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HB 1172: Jensen Revives Perennial “Teach the Controversy” Fake-Science Bill

Representative Phil Jensen (R-33/Rapid City), well-known for his opposition to scienceintelligence, and freedom, pretends to support the intelligence and freedom of science teachers with House Bill 1172, a bill purporting to “assist students in objectively reviewing scientific information.” The text consists of one sentence:

A classroom teacher may not be prohibited from helping students enrolled in a school district understand, analyze, critique, or review, in an objective scientific manner, the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information presented in courses that are aligned to the content standards established pursuant to § 13-3-48 [HB 1172, as filed by Rep. Phil Jensen, 2022.01.27].

Why would we need a statute to state that teachers can do exactly what we hire them to do? Because that’s not what HB 1172 is trying to do. Representative Jensen is simply recycling the Newspeak radical Republicans use to cloak their fantastic theocratic hokum about creationism, rejection of climate change, and other anti-science tremblings in talk of “objective” both-sidesism. Jensen’s bill copies language that his former radical right-wing colleague Jeff Monroe trotted out multiple times in “teach the controversy” bills that Jensen has regularly co-sponsored.

As I have to say every time Jensen and Monroe and other cranks trot out this trash, teachers already have the freedom and duty to help students understand real science and develop the critical thinking skills that will help them avoid falling for the bunk people like Jensen peddle. Monroe’s bills all failed because they are completely unnecessary; so should Jensen’s charade this Session… unless legislators would like to amend HB 1172 into a genuine protection of academic freedom and intellectual inquiry in our K-12 classrooms. Let’s strike “scientific” from the bill. Let’s broaden the bill to make clear that we are referring to history, civics, and literature, where Jensen’s party is waging a real war against objective and constructive education. Let’s add language to protect teachers and schools and libraries as they help students access books and materials that help them objectively and accurately understand our nation’s history and culture and study ways to make America better.

But that conversation is likely beyond the capacity and desire of a majority of the members of House Education, which hears HB 1172 tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m. in Capitol Room 413. So let’s just settle for trashing this bill, just like its predecessors, and moving on to practical legislation.

101 Comments

  1. Bill 2022-02-01 07:34

    This bill reminds me of the Jerry Seinfeld show. Like the Seinfeld show, this bill is about “nothing.”

  2. Alan F 2022-02-01 07:51

    What a waste of time.

  3. jerry 2022-02-01 09:55

    The Balkanized aftermath of the coming civil war, will make South Dakota a part of Canada. More hockey. No room for the likes of Jensen so he will be banished.

  4. sx123 2022-02-01 10:05

    Again? They keep recycling this stuff every couple years.

  5. Donald Pay 2022-02-01 10:29

    There isn’t a scientific controversy in biological sciences about Darwin’s evolution theories today. Sure, when Darwin and Wallace were proposing their theories, there was quite a bit of scientific controversy, but evolution by natural selection has been tested in multiple ways over time and proven to be one of the ways evolution occurs. So, these really have passed from being “theories” to being established paradigms about which there is no scientific controversy. Of course, there are some who try to manufacture controversy, but there is no scientific basis to that controversy. There are, of course, others mechanisms that allow for evolutionary changes. Natural selection isn’t the only way evolution can occur. If there is any controversy, it’s about which of these mechanisms may be predominate in the evolution at specific times for specific species.

  6. O 2022-02-01 10:38

    I suppose an argument could be made for the need for a bill such as this one in Social Studies. Given the move toward focusing curriculum away from controversial topics like racism being bad and having long-lasting effects on a society, Jensen might have the right answer for the wrong target.

  7. Francis Schaffer 2022-02-01 11:02

    I am curious what their original thoughts would be; if they think this bill from someone else is a good idea? Okay, maybe not.

  8. Mark Anderson 2022-02-01 11:15

    The problem with Republicans is that when they hear the word theory it affects their brain. Both sides are affected, Darwin’s theory of evolution or CRT. Now someone needs to write a book on the theory of Christianity and their heads will explode.

  9. Donald Pay 2022-02-01 12:01

    Mark Anderson, I particularly like the efforts by scholars to delineate the “historical Jesus,” separating Jesus the man from Jesus the religious icon that he became decades and centuries after his death. There are as many ideas about the historical Jesus as their have been initially Jesus the relgious icon. My favorite book on this is John Dominic Crossan’s “The Historical Jesus,” but there are lots. Also a lot of historical treatments of the rise of Christianity.

