Bill Nye made it look pretty easy against Ken Ham in their recent debate. It was so lopsided that people like Pat Robertson are throwing in the towel.
But in my view this is giving a lot of skeptics the wrong idea. They think disposing of creationist arguments is easy. It's not. Take it from me. I've watched a lot of debates where smart skeptics have gotten their clocks cleaned. What we are dealing with in this case is a Christian that performed unusually poorly.
Watching Ken Ham you'd think young earth creationists have never heard of ice cores. Not true. They've heard of them. And they have some spin prepared to rebut the argument. Why Ken Ham didn't unleash it I have no idea. Bob Dutko would have. I watched the debate with some young earth Christian friends. They were likewise dumbfounded that Ham just would not engage Nye's arguments or put forward arguments that challenge the standard scientific view.
What I did over the following couple of days is recorded the Bob Dutko show. Dutko was likewise disappointed in Ham and wondered why he didn't make better arguments, and of course he proceeded to do so. Take a look at these and ask yourself if you'd be able to respond on the spot if you were at the podium.
Also, just so it's clear, I'm not saying these are persuasive. I'm just presenting them as Dutko stated them. Some are a bit silly on the surface, some maybe don't even make sense. But some require you to do a little bit of work to figure out, and it may not be possible if you were actually in a discussion with a young earth creationist. But this is the kind of thing skeptics are usually presented with in a debate, and often they are just not ready. I was honestly expecting that Nye wouldn't be ready. But we never found out because Ham really didn't do much except point to the bible.
By the way, these are kind of my notes and so it's not always great grammatically. I did try to clean it up somewhat.
Rebuttals to Nye
Ice cores do not prove the earth is old. The gap between layers gets more narrow as you go deeper due to pressure, and after just a few dozen you can no longer see the layers because they are bunched together. Maybe a few hundred rings can be actually counted. Scientists extrapolate for the remainder, just assuming that the pace continues throughout. Christian geologists say an ice age occurred a few thousand years ago and deposited the bulk of the ice that remains. Technically neither side knows for sure.
Tree rings are not actually counted to millions of years. The oldest living trees don’t have rings counted. They assume it by using carbon dating. They find dead wood in the area and carbon date it. Based on that age they look at how many rings the dead wood have. Then they carbon date the live tree. Then extrapolate forward. Since a dead tree has a certain age similar to old tree, somehow use ratio of C14 in the live tree and figure out age of live tree. All based on carbon dating of other trees in the area. Carbon dating has other problems previously discussed.
If you could count 8700 rings, a young earth creationist scientist guy says many trees, especially bristle cone pines, can produce more than one ring per year, sometimes up to 5.
Why no trail of kangaroo fossils from middle east to Australia? They could have been transported by boats because of trade. An ice age causes sea levels to fall. There are lots of islands between China and Australia. A little reduction in sea levels and now they can cross. Ice age ends and their trapped in Australia.
Why no fossils? Because fossilization is rare. There are no buffalo fossils for instance in the US.
Nye says 11 new species a day are needed if everything evolved from just a few thousand species that started at the ark. But this is not a big deal because insects and fruit flies reproduce so fast that it’s not surprising that 11 new ones could emerge daily. This is nowhere close to a problem when you consider how many insects there are in the world. And this includes bacteria. How many new strains of bacteria emerge daily? Not a big deal.
Nye asks why we don't have Grand Canyon's all over the world due to the flood. Because the Grand Canyon was formed because of its unique conditions, water bursting through an earthen damn. Ground was already muddy and dirty. There’s one in Texas that had been carved in 3 days.
You say it was carved by a river. But for billions of years there have been rivers all over the world, so why haven’t other rivers produced more grand canyons?
Nye claims that fossils follow evolutionary pattern in the layering. You never, ever find a fossil in layer that is not supposed to be in.
