Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists

and also understand evolution is a fact and that the Theory of Evolution is the only current explanation of life we see and that the Universe is at least 14 billion years old and the earth over 4 billion years old and that mankind has been round for orders of magnitude more than 6000 years and the there has never been a worldwide flood while humans existed.

Hi christianguy15 and welcome to the fray. This forum may be somewhat different from others you are used to. There are many (sub) forums that divide up general categories of interest, and there is a general 3-way divide into faith based categories, science based categories, and general social categories.Each forum has many topics that are up for open discussion, but one general rule of thumb is to stick to the original topic as much as possible. So don't feel upset if asked to take your comments to another thread, it's just housekeeping to keep each thread neat and topically consistent.You can either search for a topic where this comment would be part of the discussion or start one yourself. In the science forums this is regarded as non-relevant -- science is agnostic, and it welcomes people of all faiths in doing the process of science to discover the wonders of the world and universe, as is evidenced by the large numbers of people of faith doing science.So feel free, as ThinAirDesigns says, to suggest scientific experiments that would be educational.btw -- many new people get "ganged-up" on and feel they need to reply to every post. Feel free to pick and chose your battles and not feel overwhelmed.Enjoy

A couple of quick notes -- first, according to what is available (such as you've posted below) it appears that Lammert grew the seedlings in a greenhouse with no seasonal variations. Most pines will grow continuously in such environment building up layers of "summer" cells.Second, false growth rings can be identified by how the growth rings terminate. See Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud for discussion of another creationist attempt to discredit the Bristlecone pines.Third, it is one thing to induce a false ring in the lab, it is an entirely different thing to show that the conditions for false ring formation could have occurred in such a way as to perfectly mimic an annual ring in general width and detail - how would the climate suddenly go to a double growth season of generally equivalent length? How about 3 growth seasons? This is actually an excellent question to ask our budding scientists, once the basics of dendrochronology are covered (including how to identify both missing rings and extra rings, and how to pick a good species for making extended chronologies).This would be like DrA's "How do we know" sections of his excellent geology book.One way would be to do independent tests of the Bristlecone chronology.btw -- I am in the process of rewriting my age correlations thread to include new information and to use a slightly different approach, more like what you are asking for, so this may be the impetus I need to get this doneHere is an excerpt from the new version:

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There are several factors that go into both the extreme age of Bristlecone pines and the confidence we have in the rings being accurate annual rings.

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Accuracy of tree ring dating of Bristlecone Pine for calibration of the radiocarbon time scale⁽¹⁾

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Further evidence of the nature of the growth ring comes from the study of ring development during the growing season. Dendrographic measurements of tree diameter and cambial samples for cell study were obtained from bristlecone pines in the White Mountains during three consecutive summers [Fritts, 1969]. Cambrial activity and resultant ring growth were found to occur in a relatively brief and well-defined growing season, At the elevation of Fritts' study area (3100 meters), ring growth began in mid-June to late June and ended in late July or early August. Cell size decreased more or less regularly from the beginning to the end of the growing season,and there was no pronounced response to the soil moisture replenishment that resulted from a midseason storm during one of the summers. That is, the trees studied formed only one growth ring in each year and did not form intraannual bands, even under presumably favorable conditions.

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Another argument for the annual character of growth rings in bristlecone pine depends on recognition of time-synchronous internal markers in growth ring sequences. These include 'critical' rings, which are much narrower than average, and frost damage zones within certain rings. The identification and matching of growth rings constitute a well-established technique known as cross dating. Introduced by A. E. Douglass in the early 1900's [Douglass,1914], it has since been applied to the dating of a large number of tree ring specimens. Comparison of tree ring sequences obtained from living trees in the same area in different years gives a measure of the number of rings formed per year, provided that the sequences can be cross-dated. ... Schulman collected bristlecone pine samples in 1954 and presented ring width measurements for dated series ending in 1953. Plotted ring width measurements from samples obtained in 1971 can easily be matched with Schulman's series, the indication being that most trees have formed exactly 18 rings in the period 1954 - 1971. In a few cases only 17 rings were formed, this result being attributable so the local absence of the ring for 1960 on some of the sampled radii. However, in no case has any of the sampled trees formed more than one ring per year since 1953.