  10. Richard Schriever 2022-02-01 13:30

    CRT is a theory of the social sciences, so…………….

  11. Darrell Reifenrath 2022-02-01 13:46

    More ALEC and/or Americans for prosperity nonsense.

  12. jerry 2022-02-01 16:28

    republicans think that CRT stands for Can’t Really Tell and that is exactly what it means to them… they don’t know.

  13. DaveFN 2022-02-01 17:08
  14. Arlo Blundt 2022-02-01 18:16

    Well…Pity the Science teachers. An unlikely group to suffer the slings and arrows of Republican hypocrisy and ignorance. The punch line is that none of these legislators professing a burning interest in classroom teaching would last ten days in an actual high school classroom.

  15. Porter Lansing 2022-02-01 19:01

    Cory correctly labels this bill and the “complimentary schizmogenesis” of Conservatives in general as “both-sidesism”.
    – Shallow thinkers like Jenson, lost for what it is they stand for, simply do the opposite of what recognized, rational thinkers do.
    – This is a big part in why South Dakota votes Republican overwhelmingly and no one (even those voters) really knows why.
    – If Minnesota liberals, in their much more successful state, do A then South Dakota, not sure what road is best, must do B, because all they know is to be contrary, no matter what.
    – If the team that walloped your hero Donald Trump says to vaccinate and wear masks, complimentary schizmogenesis explains why SD MAGA’s reject personal safety and self-preservation vehemently.

  16. Kurt Evans 2022-02-01 20:03

    As a traditional Bible Protestant and former high school science teacher, I’m a supporter of this bill.

    Our public education system has indoctrinated two full generations of Americans into believing the Bible isn’t true, the earth is billions of years old, and human beings are conglomerations of molecules that came together by chance somewhere in the vast recesses of deep time.

    The radiometric dating techniques that supposedly prove the earth is billions of years old are dependent on the assumption that radioactive decay rates have always been as low as they are today. As explained in the following article by esteemed Ph.D. astrophysicist Jason Lisle, there’s substantial scientific evidence that past radioactive decay actually occurred much more rapidly over a much shorter period of time:

    https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/origins/creation-101-radiometric-dating-and-the-age-of-the-earth/

    There’s plenty of scientific evidence to support traditional young-earth creationism, but our government schools deliberately ignore that evidence.

  17. DaveFN 2022-02-01 21:48

    “…in an objective scientific manner….” that is to say, HIS idea of what is objective which is no doubt creation “science” and the [bogus] questions it poses to mainstream science. In other words, creation science for Jensen is objective while mainstream science is yet another subjective and suspect conspiracy theory of the intellectuals—from which I might infer his desire to challenge the mainstream as his repressed desire to challenge his own father, with the caveat that I have no direct access to the contents of his unconscious which might support or contradict such a hypothesis, other than the fact that Jensen once identified himself as one of the “Oath Keepers,” something which may have bearing on his issues with authorities of any kind, including mainstream science.

    What an Alice-in-Wonderland, topsy-turvy, upside-down world these low bandwidth individuals inhabit. If anything makes me shudder, it’s the fact that they harbor a multitude of supporters who elected them.

  18. Mark Anderson 2022-02-02 18:13

    Oh Kurt, I wish I could read your ignorance as cynicism. It’s mindblowing that you taught science. I’m sure your students went far.

  19. grudznick 2022-02-02 18:21

    Mr. Evans, I sure wish I could have attended your science classes.

  20. Nick Nemec 2022-02-02 18:55

    Keep in mind Mr. Evans theories on science when you read his theories on the Ravnsborg crash and killing of Joe Boever. Neither stands up to scrutiny but he sure enjoys espousing them.

  21. larry kurtz 2022-02-02 19:05

    Christianism is a disease.

    The core of the Black Hills has been dated to 1.8 billion years. Other localized deposits have been dated to around 2.2 to 2.8 billion years. One of these is located in the northern hills. It is called French Creek Granite although it has been metamorphosed into gneiss.

    https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1982/0481/report.pdf

  22. Kurt Evans 2022-02-02 21:30

    “mike from iowa” links to a 2007 article by notorious blowhard Phil Plait:

    Here is a fella who just isn’t all that into Jason Lisle, and for good reason, it seems to me….

    https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/another-passel-of-creationist-lies

    Kurt hasn’t gotten the note about credible sources, I guess.

