California Charter Schools Dodge

 

I was prompted in an online discussion of an anti-teacher editorial in the Orange County Register by a claim that California Charter Schools were particularly good for Black students. 

The last solid California K-12 data were the year prior to the pandemic. That is shown below.

2019-2020 Enrollment (Counts in 100,000)

                     Hispanic          White                Black            

All                33.8, 54.9%    13.8, 22.4%     3.2,  5.3%      

Public          30.3, 55.2%    12.0, 21.8%      2.7,  5.0%     

Charter         3.5, 52.2%      1.83, 27.2%     0.5, 7.4%  

 

California's largest Black school population is in Los Angeles County, and note well that the LA charter schools are basically the ones that "pumped" the numbers for Black Charter schools. What was hidden is that their charter schools draw from public school already with high Black enrollment.

 

Now look at the "special" education problems in California. The 2 largest are English Language Learners, and Physical Disability.

              ESL(1000s)       Disability (1000s)

All         1,148, 18%        721,  12%

Public    1,046, 17%        655,  11%

Charter     102, 11%          66,    1.07%

 

Again, Charter Schools are dodging out of the hard work.

If we look at the total educationally challenged populations; English Learners, Foster Youth, Homeless Youth, Migrant Education, Students with Disabilities, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged we see that 89% of them all are taught in public schools, only 11% in Charters. 

We get mail

I have not been writing posts for Stones and Bones. I have been cruising newspaper discussion forums all this time, as well as getting in a lot of fishing.

I have also been receiving emails from creationists, and even a few fans who have read some of my comments to various public venues. I have thought that I might share a few of these in separate headings of "Fan Mail" and "Hate Mail." The first is the "Fan Mail" basket.

The most recent was last Friday, April 25, 2014, from Mark Sheffield, PhD.

I followed some parapsychology nut's website to an article on a "second DNA
code" hidden in codon bias... which I admit, piqued my interest... until I
saw what utter crap the reporting on it was.

The only bright spot in the 15 minutes I wasted reading the article was
reading your exchange with the creationist commenters. It took some effort
to track you down to email you, but I feel that patience and scientific
clarity like yours deserves to be recognized.

Bravo, sir.

The website I had commented on was the University of Washington's press release office, specifically about their crappy puffery about the discovery of "duons."

That particular discussion thread brought me another email from Joe Smith. Short, but nice;

"Gary,
Cheers good job standing up to the crowd of reflex thinking creationist online. I was looking up the Exonic Transcription... and saw your criticism. Not bad! Yeah the paper is a bit flawed.
~Joe"

The "Scientific Method"

I was indulging in some creationist debating the other day. As usual, there was a bull creationist (also climate denier, and all-round right-wing loon). He triumphantly presented the following model of "the scientific method" demanding that it be applied to evolution.




This is a lot over simplified as a "model" of the scientific method, but it is found all over the internets. It is about appropriate for third grade. I'll expand it as it seems needed. But just for fun, let's see how Darwin did this.

"Ask a Question"

In Darwin's case, the question had already been asked 50 years earlier. The question was known as "the species problem." In the short form, the 1700s naturalists (pre-scientific biologists) realized that species were not fixed, they varied a lot, and there were many life forms that had existed than no longer existed. So the question was already asked, "How do we properly define a species to reflect the fact that they are changing, and can become extinct."

"Do Background 'research' "

I don't like the use of the word "research" at this step. A better phrase would be, "Do a Literature Search." There are hundreds of scientific journals published every day, and thousands of books published every year. Today you must ask if your question is a real one that has not already been long answered. Also, because there are actual careers in the sciences it has become a long process of professional education and training before anyone gets to propose and carry out a personal research project. I was lucky to have trained when a university undergraduate could still do independent work.

Darwin's education was quite remarkable as a preparation for his eventual career as a scientist. I sketched it out at "Notes on Charles Darwin’s Education."

The best part of Darwin's training was in Geology. However, his first scientific report was from research he did supervised by Dr. Robert Edmund Grant, who shortly after became Professor of comparative anatomy and zoology at London University (1827-1874). Grant referred in print to two of Darwin’s original discoveries made in 1826; that the so-called "ova of Flustra" were in fact larvæ of a parasitic worm in rock mussels (Mytilus), and that the little globular bodies which had been supposed to be the young state of Fucus loreus were the egg-cases of the worm-like Pontobdella muricata. Darwin had read papers on these observations to the student’s “Plinian Society” founded by Professor Robert Jameson.

An excellent biography was recently published, "Darwin's Sacred Cause" by Adrian Desmond, and James Moore (2009, University of Chicago Press).

"Construct a Hypothesis"

The obvious problem with this step is that hardly anyone knows what a "hypothesis" really is. I recently wrote up a short tutorial, "Scientific Fact, Theory, and Law." I learned from an undergraduate class in the philosophy of science. Our major reading was Karl Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery" published in English in 1959, and Carl Hempel's 1965 book, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation." I still have my copies.

But, Darwin's most famous notebook sketch is reproduced below. He drew it while aboard the HMS Beagle on a 5 year scientific, and navigation mission between December 1831 and October 1836. Here is Darwin's hypothesis for the solution of the "Species Problem."

