Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists

An aside to the direct thrust of this thread but related:Practically every single creation site/article that I read on dating refers to a 'study' by Walter Lammerts purportedly showing that the White Mountain Bristlecones can be induced into multiple rings per year through application of short bits of drought and rain. I'm the type to track down and read reports because ... well because I'm not Hovind nor Ham.The paper is called "Are the Bristlecone pines really so old?"I searched and searched but simply could not find a single instance of this report on the internet - not even a direct quote. Even the CRS (where it was published in the CRSQ V20, #2) didn't have it available for sale other than through purchasing there entire back catalog. I just said no to their need for $90. (as an aside, a debate opponent of RAZD a while back referred to the report and he was also unable to find the report itself.)Before starting this thread, I posted over on Talk Origins asking for help finding the paper and a gentleman used NCSE contacts to get it sent to him from their library. Copyrights keep me from posting it, but I can share it with anyone who contacts me privately.To conclude the thread over on Talk Origins, here is what I wrote:

Exactly Tangle - that's why I said I didn't consider it any sort of scientific corroboration for what we know of the Bristlecone. The holes in the 'science' of the experiment are Big and Plenty. I am really glad I got the paper though, I believe I may use it for the basis of a primer on the scientific method. It's a perfect example of what NOT to do.With a friend a couple days ago (before I had the paper) I likened the seedling experiments to studying how much water adults need daily by testing how long a newborn could go without. Or a paper comparing the efficacy of different brands of floss on three month old babies.There's a thought process that winds its way though all this that is extremely hard to follow rationally.JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

I might best be described as agnostic on deism and a weak atheist on an extremely long list of other more personal gods. It would take an extensive exchange for me to articulate the whats/hows/whys of my relevant beliefs - an exchange that isn't going to happen on this thread.You are welcome in joining with the others in suggesting some physical science experiments that would be good for the curriculum. JB

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

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

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

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

Doug Keenan finally gets the tree data – Watts Up With That?It appears this copyright mess may just be a squabble between the academic community over there and someone who they consider to be a PITA climate change conspiracy buff. He has apparently regularly accused the academic community of fraud climate wise. It should be noted that it doesn't sound like he's accusing Baillie of any scientific wrong doing, it appears he wants Baillie's data to attempt to prove fraud among others.Keenen's story from his website where he points out that the Irish Oaks data has not been open sourced with the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) . He insinuates this publishing protocol is some form of standard, something I have no knowledgeable opinion on. I would assume however that this data bank exists for some good reason - and that reason would be a international repository of such data.Informath >> Tree-ring data at Queen's University BelfastHe apparently had a similar situation with Gothenburg University, in Sweden. Responding to threats of legal action, they eventually uploaded their "substantial" ring data to the ITRDB in response to his request.It's making more sense now - sounds like Keenan pisses everyone off and so they circle the wagons to make things hard for him. Not defending such or criticizing such, just trying to read what is the situation with zero firsthand knowledge.****************An interesting archive of selected posts on the Baillie copyright issue from the International Tree Ring Data Bank Forum:Archiving Tree Ring Samples - Native Tree Society BBSAnd here is a BB entry whose comments section is populated by people who seem both well spoken and knowledgeable about the situation.Re: Climate sceptic wins landmark data victory 'for price of a stamp' - Graham Hancock Official WebsiteIt's interesting in the posts to see an apparent cultural difference as it relates to the freedom of access to research data. Generally, those from the US appear to be FAR more open (insistent even) to the open sharing of data while the those from across the Atlantic want to hold things closer to the vest.****************Here is a great article from the Tree Ring Society:Pearce Paul Creasman
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZTree-Ring Society - Page not found (404)For this topic, I was particularly interested in the section titled "Access". Certainly it appears that the University of Arizona (which I believe is the granddaddy of this science) has a very health attitude towards the value of open and shared data. I would expect nothing less of good science.Until I can learn more about the Irish Oaks data situation, I think I'll focus on the UOA program as an example of transparency with the kids. Any hint of secrecy just plays into their fears.JB

Cool, thanks for that tip. Awesome and THANKS!JB

Thanks Coyote. I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions and I'm grateful to have resources to answer them.JB