    Lisle is vastly more credible than Plait, who writes in the article you cite:

    [The moon] formed much closer in to the Earth, but there is no problem with it taking billions of years to get to its current distance. Typically, young Earth creationists take current values of things and extrapolate them billions of years into the past without considering that the values might have changed.

    In more than 30 years studying scientific creationism, I’ve never seen any young-earth creationist extrapolate anything billions of years into the past except to demonstrate an absurd result. It’s macroevolutionists who typically assume they can base their dating techniques on current radioactive decay rates extrapolated billions of years into the past. The refutation of that assumption is one of the central points of the Lisle article I’d cited:

    https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/origins/creation-101-radiometric-dating-and-the-age-of-the-earth/

    Plait continues:

    If Lisle really is an astrophysicist and he said this in a talk, he is either incompetent or a liar.

    If Plait is suggesting Lisle isn’t really an esteemed Ph.D. astrophysicist, Plait is both incompetent and a liar.

    Nick Nemec writes:

    Keep in mind Mr. Evans theories on science when you read his theories on the Ravnsborg crash and killing of Joe Boever. Neither stands up to scrutiny but he sure enjoys espousing them.

    There’s definitely an analogy. Like macroevolutionists, Craig Price relies on far-fetched assumptions about the unobservable past and ignores the account of events given by someone who was there.

    Joe Boever overdosed on 78 pills of a psychotropic drug, left town on foot after dark, didn’t ask anyone for a ride, declined a ride offered by a passing motorist, and never told anyone why he was out there. It would be a mind-bending freak coincidence if Jason had been cruising down the shoulder inches from the edge of the pavement, with all four wheels outside the rumble strip, at the very spot where Joe was walking.

    It seems to me that Joe probably committed suicide by running into the driving lane and diving onto the hood of a passing car, and it seems to me that Jason probably didn’t see it because it was in the dim periphery of his headlight beam and because he was looking down at the speedometer as he transitioned out of the reduced-speed zone. Joe’s impact with the right side of the car probably angled it onto the shoulder, where his body probably tumbled off the front of the hood and was struck a second time after Jason reflexively swerved back to the left to keep the car on the pavement.

    There are several problems with Craig Price’s supposed “reconstruction” of the crash. An initial collision violent enough to separate Joe from his lower leg would have separated him from his glasses before his face reached the windshield. It also would have left blood consistent with that amputation where the body rode on the hood. And the body rolling off the car wouldn’t have broken off the passenger side mirror.

    After watching South Dakota journalists report Price’s claims as indisputable facts for well over a year, I’m still wondering what forensic evidence he’d say proves Joe was “walking” during the collision on the shoulder rather than tumbling off the front of the hood.

    If anyone wants to discuss this at the link below, I’d be glad to respond there:
    https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/01/19/incurious-sheriff-volek-saw-boevers-flashlight-at-ravnsborg-crash-scene-dismissed-it-as-reflection/#comment-406365

  23. jerry 2022-02-02 23:34

    EVANS is the Rudy Giuliani of conspiracy theory. So, who pays Jensen’s day job when he is not making money from this religious zealot stuff? Joe Biden famously said of Rudy Giuliani, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else! There’s nothing else!” I see EVANS the same way as Rudy.

  24. larry kurtz 2022-02-03 07:27

    Pete Larson co-authored and published findings from a study of the effects the Chicxulub impact had on Laramidia after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction and on the Hell Creek Formation near Tanis, North Dakota: A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota. Humans are driving Earth’s six mass extinction and are only on historian Christopher Lloyd’s list of important species that evolved because of anthropogenic climate change.

    https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/27/1817407116

  25. larry kurtz 2022-02-03 07:30

    A Clovis site in Alaska dated to about 12,400 years ago has led most archaeologists to believe the culture arose only after their arrival to North America.