"Test your hypothesis by conducting an experiment"

This is the most easily misunderstood step in the formula above. First, a properly constructed hypothesis must be a logical consequence of your theory. This must be a statement which is observable in principle, and it must be different from any hypothesis derived from alternate theories. For example, Theory #1 "Thunder is caused by Thor." Theory #2, "Thunder is sound generated by the supersonic expanding gasses ionized by the electrical and heat energy of lightening." If we merely watch lightening and listen to thunder, there is no data that select one theory over another. One of the first internationally celebrated American scientists was Benjamin Franklin. In 1750 he published a proposed experiment to test if lightening was electric. His discovery earned him an outstanding scientific reputation. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Science in 1756. Since we know now that lightening was electricity and that sound was energy transmitted by air, the idea that lightening caused thunder is favored. The latter theory was not definitively established until 2003 by spectrographic studies of lightening. So, it is important to remember that a "hypothesis" and its testing can be built on the results of centuries of experiments, and observation.

The second difficulty of understanding the scientific method is the popular misconception of what is an "experiment." The easiest example to describe is from chemistry- mix two chemicals together and determine if they made a new product. You can repeat this thousands of times, and mostly you will get the same result each time. We do similar experiments in biology- increase or decrease the expression of a gene and see how this changes the function of a cell, organ, or animal. But, there is another form of "experiment" which is the repeated observation of a natural phenomena. This is the experimental method of astronomers who don't need to create stars in laboratories. They repeatedly look at the light, or other radiation from stars or planets and note any variation in position, or spectra. Geologists can study tectonic plates without needing to create a planet in their laboratories. They make repeated observations of the chemistry, mineralogy, and structure of rocks from specified locations and compare any variations to other study locations.

The variety and distribution of life on Earth is of much greater complexity than thunder and lightening. Charles Darwin wanted to explain these facts; life forms had existed in the past which no longer existed, life forms had existed that were very different from those found today, plants and animals geographically near to one another were more closely related even when they varied physically, plants and animals geographically distant from one another were less closely related even when they were similar physically. The most popularly recognized research work by Darwin was his five year journey around the world (1832 to 1836). Unless they have read Darwin's best selling book, "Voyage of the Beagle" (1839), most people don't realize that Darwin spent weeks and months at a time ashore conducting research on geology, and the biology of plants, animals and fossils. One of Darwin's first important publications was the 206 page book "The structure and distribution of coral reefs. Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836," (1842. London: Smith Elder and Co.). This was followed in 1844 by, "Geological observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices of the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836" (London: Smith Elder and Co.). In these works Darwin's explanation for the formation of coral atolls was presented which is still our modern understanding.

Many biological studies were also published (1838 to 1843) by other scholars with Darwin having provided the collected material, and their geological contexts. What will surprise most people is that once back home in England, Darwin undertook an 8 year intensive study of barnacles. From 1846 to final publication in 1854, Darwin wrote a total of 4 books, two on the modern species, and two on the fossil. While this work was seen as a distraction by Darwin's friend Thomas Huxley, Darwin was obviously testing his ideas about evolution by the systematic study of a globally distributed, and easily collected group of species. It should also be known that these studies are still highly regarded by professional specialists today.

So, from 1832 to 1854 Darwin was actively "conducting an experiment" in the proper sense of making systematic observations of nature.

"Analyze your data and draw a conclusion"

"Report your results (Was your hypothesis correct?)"

It is getting time to wrap this up. There are several plain mistakes in the "scientific method" model above and this is from either the practical approach favored by Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions," or the abstract philosophical approaches of Popper, or Hempel. And it is contradicted by my 40 years of scientific work, and publication.

First, in a properly conducted research project, the result of your analysis is your conclusion. There should not be any large step between the results and your conclusion. For example, my most recent publication was last month. In it, I and my collaborator Prof. George E. Miller analyzed the elemental composition of clays, and pottery from archaeological sites, and river drainages in S. California using neutron activation analysis. These geochemical data were then subjected to statistical study used to match the ancient pottery to clays and minerals which identified the source materials used by pre-historic potters. The results were our conclusions. There was categorical evidence that the pottery had been manufactured at, or near the locations where it had been found. There was no evidence that this pottery had been traded in from distant locations. We had designed the project so that whatever the results were, we could state them as an either/or contrast.

Darwin's problem was much more complex. He in fact did need to organize his thoughts to present first the pattern of the biological data, and then how his theory of natural selection on inherited traits, produced new species following common descent, and extinctions. We know that he worked on the resulting publication between 1854 and 1858. What caused him to stop worrying at minor details was the letter he received from a fellow biologist, the young Alfred Russel Wallace on 18 June 1858. In that letter, Wallace sent a manuscript of a paper about evolution. Darwin saw that it was essentially the same ideas he had been working on for decades. As a result, the paper by Wallace, and one by Darwin were read at the London meeting of the Linnaean Society the following month. Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," was completed and published on 24 November 1859.

Deleted by the Kingman Arizona "Daily Miner"

I wrote a reply to the following creatocrap. It was deleted due to "excessive length."


Linda Athens Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Kingman Arizona "Daily Miner"

It is NOT a fact 99.9% of scientists believe in evolution. In fact, most good scientists believe in God. That is FACT.
*****************

Ms. Athens repeats a number of common creationist, and fundamentalist errors about science, faith, and history. I doubt that any of them are original with her, as they are easily found in creationist pamphlets. She makes an interesting misstatement claiming, "In fact, most good scientists believe in God." This was compounded because she prefaced it with the false assertion that significant numbers of scientists reject evolutionary theory in biology. (I'll ignore the trivial argument about 99.9% of anything. For the purpose of exposing Ms. Athens, 98.0%, or 69.99% are equally acceptable numbers).