But this is blatantly false. Ham should have brought up polystrate fossils, which span different layers. The bottom of tree in rock 50 million years older than the top. Can’t be due to tectonic movement as evolutionists claim because there no indication of shattered rock where trees are pushed through. Rock was soft, trees went through, no shattering. In California a whale skeleton was found 45 degree angle, tail is in rock that is millions of years different from the head of the whale.
Bottom layer of grand canyon dated to 1.1 billion years old, then the top layer was dated to 2.6 billion years old, why is the Grand Canyon upside down?
How come none of the layers have gopher holes, rabbit holes, river beds, a single crater from anything, a single erosion line. No caves.
Here’s a creationist prediction, if there was a flood and mud deposits, then we predict that the lines separating layers would be smooth and there would be no rabbit holes, gopher holes, river beds, caves, etc.
The layers in rock sometimes come to a V, yet they don’t appear shattered, as if they move easily. Why aren’t they shattered if it was solid rock.
4500 years is plenty of time for the development of all the different types of cats. Just 100 years back we have less than half of the amount of breeds of dogs that we have today. 3000 years ago there were only 10 total breeds of dogs according to evolutionists.
In Uzbekistan hoof prints of horses dated to the time of the dinosaurs (reported in Pravda).
Edwin McKee geological survey professional has hoof prints in Grand Canyon prior to when they should exist per evolution. 100 million years old. Geological Survery Professional Paper 1173 p93-96.
Whale, elephant, horse, and other fossils plus crude hunting tools found in phosphate beds in SC. Also dinosaur bones found in the same place. Edward Noland in his remarks on fossils from the Ashley Phosphate Beds proceedings of the National Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1876 pages 80 and 81.
Grand Canyon, Venezuela, and Cashmere and Guyana have spores of ferns and pollen from flowering plants in Cambrian rock. Nature Volume 210 April 16th 1966 p292 to 294.
Petrified trees in Arizona’s petrified forest contain fossilized nests of bees and cocoons of wasps. Supposed to be 220 million years old, but bees and flowering plants shouldn’t have evolved until 100 million years later. Steven Haciodas, evolutionary paleobiologist with US Geological Survey, in personal communication of his May 27, 1995. Reported in Discover Magazine in February issue 1998 p76 to p83.
Pollinating insects and fossil flies with long well developed tubes for sucking nectar from flowers are found in deposits dated 25 million years before flowers are supposed to have been evolved. “Science” Vol 280 April 3, 1998 p85 to 88.
Desert Magazine February 1975 p36 to 39 human bones found in 100 million year old cretaceous strata. JP Marwhit of the University of Utah supervised excavation. He caught flak and later retracted his statements. Years later C14 dating showed the bones were about 200 years old. The have been dismissed it as an Indian burial, though Marwhit said they were in situ originally.
Regarding Tiktaalik, artists renderings take too much license. The actual bones lacked hind legs. Only the top half exists. Below that was just fragments. So they fill in the gaps as though the entire skeleton was found then sell the idea that it’s a fish with legs. Not much different from coelacanth today.
Arguments for a young earth.
C14 dating is good for only about 100K years ago. Why do we find dinosaur bones that still have plenty of C14? Aug 10 1990 fossilized dinosaur bones atkanthasauras and allasours dated at 3 different laboratories, including Arizona, everyone came back with ages in the thousands of years. How do you explain that if it’s 65 million years old?
How do you explain fresh dinosaur bones unfossilized? Journal of Paleontology reference NW Alaska dinosaur bones “unfosslized” that “felt like old cow bones.’ Kyle Davies wrote about it. Referenced in “Journal of Paleontology” 1986-1987 edition, No 1, Vol 61 p 198-200.
“Science” Dec 24 1993 bones of duck billed dinosaur found in Montana with fresh bones, not fossilized, p20-23.
1985 Geological Society of America Volume 17 p548. More fresh dinosaur bones.
Coal, diamonds, why do they have C14? Why don’t the ocean floors have enough mud. Russel Humphries (nuclear physicist) says it should be filled with miles of mud, but it doesn’t have much (the amount consistent with an earth only a few thousand years old).
