he may have more information, but to at least reach one version of the threads, you can go here:
Message 1 This link will take you to the first message in Age Correlations and an Old Earth (ver 2 no 1). You can use this thread title to find the remaining threads that deal with this topic.
ThinAirDesigns writes: To get past the biblical flood notion, education on how geological layers form starting with the dramatic examples (chalk, etc). You don't get the White Cliffs of Dover by mixing everything up in a flood bucket and letting it settle out. Then perhaps the fossil distribution throughout the layers sorted by complexity . Dr Adequate created a great thread that worked to give people the basics in geology, which will help see how the Flood simply would not leave the evidence in the way we currently see it.
Message 1 Here is the first message in that thread, which has an amazing wealth of knowledge about the science of geology and how information is gained through the study of rocks. I think that the best means is to help the individual get an understanding of how the inferences and answers are being found within the information and how that information is gathered, so both of these threads provide an overview and give the person tools to personally increase their knowledge.The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. - Issac Asimov If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. - Neil Degrasse Tyson What would Buddha do? Nothing! What does the Buddhist terrorist do? Goes into the middle of the street, takes the gas, *pfft*, Self-Barbecue. The Christian and the Muslim on either side are yelling, "What the Fuck are you doing?" The Buddhist says, "Making you deal with your shit. - Robin Williams
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1654 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Hi ThinAirDesign and welcome to the fray,
I'm mid '50s in age, was raised in the south in extreme bible belt conditions (Seventh Day Adventist Branch Davidian cult stuff). Private bible/home school my only education, and with an almost cartoonish rule set (no secular music, no dating, no TV/radio/newspapers, etc.). Other than the bible, education was literally evil. I got absolutely zero science, no math beyond simply addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, no history (other than the bible version), on and on. I was a curious kid and LOVED anything related to how things work and was SO frustrated when not allowed to explore. Let me apologize for America letting you down. Glad you were able to work your way out.
I'm mid '50s in age, was raised in the south in extreme bible belt conditions (Seventh Day Adventist Branch Davidian cult stuff). Private bible/home school my only education, and with an almost cartoonish rule set (no secular music, no dating, no TV/radio/newspapers, etc.). Other than the bible, education was literally evil. I got absolutely zero science, no math beyond simply addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, no history (other than the bible version), on and on. I was a curious kid and LOVED anything related to how things work and was SO frustrated when not allowed to explore. 3: Since no science or scientist is perfect (and this is the wedge they have been hammered with all their lives), I need to develop ways to help them understand the consilience of evidence. All they've heard is they use carbon dating to prove the age of a tree and the age of a tree to prove carbon dating. or they date the fossil by the layer and then the layer by the fossil. I need to be able to show them how sciences like dendrochronology and radio carbon dating are complimentary, not circular. If you would like I can take material from my thread Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 (which Tempe 12ft Chicken referred to) and tailor it to small increments along with some suggested experiments. Do you have any trees you can cut down where you know or have some idea when they were planted (or when they could not have been planted, such as a former field to set a known age limit)?
Every heard of the Khan Academy? (Google it if not) It started merely as an effort by Salman Khan to encourage and tutor his young cousin remotely and he has ended up making a difference in the educational lives of many. Ultimately, I would like to aim at something like that (one step at a time) for fundamentalists who are becoming interested in spreading their science wings. Cool idea. I'm interested.by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined: |
I will respond individually in a bit, but I just wanted to thank everyone who has chimed with with suggestions and offers. It's much appreciated. Resources such as this are truly awesome.
ThanksJB |
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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If I can get them to consider 20,000 years it blows their familiar model to bits and that's all I need — the sky is the limit after that. I really think dendrochronology may be the key to this, followed by C14 (I can hear them howl already lol), varves and ice cores. I think your list is pretty good. Actually if you get them out to about 30,000 years you can talk about those famous cave paintings in France and Spain that put intelligent life well beyond dates associated with Adam and Eve. Astronomy is another area where the conflicts with a 6000 year old universe and reality is pretty stark.Je Suis Charlie Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Larni Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined:
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Socratic questioning.
It takes time an patience but allow somebody to arrive at rational conclusions is always the best way to go.The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer. -Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53 The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286 Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Dr Adequate created a great thread that worked to give people the basics in geology, which will help see how the Flood simply would not leave the evidence in the way we currently see it. Please refer instead to the Wikibook I made out of the thread, Historical Geology. The links are better, and there are a few mistakes in the original thread that are fixed in the book. Apart from that, yes, this is really the best resource for people who are undecided, even though I say so myself. Because I systematically ask and answer the question "how do we know?" An ordinary geology textbook will present the facts of geology, I present the reasoning and proof that shows that the facts are facts. Some geology textbooks will do that occasionally, I do it systematically. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1654 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Another topic you might want to investigate is BioGeography
See Alfred Russel Wallace and Biogeography for starters Another resource is The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of ExtinctionPaperback — April 14, 1997 by David Quammen (Author) quote: This would serve as a good introduction to Alfred Russel Wallace -- the "other Darwin" who came to the same conclusions independently from the evidence he found. A lot of creationists think only Darwin is the problem\cause\instigator, but in reality science is built on the shoulders of those that came before, and thus when you reach a certain point of knowledge in a field discoveries will be made that change how we look at the world -- and those discoveries will be made (and often by several people at about the same time), whether a certain person exists or not. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Tangle Member Posts: 9580 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
I think I'd start by talking about what scientists do, how they do it and what has been achieved by it. The basic method of having an idea about something, then trying to test whether it's right or not using hard evidence. Then if you can actually do a few little relevant experiments and match them to biblical beliefs, it might start a few thoughts going.