We need to work backwards through this chain of errors. Her conclusion was that "good scientists believe in God." I reject that trivial falsehood that "good" can only be applied to a Christian, although Ms. Athens probably thinks so. In that case a "good" scientist is someone expert in, and professionally successful in science. The question of how these scientists think about the existence of gods, or a non-material immortal soul has been studied going back nearly a century. The following paragraph is closely adapted from Larson and Witham (1998).

James H. Leuba surveyed American scientists in 1914 regardering their belief, or non-belief in a personal god, and an immortal soul. 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 “greater” scientists within his sample. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67% and 85% (1933). Larson and Witham repeated Leuba’s 1914 survey in 1996 and found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt in the existence of gods. (Larson, E. J. & Witham, L. Nature 386, 435–436 1997).

Leuba had also identified "great scientists" as opposed to those merely employed in science. To try and match that population, Larson and Witman in 1998 surveyed members of the American National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS is the most prestigious scientific organization in the United States. Established by Congress in 1863, membership is highly restricted. Larson and Witham found that, "Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality). Overall comparison figures for the 1914, 1933 and 1998 surveys appear in Table 1.

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0
Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2
Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8

BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9
Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7
Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3*

* There was a typographic error. The agnostic position is likely ~16%.

Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham: "Leading Scientists Still Reject God." Nature, 1998; 394, 313.

Leuba, J. H. The Belief in God and Immortality: A Psychological, Anthropological and Statistical Study (Sherman, French & Co., Boston, 1916).

The opening lines from Mrs. Chatman's latest screed...

There is a great deal of controversy over how old the earth is. Darwinian evolution has a theory that the earth is millions and billions of years old. Is there proof that the earth is that old? NO! However, there is a multi-faceted theory, supported by many unproven assumptions. All the assumptions of an old earth support the theory that there is no Intelligent Designer or Creator. Old earth theories teach that all things just accidentally occurred over billions of years.

had passed by without drawing my attention. They are the common creato rant that I have seen so often that it just slides by, and away. But, there are six full sentences and six falsehoods. That score is good even for a creationist.

1) There is no controversy about the age of the Earth in science. There is a political movement called creationism that has created a political controversy. These are two very different things. For example, while there isn't any doubt among scientists about the age of the Earth/Moon system (4.5 billion years), a major Republican politician named Marco Rubio was just exposed as too afraid of his radical religious rightwing to tell the truth. How could such a coward ever honestly represent the United States against foreign enemies?

2) Then "Darwinian theory" has little or nothing to say about geology, and the age of the Earth. Darwin was publicly of the opinion that geology and the fossil record were too fragmented to be useful. When Lord Kelvin insisted that the Earth was no more than 100 million years old, Darwin agreed. It didn't matter how long evolution had taken- it had happened in what ever time was available.

3) Next, Mrs. Chatman denies there is "proof that the earth is that old." I am not a post-modernest "truth is all just what you believe kind'a guy." Nor do I subscribe to that idea that "nothing can be really known." We do have sufficient evidence that the Earth/Moon system resulted from the collision of two planetesimals just over 4.5 billion years ago that the counter claim must be able to overturn physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology. This must be done without any reference to biblical passages, as Mrs. Chatman is pretending she is motivated by facts, not emotion, dreams, hallucinations, or revelations.

4) The "unproven assumptions" that Mrs. Chatman, and her YEC associates most object to are those which irrefutably demonstrated the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. These are the many radiometric dating methods. The single most important question is "Are Constants Constant?" which I answered at the linked post. The answer is yes they are constant, and have been constant for over six billion years.

5) Mrs. Chatman's hollow assertion that the science which proves the Earth is ancient require that, "there is no Intelligent Designer or Creator" is easily falsified. First there are many people who are "old earth" creationists. An American example is Huge Ross, president and CEO of "Reasons to Believe Ministry." But, an even larger population of old earth creationists are the billion Hindus around the world. Not only do they believe in an ancient earth, but they have even more gods on their side than Mrs. Chatman.

6) Finally, the only people who think that a scientific perspective is that all events "just accidentally occurred" are people without the least understanding of science. What is the single outstanding feature of all science? The thing that sets science apart from all other activities by humans?

Science makes predictions. And if those predictions do not come true, then that scientific theory is subject to serious revision, if not rejection. This is the total, 180 degree difference from "just accidentally occurred." Only an idiot would claim science relies merely on accidents. (Although, accidents do happen).

Into the Cyber with Creationists

Mrs. Chatman gets her wind up and sails another essay into cyberspace.

Before I debunk her 10 "evidences" for a 6,000 year old creation, I want to note the emotionally loaded language Mrs. Chatman uses. She also makes statements simply unfounded historically. For example, the notion that the Earth could not possibly be anywhere near the biblical 6,000 years old preceded evolutionary biology by over a century, and was not first proposed by atheists. However, prior to the geological discoveries of Smith, and Hutton in the late 1700s, scientists were too afraid of religious persecution to publish their conclusions. The earliest non-biblical idea of the age of the Earth seems to have come from Benoit de Maillet (1656-1738). His ideas were only published posthumously in 1748. Both Newton, and von Leibniz thought that the Earth's original state was molten and both offered ideas of how the Earth's surface could have been molded in a plastic state. Neither men, in spite of their public renown dared publish any non-biblical estimate of the age of the Earth. The first scientist to publicly dispute any biblical age calculations while still living was Comte de Buffon (1707-1788). His experiments on the cooling time of iron spheres allowed him to conclude the Earth must have had at least taken 74,832 years to cool. In private papers not published until many years after his death, he expressed the thought that the actual age could be as high as 3 billion years. For additional early attempts to find extra-biblical estimates of the age of the Earth see; Dr. G. Brent Dalrymple, "The Age of the Earth" (1991 Stanford University Press).