What about the lack of sodium in the ocean? There is not enough for the earth to be billions of years old. What about the decay of magnetic field? Rate of decay means it would have been too strong in the past.
Radioactive elements produce helium, but we only have a few thousand years worth of Helium. Atmosphere should have more Helium if it’s billions of years old.
Human population growth. For all of human recorded history known growth rate for humans is some value. Applying that value if you go back a mere 40K years you would have to have more humans than there are atoms in the Milky Way galaxy. If you use the ark timeline it works out perfectly to 6 billion.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
The Republican House Does't Even Pretend to Serve the People
So they've now passed a law that will relieve corporations that produce hazardous waste of paying the price to clean up their spills. Companies will no longer be required to carry insurance that will cover the costs should a spill occur. Also this makes it more difficult for the EPA to enforce oversight.
Fortunately the Senate won't pass such a bill and even if they did Obama would veto it. But you can still see how far gone our government is, passing legislation that only the 1% would want, the ones that care about profits only and don't suffer the consequences. And maybe don't have kids or if they do they are too selfish to care about them. Maybe this is only a small share of the 1%. They have the House in their pocket already. This kind of thing could come later as inequality expands and the rich collect more power.
This is in the very nature of capitalism. I sometimes wonder if the CEO's and others that initiate the lobbying that leads to this kind of legislation in their hearts hope the politicians refuse, but they know they have to press for maximum profits or they will be replaced or at least criticized to where a competitor can start to look more appealing to the investors and board. It's possible, though the best advocates of these policies are true believers. Maybe they are psychopaths.
Fortunately the Senate won't pass such a bill and even if they did Obama would veto it. But you can still see how far gone our government is, passing legislation that only the 1% would want, the ones that care about profits only and don't suffer the consequences. And maybe don't have kids or if they do they are too selfish to care about them. Maybe this is only a small share of the 1%. They have the House in their pocket already. This kind of thing could come later as inequality expands and the rich collect more power.
This is in the very nature of capitalism. I sometimes wonder if the CEO's and others that initiate the lobbying that leads to this kind of legislation in their hearts hope the politicians refuse, but they know they have to press for maximum profits or they will be replaced or at least criticized to where a competitor can start to look more appealing to the investors and board. It's possible, though the best advocates of these policies are true believers. Maybe they are psychopaths.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Chomsky Addresses Federal Reserve/Deficits
As much as I sympathize with the Ron Paul wing of the Republican party I think some of their criticisms and proposed solutions are just not in the real world. Very theoretical and impractical. Chomsky takes a question from a person that is probably among the Paul faction below.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
The Price of OBL Raid
In capturing and executing Osama Bin Laden the CIA exploited a vaccination campaign. I believe this would be a war crime because it is a war crime to camoflauge yourself as a health worker in war. Naturally this puts future doctors working in battlefields at risk. They might be suspected of doing more than helping the wounded. This in turn is a threat to all soldiers in battle, who now are more difficult to aid.
In the case of polio in Pakistan this clearly harmed efforts to eradicate this disease. This is not at all unexpected. Chomsky discussed the likelihood of this immediately following the raid, quoting health experts that said this could produce 100,000 additional cases of polio. How would you feel if your child contracted polio subsequent to this action in Pakistan? Who would you blame?
Today we have the news of vaccination workers being gunned down in Pakistan. We still don't have word from the CIA if their use of the polio vaccination program was helpful in finding Bin Laden.
In the case of polio in Pakistan this clearly harmed efforts to eradicate this disease. This is not at all unexpected. Chomsky discussed the likelihood of this immediately following the raid, quoting health experts that said this could produce 100,000 additional cases of polio. How would you feel if your child contracted polio subsequent to this action in Pakistan? Who would you blame?