One obvious one is gathering handfull of dirt, some sand and gravel, stick them in a something like a spaghetti jar, top up with water, shake the whole thing up and leave it overnight to settle. Ask what they think they'll see in the morning and why. Obviously it will settle with the heaviest lumps on the bottom and produce a nice graded result based on particle size. It's likley they'll be able to guess what will happen before the result so will think themselves clever. You could then show them a section of the grand canyon and ask them how all those sections could have been deposited in a flood. Excellent project, I wish you luck.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined: |
Again a general response and thanks to all the excellent input.
One thing that frustrates me so much with fundamentalists (actually a ton of other folks as well) is the lack of ability to grasp the simple concept of "If X is true, then Y must also be true." The ability to ignore/justify/rationalize data that doesn't fit your core belief must be honed to a fine edge just to believe the bible as anything but fiction. This is a hurdle I have to overcome with them. As an example (and I'm going to use a real one from my discussions recently) if you challenge the number of species on the ark, they spout the 'kind' nonsense (something they know nothing about -- it's just a canned response). Just as Nye schooled Ham, you say "OK, now you must compress immense numbers of speciation events to a 4000 year timescale." They look at you and sort of go "Yeah, so?" I then remind them that they had just previously used the argument that evolution could not be true because speciation is nonexistent or at least so rare no one has ever observed it (false argument, but not my point in this case). A blank stare follows as though they don't even see the the ball I just hit back at them. Now, I'm not talking idiots here - far from it. Neither am I talking willful ignorance - though that exists aplenty, but not with my target audience. Certainly ignorance is a fair word, but programmed rather than willful. Somehow I have to figure out how to stimulate some form of skepticism in their brain that has never been there. I want to teach them to be skeptical of it ALL - including what I tell them. As several have noted above, some of the early primers must be centered on the basics of the scientific method and critical thinking skills. They have been programmed to blindly believe and follow - both texts and people. Thus they blindly believe that science is the practice of the same. I've actually been asked "Do you follow the teachings of Darwin?". They've been told (and have blindly believed) that the scientific community simply rejects outright any evidence that doesn't fit with it's preconceived notions (projecting much?). Actually, it's quite understandable for them to believe that, it's all they've ever seen. They honestly don't see the argument as any different than the one they have with any other denomination of religion - they imagine science as just another church who has wrongly made up its mind about something and preaches it. The fact that 'science' fights and argues all the way to success is something they've never imagined. The fact that Einstein overturns Galileo who proved out Copernicus who overturned Ptolemy and we revere them ALL? Unimaginable to them. They say "But science has been wrong about a lot of things and keeps changing" and I smile and say "Yeah, ain't it cool?". Blows their minds. Also, the fact that all arguments aren't of the same quality seems foreign to them. They are used to denominations arguing with each other and it being settled merely on faith, not by the quality of the argument/evidence. "We're right and they're wrong" - proof by absolute assertion I like to call it. I tried to use the aforementioned 'Darwin recanted on his deathbed' story to make a point about science to them. I said "He didn't recant, but let's suppose he did. What would it matter? Who in science would care?" (other than the interesting story side of it). I continued ... "Let's supposed that on his deathbed, Pythagoras claimed he had been young and impetuous and it was all just a joke. Pythagorean theorem would then fall? Of course not - science hones in and settles on what works rather than assume an asserted truth." Mind blown again. I've got to figure out how to demonstrate the absolute absurdity of many of the things they have been told about science (without being insulting) and then build their trust in a process they've been programmed to mistrust. Just thinking out loud regarding some of the psychological challenges to overcome. Thanks again for the forum. I'll start getting to individual responses now. JB
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ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined: |
quote: No shortage on that last count. LOL
quote: There are so many great threads here -- I'll go check that one out. Thanks. JB
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ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined: |
Quick question: Am I missing the typical "quote" button that bookends text with the quote tags? Can't seem to find one anywhere and it's a pain to type them in.
Hope I'm not breaking rules by asking that question here. JB
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ThinAirDesigns Member (Idle past 2622 days) Posts: 564 Joined: |
RAZD writes: Hi ThinAirDesign and welcome to the fray,Let me apologize for America letting you down. Glad you were able to work your way out. Thanks. I've got much to be thankful for. Your help in putting together some small steps in dating science would be freaking AWESOME!! I also have a ton of questions if you don't mind me throwing them your (and others) direction.
Do you have any trees you can cut down where you know or have some idea when they were planted (or when they could not have been planted, such as a former field to set a known age limit)? I've got truck, chain saw and know how to drive to the forest. As far as a known age, I'll have to think of a way to work on that one (but I will). So cool to have such a knowledge resource. Thanks JB
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