Mrs. Chatman would probably insist she is a patriotic American, but she is fully committed to subverting the US Constitution. She objects strongly that "Christians and Jews are not allowed to teach what they believe" using the legal authority of public schools. They can if they are invited speakers to a religious history course. They cannot use the government to teach lies about science. She would oppose Sharia law while longing to impose her religious laws (which would not be very different from Sharia). The difference between us on this point is that I oppose both Jihadists, and Tea-hadists. We who oppose those who would pervert our Nation's heritage are the patriots.

Creationists try to fake controversies they claim question the scientific understanding of the Earth. In the latest fraud presented by Mrs. Chatman, she assaults our intelligence with denials of the age of the Earth. I'll take these in small groups to limit eye strain, and my mental health.


1. Distances beyond 100 light years cannot be measured accurately.

4. The farthest distance that can be measured accurately is 100 light years. Several billion light years cannot be measured, only theorized.

This is a "twofer" or "two for one." First, there is the logical failure of Mrs. Chatman. The age of the Universe is not essential to her stated goal of proving the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old. Then there is the failed creationist notion is that we can only measure astronomical distance by triangulation, known as the Trigonometric Parallax method. Since the distant star would be sighted from the extremes of the Earth's orbit every six months, there is an observational accuracy of 0.01 arcseconds. This limits this method to stars no more than 100 parsecs distant from the Earth. That is one hundred times 3.085678 X 10^18 cm, or 100 parsecs. This method directly measured distances of 326 light-years. That is over 3 time the distance cited by Mrs. Chatman. The first application of this method was in 1838 by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel using ground based telescopes. Current space telescopes measure stellar distances using the same method to 1000 parsecs, or 3,260 light years away. A new telescope launching soon by the European Space Agency will measure distances to 8,000 parsecs, or 26,080 light years away.

This is also a falsehood because we not limited to the Trigonometric Parallax method. It has been a falsehood since the start of the last century. We have 25 other accurate methods to measure astronomical distances, up to the maximum of about 13.7 billion light years away. For a fast, and fun review of how we measure the vast distances of the Universe see Ned Wright's excellent
The ABCs of Distances.

There are folks known as "Old Earth Creationists." Former astronomer Hugh Ross, founder of "Reasons to Believe Ministries" realized long ago that you couldn't lie like Mrs. Chatman and still be taken seriously. But this is an old problem for creationists, as Wiser Christians have Said

While I was not posting here last week

I was dumping on a creationist Here

The premise was to refute the notion that, "Biblical creationists don't have a prayer when it comes to any kind of an honest argument with an evolutionist." And so, self-employed marketing consultant Randy Ruggles wants to teach us po' po' sinners the truth of young earth creationism (YEC).


Hilarity ensues...

There wasn't much new for the readers of Stones and Bones, so I didn't post a blow by blow account. I did read, and debunk some quote mined nuggets. I was frustrated that I didn't find one I had already written about C14 dates and Canadian archaeologist Robert E. Lee. (Really his name- a great great grandson). I'll need to recreate it.

Mrs. Chatman made another appearance at Waynesville Daily Guide, entitled, "Throw Out Evidence of a Young Earth, It Doesn't Fit our Theory"

She regales us with 10 sure-fire proofs of the young earth, Genesis flood, and the evils of evolutionism. By popular request (one reader), I'll take each of them in turn.

Newspaper Rants

I had a little Letter to the Editor published today by the Monroe Louisiana News Star The reader comments are, as always, more fun than the original letter. EDIT TO ADD I was responding to an earlier letter by a creationist engineer, Robert H Havard. (Either I or the spell checker promoted Mr. Havard to "Harvard").

They are at it again.

A few weeks ago I spent some effort debunking the creationist spewing of Mrs. Jeannie Chatman. Then, all the posts she had made to the Waynesville Daily Guide were sent into the interweb ozone. But, SHE IS BACK!. And she is just as crazy as ever. Closer to home, the OC Weekly ran an article today about creationist engineer Bill Morgan. The dilemma is worse than the obvious choice of who to debunk first. I needed to finish registering the old pick-up, the rear window of the PU camper shell needs to be replaced, there is a rust hole in the PU muffler, I have a water leak in the laundry + kitchen wall, and I am going fishing tomorrow. I compromised by registering PU, buying various supplies for additional truck repair and plumbing, opening the wall from the laundry side so it will drain out and not screw my new kitchen paint job, using a high temp silicon caulk on the muffler, drinking a beer, and getting ready to fish. Oh, and I dropped a few comments at OC Weekly.

Creationist pediatrician Ross S. Olson, Part 3

Creationist Ross Olson continued his creationist Gish Gallop with a strange suggestion about the St. Peter sandstone. I could easily use all of the 4,125 character limit imposed on critics just on this particular foolishness. Ross claimed falsely that this well rounded fine grain sand was deposited by a "rapid current," and "attributed to river deltas." He falsely claimed it varies in depth from 100 to 300 feet. He also claimed falsely that some localities with marine fossils entirely "rules out desert sand dunes."