Thanks, I'm so excited that I have so many experts here to help me with this. Also excited to have resources that are Christian and understand what people go through who are attempting to reconcile their faith with the evidence.I'll check out your suggestions 1 and 3. I finished the Ronald Numbers book just yesterday but of course I was familiar with many of the names and content in that book because of my SDA history.When it comes to #4, I only started studying radiocarbon dating a few weeks ago but it didn't take me long to figure out that many statements made about it were hogwash. I do have one question from your response. To me, that makes it sound like science insists that trees always and only grow one ring per year - but we know that's not true (and I'm pretty darn certain that isn't how you meant it). Might it be better to say that we have ways to differentiate the times that trees occasionally *do* stray from the one ring per year norm, and that we have several ways to double check any such instance? If I'm wrong, school me by all means.And I'll send you a PM. I did do some work at SLAC in the early '90s, but it was in an ancillary building and I'd be surprised if we crossed paths. My most recent was 14 years at a company called Sportvision - the yellow 1st and 10 line on the football field company. If you've watched sports at all, you've seen our work.Thanks
JB

Hey RAZD, I had a thought regarding finding areas with known logging dates.Extremely near me (all around me in fact) are rather vast tornado torn areas with much downfall. This occurred on 4/27/11. I can easily get whatever wood (live and dead) I want from these areas.Would this be a good starting point for the experiments you are suggesting?Thanks
JB

While I've been reading all the excellent links suggested to me another thought hit me. I'm looking for as many different little things as I can to spark consideration and thoughts in my target audience. We all react to different ideas differently so by dropping a variety of seeds perhaps something will root. Bear with me as I give my thought process on this one and it will take a couple steps to put it together.(I'm not claiming the following is original thought — I'm sure it's been done plenty)First assumption accepted by my audience: The universe is very, very big with stars very, very far away.As we know, fundamentalists (of any sort) will refer to science when it suits them and reject it when it doesn't - it's a human tendency take to extremes. One small area of science that the kids accept is the size of the universe. I don't mean they can quote dimensions, but when an astronomer says there are stars millions of light years away, they didn't hear their parents say the usual That's nonsense — those atheistic scientists are making stuff up again, they heard them say Of course it's that big, God made it. Therefore they are programmed to simply accept it.Second assumption accepted by my audience: God is not a deceiver. They are taught that God will not lie.Using those two assumptions combined, my idea here is to attempt to get them thinking using some very simple math and astronomy. If there are stars more than 6,000 light years away, then without some sort of divine intervention, the light from those stars would not have reached us yet in a YE scenario.Now I don't expect the above alone would do much convincing after all, I suspect that if you asked them what a tree in the garden of eden would have looked like if you had cut it down the week after creation, they would say it would have come complete with rings. In other words, god created Adam as an adult and the tree as an adult tree and the stars with the shaft of light already connected to the earth — all in 6 days a few thousand years ago.But here is another angle: Though I never studied astronomy, I am told that through telescopes we can/have observed at least the death of stars if not the birth of stars and even have photographs us such. This means we are not seeing just 'innocent' shafts of light from distant starts, but EVENTS.In the YE scenario, for us to witness the death of a star shown to be say a million light years away, the event would have had to have been inserted' into the far end of a relatively short shaft of light 6,000 light years out. It also means that the star never even existed. Clearly this requires a god who is inserting manufactured events in the light stream that never happens and thus is deceiving us. If you approach it rationally, you end up with either a very small universe where everything is closer than the widely accepted (by both science and religion) evidence shows, or you end up with a deceptive god.At any rate, it's just a thought at this point. I would need to learn a lot more about astronomy before I would be willing to use it. I need to be able to have some excellent examples available and be able to answer basic questions. But I do think that it has potential to get them thinking on another level.JB

Awesome. That's what I really needed was a good example to use. I'll study that. That's a powerful sentence and reminds me of the words of Galileo (quoted from memory so forgive errors)

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Nothing physical which demonstrations prove to us, ought be called into question let alone condemned upon the testimony of biblical passages which may hold some different meaning beneath their words. ... For I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

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JB