Today we have the news of vaccination workers being gunned down in Pakistan. We still don't have word from the CIA if their use of the polio vaccination program was helpful in finding Bin Laden.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Public Sector vs Private Sector
I remember years ago watching a program by Stossel talking about how basically the government sucks at everything. It's always better to have things done in the private sector. Why? Because they care about efficiency, because it affects their profits. A public sector employee doesn't care if he wastes money. That's just more money that the taxpayer covers. It's no skin off his nose. So you lose all that efficiency when you go with public sector workers. I guess I bought that argument. So we need to privatize our schools, are garbage disposal, postal service, whatever else we can, and reap the rewards.
But here's something Stossel didn't mention. For profit companies have to pay owners, usually stock holders. In the case of stock holders, these are not people contributing to the production process. It's kind of like an added weight around your neck. Also unlike the government you usually have a lot of effort towards marketing. Then CEO and upper management salaries tend to be pretty high in the private sector. These are offsetting factors. Maybe these losses exceed the efficiency gains. If so then privatization is a bad idea.
You'd have to look at actual data to evaluate the effects, and as I frequently note at this blog this is not something conservatives often do.
I was reminded of this issue as I watched this YouTube video that addressed the costs associated with Obama Care and how those costs are covered. The poor get subsidized insurance on Obama Care and that's a cost. In the video it is claimed that some of this cost is paid for by modifications to a program called Medicare Advantage. What's Medicare Advantage, you ask?
Back in 2003 the Bush administration was selling the Stossel line that things done by the private sector are just more efficient. So why not have the private sector administer Medicare for those that choose to go that route. If these private companies can meet the needs of their elderly and can do it for less, Bush's Medicare bill says they get to keep the difference. Sounds like a good plan, right?
In the video it's stated as if it's an uncontroversial fact that it just didn't work out that way. It was costing as much as 14 cents on every dollar more to cover seniors under Medicare Advantage than it did under publicly administered Medicare. Why? Those reasons mentioned above. Stockholders want their cut, CEO's are costly, and so is marketing. Congress through the years has simply passed measures to cover these costs. It's basically corporate welfare. They can't compete with Medicare, so we give them an extra 14% and now the stock holders and CEO's get the share that they expect.
Obama Care ends this arrangement. Medicare Advantage will have to meet the low overhead rates Medicare manages to hit, and if they can't then that's tough. The result, according to the video, is a savings of $136 billion over 10 years. Not bad.
I have to admit I'd never heard of Medicare Advantage, so I did some Googling in an attempt to verify this claim. Dean Baker links to this report from the CBO which generally aligns with what is claimed in the YouTube video.
With this information one might think that these results would generalize. What about defense contractors? They also have to pay stock holders and CEO bonuses. What if we replaced them with civil servants and did the same for other government contractors? Could we save some money that way? Yeah, a little. Only $300 billion per year. That's the cost associated with the real parasites taking your tax dollars and keeping it for themselves. Stock holders, CEO's, and marketing staff. If you want to talk about welfare, why not first talk about the largest share of welfare that exists. The part that's going to the rich.
But here's something Stossel didn't mention. For profit companies have to pay owners, usually stock holders. In the case of stock holders, these are not people contributing to the production process. It's kind of like an added weight around your neck. Also unlike the government you usually have a lot of effort towards marketing. Then CEO and upper management salaries tend to be pretty high in the private sector. These are offsetting factors. Maybe these losses exceed the efficiency gains. If so then privatization is a bad idea.
You'd have to look at actual data to evaluate the effects, and as I frequently note at this blog this is not something conservatives often do.
I was reminded of this issue as I watched this YouTube video that addressed the costs associated with Obama Care and how those costs are covered. The poor get subsidized insurance on Obama Care and that's a cost. In the video it is claimed that some of this cost is paid for by modifications to a program called Medicare Advantage. What's Medicare Advantage, you ask?
Back in 2003 the Bush administration was selling the Stossel line that things done by the private sector are just more efficient. So why not have the private sector administer Medicare for those that choose to go that route. If these private companies can meet the needs of their elderly and can do it for less, Bush's Medicare bill says they get to keep the difference. Sounds like a good plan, right?