I'll take the last error first. The St. Peter Sandstone contains three units, the Readstown, Tonti, and Glenwood Members. Each of these has a mix of wind deposited, and marine strata, or layers. We recognize wind born sand by the sediment structure or pattern, and the very well sorted grain size. Taking the middle of the St. Peter Formation's three sub-units, it has a large scale structure of hundreds of square kilometers of cross-bedded wind dunes, with occasional marine beds with micro-bedding, burrows, and shelly species similar to shallow water habitat today. Where we find this exact pattern today is in the Namibian Desert. Sand dunes hundreds of feet high stretch for thousands of square kilometers, and the ocean periodically intrudes, creating shallow sandy coves, and bays. These can persist for years, becoming colonized by invertebrates until they buried by the returning dunes. The sand that was washed out by the waves and tides is re-deposited by the near shore currents. This also rounds, and polishes the individual sand grains.

(Photo credit Elizabeth Seibert. Used with permision).
This latter fact also destroyed Olson's assertion that the St. Peter Formation's well sorted, rounded sands were part of a high energy "rapid current" forming river deltas. In fact, river sands have a rough texture and under a microscope, individual grains have many sharp angles, and projections and they also vary considerably in size. When studied microscopically, the St. Peter Formation Sandstone is well rounded, and remarkably uniform in grain size. The geochemical analysis of the St. Peter Sandstone also reveals the interesting fact that the silicate binder, or "cement" weakly connecting individual grains was genearted by plain rain water, well after the shallow ocean had retreated from central North America.

The St. Peter Sandstone in fact varies in depth from less than a meter, to just over 120 meters. The uppermost surface of the St. Peter Formation is particularly flat. What is a strong confirmation of an ancient Earth is that the depth variation is mostly due to irregularity in the bottom of the deposits. These Ordovician Era sands rest on top of the ~570-505 million year old Cambrian deposits. The ancient Cambrian surface had been exposed to air, and eroded with deep canyons over tens of thousands of years, if not even longer. What Ross Olson has not apparently considered at all is that the St. Peter Formation is capped with additional millions of years of sediments in places over a mile thick, although mostly the regional overburden thickness has been less than half that.

Below are some freely available references to competent studies of the St. Peter Sandstone Formation;

Twin Cities Geology
http://www.nps.gov/miss/naturescience/twingeol.htm

Mai H. and Dott, Jr., R. H. (1985) "A subsurface study of the St. Peter Sandstone in southern and eastern Wisconsin" Wisc. Geol. Nat. Hist. Surv. Info. Circ. 47, p. 26.
http://wisconsingeologicalsurvey.org/pdfs/IC47.pdf

Jacque L. Kelly, Bin Fu, Noriko T. Kita, John W. Valley 2007 "Optically continuous silcrete quartz cements of the St. Peter Sandstone: High precision oxygen isotope analysis by ion microprobe" Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 71:3812–3832
http://www.geology.wisc.edu/facilities/wiscsims/pdfs/Kelley_GCA2007.pdf

Creationist pediatrician Ross Olson.

I did another piece on creationist Ross Olson and submitted it to the StarTribune. They have not run the last one, and I doubt they will run this one. I have taken the advantage here of inserting some appropriate links, and graphics which are not allowed by the newspaper.

Creationist Ross Olson wrote that understanding the age of the earth "requires
more technical knowledge." He then exposed a total lack of basic geological
knowledge. The Earth's crust is built of constantly shifting plates. Proposed in
the 1940s, plate tectonics was not widely accepted professionally until the late
1960s. Scientists are actually very conservative and demand a high degree of
certainty before accepting any new theory. They are moving both across the
surface, but also some are being pushed back down into the molten magma. As
these tectonic plates press against one another some bow upward, and others at
times ride up over a neighboring plate. This causes "up lift" and is how most
mountain ranges are built. When rock masses are pushed into the air, weather and
gravity act to wear them down. This erosion produces source material from
boulders to clay particles which form sedimentary layers, or strata. Also
discovered bedded in these strata are the remains of once living animals. A tiny
fraction of one percent of ancient life have left remains as fossils. The Alps,
the Appalachians, and the Himalayan mountains are examples of ocean basin
sediments that have been pressed up between tectonic plates. Nearly all of the
Earth's sedimentary history is the succession of ocean basins filling with
sediment, being up-lifted, and then eroding away. Interspersed are episodes of
volcanic eruptions, and asteroid strikes sometimes so massive that they altered
the global climate for tens of thousands of years.

James Hutton, a Scot surveyor and geologist in the late 1700s, discovered that
the biblical flood story could not account for this up lift and erosion cycle.
We know the exact place,

Siccar Point, and year, 1788, that any possibility of a literal Genesis Flood was eliminated forever. In 1802, Professor John Playfair who was with Hutton described it as viewing "far into the abyss of time." What Hutton saw was layers of sediment that had accumulated in the bottom of an ocean. They had then been compressed, folded, lifted out of the ocean, tilted as a massive stone block, eroded over many thousands of years while exposed to air in their hardened "lithified" state, resubmerged in the ocean, where later series of erosion deposits settled over them. Not finished, the newer sediments cemented, and were again uplifted, tilted, and eroded. Each of the erosion events eliminated some sediments that had been deposited millions of years earlier, and buried the survivors under "new" sediment. This is why creationists see "gaps" between "layers." The gaps are often real. Real geologists discover them. Creationists like Olson simply ignore the reason they exist- one fully known for over 200 years.