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Three things to note: (1) that two independent Bristlecone pine chronologies were compared; (2) that the interval between the chronologies was 18 years and 18 rings were found in most samples in the new chronology, but some of the samples were missing one ring, and (3) none of the samples had an extra ring.

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There are more tests we can make that show that we can have high confidence in the accuracy and precision of the chronology independent of false or missing rings.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : correct link

One of the great places you can visit online is Chauvet Cave in France where you can find fabulous and sophisticated paintings from 20,000 to over 30,000 years ago.How did they determine things were that old?

Can you actually visit any of them now? In at least one case the actual cave is closed to even most researchers and a duplicate has been made for visitors. Good fodder for a conspiracy theory eh?

Is this some sort of a trick question? Through bias and unreliable methods of course. But that brings up the reason that the first significant science I want to share is dendrochronology. Currently my audience is simply not open to radiometric/radiocarbon dating. If I can show a low error rate in the woods, I can introduce the next step.But man what a cool find that cave is. I'm trying to imagine how excited I would have been to run into that.JB

You can visit them only online. Even research access is severly limited since just the matter of folk's breaths can start mold growing and change humidity levels.

One of the really great things about Chauvet Cave (and many other sites) is that you find a consilience of method involved.There is of course radio carbon dating but also other indicators like overlaying of carbonate and silicate materials, nested drawings, the presence of extinct animal bones, the stalactites and stalagmites that could only form after the landslide that sealed the cave off.It is consilience like found here that forms the basis of so much science; that different tools and methods and technology all return similar answers.And it has never been flooded.

A question for everyone, but perhaps especially RAZD:As I work up a program for my target audience, trust in the process and the data is paramount. I'm disturbed by something I've found and I'd like to know how widespread it is.Mike Baillie is one of the foremost dendrochronology experts, largely responsible for the Irish Oak 7,000 year chronology (I believe this chronology is included in IntCal13 as I read it).Mike Baillie - WikipediaA few years back he unsuccessfully attempted to withhold raw Irish Oak data claiming it was his personal property (even though he was employed by the public at the time).Tree-ring patterns are intellectual property, not climate data | Michael Baillie | The Guardian

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Finally, regarding intellectual property and the release of data under FOI, when a dendrochronologist measures the widths of the growth rings in a sample, he or she has to make multiple decisions with respect to the starts and ends of the rings, problem rings, and so on. Repeated measurement of the same sample, will not give exactly the same measurements. The number of rings must be the same, but the actual measured widths will not be. This means that the ring pattern of a tree-ring sample carries the "intellectual fingerprint" of the dendrochronologist who measured it, every bit as much as this text carries my intellectual fingerprint. In my opinion, tree-ring patterns are therefore intellectual property and should not be handed out as if they are instrumental climate data.

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Essentially his quoted claim above is no different than the Catholic Church's position in the 16th century that only certain people were qualified to interpret the scriptures. It's a "we'll tell you what it says and that's that" position. Am I reading this wrong?Now I really don't care if he was funded publicly or privately, but if his work is included in calibration curves such as 1ntCal I feel he has a responsibility as a scientist to publish the raw data for cross check. It's a simple 'expose your work to the light' concept that has served science well. I'm frankly disgusted by his apparent position and would like other opinions.Is the raw data in dendrochronology generally considered secret? (I suspect not - as he lost his case) If true, it would be a poison arrow in the heart of that science.JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : typo

Interesting. Hadn't heard that before -- who was asking for the raw data (access to pieces of wood)? I know that some was exchanged with the German Oak chronology people and some with the IntCal people. See also IntCal04University of Arizona Libraries Indeed, data taken from different radial lines from the center will have different widths, and so you should have a set process, perhaps taking the longest radius and the shortest radius and averaging them. Cores are usually duplicated for cross-checking as well.But I would think that you would need to review the whole data set not any specific subsets, preferably all by one person to reduce process inconsistencies.He may also have some rare and therefore important links that he doesn't want to lose control over.Now I will also say that I don't think it would involve any fudging of data, because of the work with the German Oaks and the consilience of data between those two sets.Enjoy.