In the video it's stated as if it's an uncontroversial fact that it just didn't work out that way. It was costing as much as 14 cents on every dollar more to cover seniors under Medicare Advantage than it did under publicly administered Medicare. Why? Those reasons mentioned above. Stockholders want their cut, CEO's are costly, and so is marketing. Congress through the years has simply passed measures to cover these costs. It's basically corporate welfare. They can't compete with Medicare, so we give them an extra 14% and now the stock holders and CEO's get the share that they expect.
Obama Care ends this arrangement. Medicare Advantage will have to meet the low overhead rates Medicare manages to hit, and if they can't then that's tough. The result, according to the video, is a savings of $136 billion over 10 years. Not bad.
I have to admit I'd never heard of Medicare Advantage, so I did some Googling in an attempt to verify this claim. Dean Baker links to this report from the CBO which generally aligns with what is claimed in the YouTube video.
With this information one might think that these results would generalize. What about defense contractors? They also have to pay stock holders and CEO bonuses. What if we replaced them with civil servants and did the same for other government contractors? Could we save some money that way? Yeah, a little. Only $300 billion per year. That's the cost associated with the real parasites taking your tax dollars and keeping it for themselves. Stock holders, CEO's, and marketing staff. If you want to talk about welfare, why not first talk about the largest share of welfare that exists. The part that's going to the rich.
Job Growth Under Recent Presidents
When you tell people the deficit is falling fast they just don't believe it. Obama is growing government like never before they say. Take a look at public and private sector job growth under recent administrations. Contrast with perceptions. Via Calculated Risk.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
My Home Schooled Son Learns About Global Warming
My kids are home schooled, and for us that means we participate in organized instruction as well as in home instruction. Some of it is affiliated with the state of Michigan, some of it is associated with church groups. So yeah, I know they're getting some of what I consider to be nonsense, but I'm not too worried about it. I kind of like that they get to see adults in what is presented as on objective setting offer them stuff which they know from me is dubious. If nothing else it instills in them a recognition that authorities should be questioned. Question the teachers and your father as well.
So recently my son asks me to help him review for his science test. Part of that is I'm going to read questions he got on a prior test because this test is a mid term, so prior subjects are covered. Check question 9.
I'm just going through the motions reading these off, and I get to question 9 and my head is buried in this piece of paper. And I suppose the expression on my face changed a bit as I read the question. My eyes shift above the paper and what do I see? My son with a very excited look on his face. Eyes wide and a big smile as he anticipates my reaction to his answer. "No, the earth has not warmed significantly over the last 80 years!!" He's looking forward to watching my head explode, which it did.
What the flip is this? How can they say this? I quickly Google "Global Temperature Record" and here's what you get at Wikipedia.
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So I say, "Ben, does that look like an insignificant temperature increase?" And for him this is funny, but I say "Where's your book?" So this is his book. Below that is the temperature reconstruction found within the book.
No real significant warming over the last 80 years. How grand. So I asked Ben to have his teacher give us a source on this.
So that's what he did. He kind of likes this sort of thing. He gets a kick out of telling his friends in class in hushed tones "If my Dad were here he would argue with this and probably our teacher would go nuts." He thinks that's funny also, and so he was going to ask her. Not because he cared but because I think he finds it all amusing.
So he did that and his teacher reacted pretty reasonably. She asked him to verify that his source was NASA and agreed that it was important to verify the source in the book, which she would try to do. She would later forward to him a link to the book's website, here, and give him a password that allows him to login and consider some of the background information provided. She offered two articles for consideration. Both by a guy named James Taylor from the Heartland Institute, a well known corporate front group that has as it's mission to discredit the science on global warming. This article says the Himalayan glaciers are growing and scientists are "confounded". In fact a few glaciers in the Himalayas have expanded though the majority have shrunk. Taylor focuses on the fewer growing ones and conflates them to give his readers the wrong idea. The other article suggested by the teacher is kind of a vague "Science is proving the global warming crowd wrong" type of article. Additionally Apologia has an article by Michelle Malkin.