A cluster of errors are deposited in Olson remarks on the Grand Canyon. First,
between the Upper Cambrian ~505 ma and the Lower Mississippian ~360 ma is the
Devonian, ~408-360 ma. The Devonian era sediments in the Grand Canyon sequence
are a widely deposited sedimentary material called the Temple Butte Formation.

This is a series of submarine dolomites, sandstone, mudstone, and limestone from
the Middle to Late Devonian - 385 million years ago. The so-called "blending"
mentioned by Olson were in truth deep canyons cut into the older Cambrian rock
while exposed to air. These were eventually filled with Devonian strata of the
Temple Butte as the region once again subsided into a then shallow ocean. The
same erosion removed Ordovician, and Silurian deposits provided they had even
formed, since the entire area remained above water for many millions of years.
Olson's empty assertions that the Cambrian deposits had to "remain soft for 200
million years," or that a magical "flood" caused daily "tidal waves sweeping
over the entire globe" can only come from an imagination not limited by reality.

Olson makes too many errors, and misrepresentations to be responded to in
the 4125 character Commentary limit, and they must wait for a third post.

Ross S. Olson, Creationist Pediatrician

Ross S. Olson wrote a creationist screed, The evolution of a Creationist. It was a through and through piece of creatocrap. I have started a reply. The first installment is as follows;

Famous creationist Duane Gish developed the debate technique of spewing so many falsehoods in just a few minutes that his opponents were left wondering where to begin. The "Gish Gallop" was used by pediatrician Ross Olson in his recent commentary "The Evolution of a Creationist." Several of the remarks following Olson's article demanded that the gross errors by Olson be individually exposed. The following is merely a start.

Wilder-Smith's book cited by Olson was published in 1970, and reissued 1981 by the Institute for Creation Research. This was when scientific origin of life research was in its earliest years- even before the discovery of ribozymes. These are the bridge between primitive nucleic acids and later peptides, and still later proteins acting as enzymes. It would be magic for proteins to spring out of nothing. Instead, we know that they too were a product of a long evolutionary history. For modern studies, see Professor David W. Deamer's book, “First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began” (2011 University of California Press). Scientists make the effort every day to inform the public. Why hasn't Olson got the news? I hope he isn't treating children with 40 year old medicine.

Olson next moved to archaeology. In the 16th, and 17th centuries arrowheads were thought to be magical. When stone age technologies were rediscovered in North and South America, it was slowly admitted that Europe, and the Near East had had an ancient prehistory not recorded in the Bible. I was a professional archaeologist and museum curator for many years. I was brought hundreds of "arrowheads" by amateurs. Nearly all were just rocks. We differentiate the real from the fake by how they were built, chip by chip. The creative physical process of manufacturing and reshaping is how objects can be determined as human artifacts. We archaeologists can even identify individuals by their personal style. In the 2005 Dover, Pa "Intelligent Design" trial, creationist Michael Behe was forced to admit under oath that ID creationism and archaeology were totally unrelated. For more details, read the Trial Transcript for Day 12, PM, or "Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism" (Matt Young, Taner Edis Editors, 2004 Rutgers University Press). What no creationist can show is how their magical origin story left any physical evidence. When pressed for real evidence, Discovery Institute creationist William Dembski insisted, "ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots." "Connecting the dots" is why scientists can develop new medicines, crops, and technologies while creationists whine about how they should get to teach nonsense in our schools.

Olson's next gross errors are about geology, and paleontology. For example, clams nearly all live bedded into mud, or fine sand. When they die inside their burrows, the surrounding sediment holds their shells closed. That will be how they fossilize. This position is their common undisturbed fossil form. Oysters, and scallops have very different lives, and leave very different fossils. Clams that live in the shallow surf zone, like species of the genus Donax, are rarely ever found fossilized closed. Only one situation can easily do this, when the mouth of a lagoon is closed by sand build up during a drought. Drought- not a flood. Olson's creationist claim that "closed clam shells" implies "rapid burial" can be refuted by anyone at a clam bed with a shovel and a working brain. Yet, this is offered as "science" by Ross Olson who thinks being wrong "proves" a recent, and magic creation.

There are too many remaining errors, and misrepresentations to be responded to in the 4125 character Commentary limit, and they must wait for a second post.

I have rarely ever seen a worse mess

My news feeder came up with this the other day, "Darwin's Evolution theory obsolete?", hosted by "Allvoices" which calls itself, "the world's premier platform for citizen journalism."

It is such a crow's nest of paranoid right-wing fanaticism, and creationist twaddle that I won't even begin to try and untangle it. I know that clicking on the page feeds a fraction of a penny to the lunatic who wrote it, but it is such a freak show that I posted the link anyway. There is probably something I should say about the quality of "information" on the internet, but it seems inadequate.

In other news, local fishing remains slow, and my attempts to make anything clear to creationists on The Nation's Creationism and education thread have come to naught.

Just a brief up date, June 29.