I would be far more impressed if the creationists would come up with a long list of oil companies that are highly profitable due to using YEC geology in their search for oil deposits.

According to the linked article it was a part-time climate analyst named Doug Keenan who prevailed. I'm unsure how we could possibly assert any consilience if other qualified individuals didn't have access to the raw data to confirm the results. Let's suppose I am the expert and I have the cores (etc.). In private I can produce a data set that coordinates perfectly with the WM Bristlecones, etc.. I'm not suggesting that was done, but science in private is no better than religious assertions of dogma.I understand that there is error rates in any data. I understand that at times personal interpretation can be involved in science. How we differentiate between true error scatter and personal bias in interpretation is by sample sets >1 (preferably, much greater than 1).If Baillie's is the only 'interpretation' of the Irish Oaks, that's a sample set of 1 and I cry foul. Now, with my knowledge of science, I suspect my concerns are unfounded as I'm not the only person in the world to believe in scientific integrity, but my radar is sure up in this case currently.JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : Added two words for clarity.

Yes, in the early years of flood geology (the Price era) the SDA church kept sending their own people one by one to outside institution of learning so they could claim a staff Phd geologist. They kept losing them to OE, often due to the research by the oil industry.In the classic SDA tail from 1938 Harold Clark, one of Prices prized pupils wrote back regarding what he had seen:Skepticblog » If we followed “flood geology,” we would have no oil

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The rocks do lie in a much more definite sequence than we have ever allowed. The statements made in the New Geology [Price’s 1923 book] do not harmonize with the conditions in the field. . . All over the Middle West the rocks lie in great sheets extending over hundreds of miles, in regular order. Thousands of well cores prove this. In East Texas alone are 25,000 deep wells. Probably well over 100,000 wells in the Midwest give data that have been studied and correlated. The science has become a very exact one, and millions of dollars are spent in drilling, with the paleontological findings of the company geologists taken as the basis for the work. The sequence of microscopic fossils in the strata is very remarkably uniform . . . The same sequence is found in America, Europe, and anywhere that detailed studies have been made. This oil geology has opened up the depths of the earth in a way that we never dreamed of twenty years ago

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Clark reported that Price could "scarcely contain is fury".And then of course there is Glen: NewsJB

What has he done with the evidence?Was he looking to check Baillie's chronology or was he looking for climate data (dendroclimatology is another facet of tree ring data as it shows patterns of warm wet dry and cold weather)?Were the test he wanted to do destructive of the evidence?Baillie's work was not by one person but a lab with technicians with strict protocols to protect the evidence. Letting specimens dry out can change their ring widths.I remain unconvinced that there was any deception or intent to hide information.Enjoy

No idea - the linked article and the topic referenced in his Wikipedia page are all I know.I don't get the impression from the article that the request was for raw cores, but for interpreted data. Just as we can't let people wander around spectacularly historical caves in France unimpeded, we also can't hand out valuable cores but must protect them and allow only useful (read professional) handling. Fleischmanns's work was not done by one person, but with Pons along with strict laboratory protocol ... and it wasn't until others were allowed to replicate that the truth was found. It's the foundation of science that data isn't to be counted as truth until it can be *independently* verified. And I wouldn't even pretend to assert that deception was involved - I have no reason to do that and a LOT of really good reason to not believe that. I can't imagine colleagues and peers allowing a mere scientific assertion in this matter. But I am questioning a *process* IF the results of the process isn't allowed to be secondarily verified.I only have one reason to think that it hasn't been secondarily verified, and that's his refusal to release the data to Mr. Keenan and his assistance that the data was his alone. I brought it up here simply to tap the local knowledge of the process to know if it's customary or rare to keep such ring data private.My 'benefit of the doubt' suspicion (and I intend to find out) is that the data is likely freely available to Bailie's peers but this request from Keenan was handled by Baillie differently than usual -- perhaps the guy was an AH in the request (he's just a Joe Schmoe like me as far as I can tell). He might have happily released such data to someone like you RAZD - I can't tell.In any case, I want to emphasize that I'm not claiming any sort of fraud, I'm merely asking what's normal and what's unusual in the world of ring data. I'm sure I'll get it sorted out and report back.JB