I was just recently made aware of James Taylor. Apparently one of his signature moves is to publicize email addresses of scientists and encourage his readers to go on the attack. So scientists find themselves inundated with profanity laced threats, which they find difficult to cope with.
Just today I looked a little more closely at the book, and it does have the source for the plot created. Up to 1979 you have a reconstruction made in 1983 that is recreated at the Institute for Creation Studies. That reconstruction was apparently published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies by somebody named WH Bergman, who appears to have been a professor of Atmospheric Studies at Washington State. Subsequent to 1979 apparently the chart in the book is based on data presented here. Not quite sure how this is all supposed to fit together.
I guess generally you'd expect that in 1983 the data was not as complete as it is today, so possibly Bergman did the best with what he had. Or possibly there are qualifications that are not clear. It appears that this is temperature for the lower troposphere, not surface temperatures. I think ordinarily surface temperatures are what we want to consider. I may look into this more. Obviously the authors are putting up a lot of effort to reach conclusions they prefer given that the NASA data and other data is so readily available.
So recently my son asks me to help him review for his science test. Part of that is I'm going to read questions he got on a prior test because this test is a mid term, so prior subjects are covered. Check question 9.
I'm just going through the motions reading these off, and I get to question 9 and my head is buried in this piece of paper. And I suppose the expression on my face changed a bit as I read the question. My eyes shift above the paper and what do I see? My son with a very excited look on his face. Eyes wide and a big smile as he anticipates my reaction to his answer. "No, the earth has not warmed significantly over the last 80 years!!" He's looking forward to watching my head explode, which it did.
What the flip is this? How can they say this? I quickly Google "Global Temperature Record" and here's what you get at Wikipedia.
So I say, "Ben, does that look like an insignificant temperature increase?" And for him this is funny, but I say "Where's your book?" So this is his book. Below that is the temperature reconstruction found within the book.
No real significant warming over the last 80 years. How grand. So I asked Ben to have his teacher give us a source on this.
So that's what he did. He kind of likes this sort of thing. He gets a kick out of telling his friends in class in hushed tones "If my Dad were here he would argue with this and probably our teacher would go nuts." He thinks that's funny also, and so he was going to ask her. Not because he cared but because I think he finds it all amusing.
So he did that and his teacher reacted pretty reasonably. She asked him to verify that his source was NASA and agreed that it was important to verify the source in the book, which she would try to do. She would later forward to him a link to the book's website, here, and give him a password that allows him to login and consider some of the background information provided. She offered two articles for consideration. Both by a guy named James Taylor from the Heartland Institute, a well known corporate front group that has as it's mission to discredit the science on global warming. This article says the Himalayan glaciers are growing and scientists are "confounded". In fact a few glaciers in the Himalayas have expanded though the majority have shrunk. Taylor focuses on the fewer growing ones and conflates them to give his readers the wrong idea. The other article suggested by the teacher is kind of a vague "Science is proving the global warming crowd wrong" type of article. Additionally Apologia has an article by Michelle Malkin.
I was just recently made aware of James Taylor. Apparently one of his signature moves is to publicize email addresses of scientists and encourage his readers to go on the attack. So scientists find themselves inundated with profanity laced threats, which they find difficult to cope with.
Just today I looked a little more closely at the book, and it does have the source for the plot created. Up to 1979 you have a reconstruction made in 1983 that is recreated at the Institute for Creation Studies. That reconstruction was apparently published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies by somebody named WH Bergman, who appears to have been a professor of Atmospheric Studies at Washington State. Subsequent to 1979 apparently the chart in the book is based on data presented here. Not quite sure how this is all supposed to fit together.
I guess generally you'd expect that in 1983 the data was not as complete as it is today, so possibly Bergman did the best with what he had. Or possibly there are qualifications that are not clear. It appears that this is temperature for the lower troposphere, not surface temperatures. I think ordinarily surface temperatures are what we want to consider. I may look into this more. Obviously the authors are putting up a lot of effort to reach conclusions they prefer given that the NASA data and other data is so readily available.
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