The local near-shore fishing has been very dependent on the prevailing winds. For example, 9 days ago I had easily caught over 10 legal (over 12 inch) calico bass, and 3, +28 inch barracuda on a 5 hour trip. However, that afternoon the northwest winds kicked up, and shifted to WNW by Friday. They blew at ~15 knots until Sunday. The water temperature dropped, and the fishing dropped with it. Yesterday the wind shifted to the South and the shallows ( <7 fathoms) warmed to ~65 F. I still had to work to scratch 3 legal bass. The Joker in the Pack is that there are some really good size (20-30 lb) yellowtail, and halibut that moved in, are still lurking in the kelp beds. My article for the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings intended to rebut the creationist stupidity of Joe Kuhn was a "go" on Friday May 25th, and killed on the following Monday. Somebody got to somebody over the weekend. One of the BS criticisms was I had posted a few early comments to this blog. But, never start a large project without a backup plan. The National Center for Science Education will carry the article in their Reports from the NCSE. There are some rather time wasting changes to the overall format. More significantly, I don't need to "play nice" with the Baylor editors any more about why they published Kuhn's piece of crap in the first place. I have distracted myself with some newspaper rants against creationists. I have particularly had fun with the comments on a Nation article, "What's the Matter With Creationism," and more recently comments following a creationist Letter to the Editor. Each had some points of interest.

Mrs. Chatman has posted more cretocrap, but I cannot be bothered until the Kuhn article is reformatted, and revised.

How can we keep up?

Mrs. Chatman has posted another slew of creatocrap. This time she has plagiarized the Jack Chick cartoon tract "Big Daddy, Frame 10"- Blackboard with 6 kinds of evolution. She is nearly as quick as Duane Gish in his famous "Gish Gallop" of creationist lies.

This saves me a lot of time since I am working on a frame by frame rebuttal of this very same lump of creatocrap.

Why do fundamentalist creationists find it necessary to lie to support their cult? Do they know they are liars? Do they care?

Mrs. Chatman rides again

Mrs. Chatman has launched a new set of falsehoods against the public. Today she took aim at the fossil data demonstrating human evolution. I can only hope that one day she will try the same shenanigans with the genetic data for human evolution. She has maintained her near prefect score of zero correct claims. I will just enumerate the major falsehoods/lies in this post, and move on with details as time permits. Every one of the following is an error, or out-right falsehood found in Mrs. Chatman’s latest post.

1) “it is taught as a fact that human beings and apes evolved from a common primate ancestor about 50 million years ago.”

(It is neither fact, nor taught).

2) Humans and apes are a different specie (sic). How can they be from a common ancestor?

(“Apes” is not a species identification. The bigger falsehood is more subtle).

3) “Where are the missing links?”

(“Missing links” are a false assumption from the 1700s idea of a “great chain of being. There are deeper errors here, and we in fact have no lack of fossils supporting Human evolution).

4) “The textbooks can't mentioned the missing links anymore, because each one has been proven to be a hoax.”

(School textbooks, unlike the creationist trash Mrs. Chatman reads, try to be accurate and current with modern research. Much more to follow).

5) “the Nebraska man was made from the tooth of an extinct pig.”

(The “Nebraska Man” was largely the invention of an English journalist. It was an honest mistake soon corrected, and never a “hoax”).

6) “The Neanderthal man has been proven to be perfectly human, but just a little unusual looking.”

(Neanderthals were our last surviving “kissing cousins,” (exluding florensis, and Denisova Cave fossils) but it would be very easy to tell them from any modern).

7) “Lucy is still in the textbooks. That poor chimpanzee had her bones scattered miles apart,”

(The notion that an Australopithecus afarensis could be confused with a Chimp (genus Pan sp.) is a testament to monumental ignorance. The “Lucy” skeleton’s bones were found in close together. This particular lie about “miles apart” originated with Kent Hovind. My opinion of Mrs. Chatman has dropped even lower).

8) “Artists even put human feet on her, although no foot bones were found.”

(There are fossil foot bones from Australopithecus afarensis, the species that “Lucy” belonged to, which I’ll discuss later. There are not many “controversies” left for creationists to exaggerate, or lie about).

9) “Why can't there just be the factual study of the wonderful human body, without the theory of evolution?”

(As the devout Christian, and evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (title to his 1973 essay).

10) “Webster's New World Dictionary, the Third College Edition …”

(I have the same dictionary. We should not be surprised that Mrs. Chatman cannot use the dictionary competently).

11) “The theory that man evolved from apes slaps Christianity, and other God believing religions in the face.”

(The fact that Humans have evolved only “slaps” the false biblical traditions of creationists like Mrs. Chatman. Her repeated falsehoods are closer to spiting in the face of belief).

12) “Evolution is the faith based religion of the atheist in the public school system, and it indoctrinates young students.”

(The sciences, which Mrs. Chatman has distorted for some long time, are neither a “faith” nor a “religion.” They are “atheist” only in the same way that civil engineering, plumbing, or auto mechanics are atheist. Never drive across a bridge that depends on prayer to stay intact).

13) “A great multitude of parents object to the indoctrination of their children.”

(Sadly, a great many parents object to racial integration, or even allowing girls go to school at all).

14) “They want only scientific facts taught, not philosohies, theories, or ideas that insult their religion.”

(People who are insulted by the truth have a lot to worry about, and their “wants” are not the controlling factors. And, teaching science as merely a long list of facts is like teaching communication by forcing children to memorize phone books).

I have had a stinging rebuke from a young protégée of Padre Shipe.

Edited late Sunday evening: The Mountain Press deleted my comment posted below


Well, I have had a stinging rebuke from a young protégée of Padre Shipe.

I must first thank “BryanCollegeStudent” for making my point of deeply ingrained ignorance for me better than I could have. This anonymous internet bravo attributes his(?) determination to become a teacher to Mr. Shipe. I will caution him with James 3:1. "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment." I personally am OK with that.

Bryan College was founded in 1930 following the 1925 Scopes Trial. Their mission statement is, "Educating Students to become Servants of Christ to make a Difference in Today's World." It was named after William Jennings Bryan, the anti-evolution prosecutor who won the trial, only to be overturned due to the trial judge’s legal errors. A similar fate befell creationism; the anti-science fundamentalists had won in court, but lost in public opinion. Lately, science is winning in court as well.

True to that tradition, “BryanCollegeBoy” charges at shadows. I will address his many errors; factual, historical, and scriptural. I will also caution him to not continue the obvious gross errors of fact (AKA “lies”) of his mentor Mr. Shipe and blame them on Jesus.

I will let his many ludicrous neologisms, grammatical and spelling errors stand for themselves. Mr. Shipes did not teach English, and is not culpable for this student's English language incompetence. One can only hope that “BryanCollegeStudent” will not try to teach either science, or English.

I do not think that “BryanCollegeStudent” was prepared by his science teacher Mr. Shipe to follow the scientific errors of his position. So, I’ll first present his biblical failures as best I can in this limited newspaper chat format. Mr. Anonymous Bryan Boy “proof quoted" Psalm 19. This is fascinating because if, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands,” his anti-science position has lost. We will stipulate Ps. 19:1-2, and if so, then Heaven and Earth declare that they (the universe) are ancient. This is easily reconciled with Scripture by, "… in the sight of God, a thousand years are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night" (Psalms 90: 4). A grown-up believer secure in their faith does not fear, or reject the results of scientific progress. After all, "Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them" (Psalm 111:2). And Psalm 85:11 reads, “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven” (NASB). The Hebrew word weakly translated as “truth,” emet, basically means “certainty and dependability.” In fact, reading Psalm 119:160, Isaiah 45; 19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18 and 11:6, and I John 5:6, show us the obvious. For God to create things with a deceptive “appearance” of age would violate His own stated character.

If God were to create a Universe that falsely appeared ancient, and perversely appeared to have life which resulted from evolution, then it would violate James 1: 13. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”

Mr. Anonymous, stop making a fool of yourself, and of Christians.

The new "letter to the editor" ran this morning

The Mountain Press of Sevierville, Tn ran a LtE that I wrote last week. Their header is Former teacher misunderstands issues about Scopes, evolution. They have a print circulation of only about 7,500. But, Tennessee is a small population state, and a current hot-spot for creationist laws.

I'll be interested to see if there are any creationists that will comment on-line. I'd be particularly amused if Mr. Shipe tries to defend his multiple lies.

Here is the copy I emailed,]

I wondered how bills like the Monkey Law passed. Then I read the letter Jack
Shipe. Since Shipe claimed he taught science, this ignorance has deep roots.
None of his so-called facts stand against honest examination.

John Scopes was not motivated by the ACLU, which offered to defend anyone
arrested teaching evolution. There was never any “reward.” Dayton business men
brought it up to Scopes to boost travel to, and the reputation of their town.
“Nebraska Man” was never introduced at the trial. There was never any scientific
evidence introduced at the trial. Scientific materials were appended to the
record after the trial, but none of these mentioned “Nebraska Man.”

There is nothing accurate in Mr. Shipe’s other Nebraska Man assertions either.
Tooth fragments were discovered by a rancher and amateur geologist, who sent
them to Henry Fairfield Osborn. Osborn was a paleontologist, not an
archaeologist. Osborn published in 1922 that they were from a primitive ape. He
never identified them as human. Other paleontologists disagreed even with that.
1925 professional excavations showed that the tooth fragments belonged to an
extinct peccary. This was published in scientific journals, and popular
newspapers like the New York Times.

Charles Lyell published “Principles of Geology, vol. 1” in 1830. He never
suggested the Earth’s age in years. He mentions tree rings in Volume 3 (1833)
when citing another scientist’s estimate that an African Baobab-tree was 5,150
years old. Early attempts to estimate the age of the earth used the cooling time
of rock, or iron. Boffon used heated iron spheres in 1778. From their cooling
rate, he estimated that Earth to be at least 300,000 years old. Privately he
speculated the number could be billions of years. This work was continued by
Lord Kelvin in the 1860s. He estimated the Earth’s surface to be between 20, and
400 million years old. Kelvin’s estimates were overturned by the 1903 discovery
that radioactivity heats rocks.

Apparently Shipe missed simple physics. The “leap second” results from
gravitational friction between the Earth and Moon. Currently the Earth and Moon
are tidally locked slowing Earth’s rotation as the Moon slowly moves further
away. This adds only 1 second to the Earth’s rotational speed per 500 days, but
this varied over time. Currently, it is 85 days per million years.

Shipe’s next gross error is his confusion about sex. Division into
reproductively exclusive sexes was never a single generational jump. Today we
observe hundreds of species with individuals reproductively both male and
female. Some, like Semicossyphus pulcher, are first female and then transition
to male. The evolutionary origin of sexual reproduction dates back to the yeasts
which reproduce both sexually, and asexually.

Finally, Shipe does not know what a species is, let alone how they evolve. I
recommend reading, “What is a Species, and What is Not,” by Ernst Mayr which
explains why evolution must always been at the species level. We have directly
observed this in nature, and experiments. (Google: “Emergence of New Species” ).

The only comfort we can take from Mr. Shipe’s letter is that he is no longer a
teacher.

See how many errors they introduced in editing? (OK, just 1) It is instructive to me to read the original comment, versus the edited comment (above), versus the published comment.