    Exploiting the gap between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets during the Wisconsin Glacial Episode those Clovis People were the first humans to see the Missouri Buttes and Mahto Tipila in Wyoming. The Clovis culture thrived on the high plains and in the Black Hills before settling the rest of the Mississippi basin but those pioneers had already explored parts of Montana long before they found Clovis, New Mexico where their stone tools were unearthed in the 1920s. Before US 14 was widened a team led by Adrien Hannus from Augustana University uncovered evidence of human habitation from over 12,000 years ago in a cave in Boulder Canyon near Sturgis, South Dakota.

    Human footprints uncovered at White Sands are now believed to be at least 23,000 years old.

  26. Nick Nemec 2022-02-03 09:01

    Creationists have a distorted understanding of the age of our planet and the entire universe. How old does Mr. Evans think Earth and the universe are?

  27. Bob Newland 2022-02-03 09:15

    Well, Nick, when a person accepts that a mysterious entity sculpted the first “man” from dust and made him breathe, then borrowed a bone from him and sculpted the first “woman” around it, others can assume that person is subject to belief in fantasy about every material fact of life.

    Whenever I have doubts about anything creatical, I refer to Mark Twain’s “Letters from Earth.” I wish Kurt Evans would read it.

  28. larry kurtz 2022-02-03 09:39

    If creationism could be considered a “science,” it could possibly avoid conflict with the Establishment Clause because it would advance a secular purpose; therefore, some supporters of creationism have attempted to argue that creationism is a science17. However, despite creative attempts at re-labeling creationism as “creation science,” “intelligent design theory,” and “emergence theory,” creationism is not a scientific theory, and therefore has no place in the science classroom.

    https://www.natlawreview.com/article/alternative-facts-classroom-creationist-educational-policy-and-trump-administration

  29. O 2022-02-03 11:23

    If God created man, then he is bad at his job.

  30. jerry 2022-02-03 13:12

    Yes O, turns out that I’m a born again pagan. Very glad to have found that out as I recently got my envelopes from the church for my tithe. Dollars ahead now, good to be pagan.

  31. Kurt Evans 2022-02-03 20:57

    I’d written:

    Joe Boever overdosed on 78 pills of a psychotropic drug, left town on foot after dark, didn’t ask anyone for a ride, declined a ride offered by a passing motorist, and never told anyone why he was out there. It would be a mind-bending freak coincidence if Jason had been cruising down the shoulder inches from the edge of the pavement, with all four wheels outside the rumble strip, at the very spot where Joe was walking.

    “DaveFN” asks:

    Do you know how many mg of lorazepam were in each “pill” under consideration?

    No, but the Lorazepam bottle found in Joe’s crashed truck had been filled with 90 pills on September 11. The prescription allowed for taking up to three pills per day, and there were twelve left on September 12.

    If anyone wants to discuss the crash at the link below, I’d be glad to respond there:
    https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/01/19/incurious-sheriff-volek-saw-boevers-flashlight-at-ravnsborg-crash-scene-dismissed-it-as-reflection/#comment-406365

    Nick Nemec asks:

    How old does Mr. Evans think Earth and the universe are?

    Christ taught that the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. Old Testament) is true, and the Hebrew Bible indicates that the universe and the earth were created around 4,000 BC.

    Larry Kurtz quotes Gallup:

    38% say God created man in present form, lowest in 35 years …

    https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx

    Lowest in any scientific poll in American history. Our public education system has indoctrinated two full generations of Americans into believing the Bible isn’t true, the earth is billions of years old, and human beings are conglomerations of molecules that came together by chance somewhere in the vast recesses of deep time.

  32. grudznick 2022-02-03 21:09

    Mr. Evans wrote:

    the Hebrew Bible indicates that the universe and the earth were created around 4,000 BC.

    grudznick writes:

    BuwahahahaHAHAHA!

    I’ve read the Hebrew Bible. I know the Hebrew Bible. A fine, fictional tale, it is.

  33. jerry 2022-02-03 21:49

    Mr. grudznick is correct on this. A fictional tale indeed. A hearty Buuuwhahahahahaa. 4,000 years Buuahhhhahhahhaha. More conspiracy theory from da EVANS.

  34. DaveFN 2022-02-04 01:17

    Kurt Evans

    Do a little math.

    The daily dosage of Ativan (lorezepam) varies from 1 to 10 mg/day.

    1) 78 “pills” X 10mg max = 780.mg.

    2) An average male weights ~80 kg.

    3) 780mg / 80 kg = 9.75 mg/kg.

    9.75 mg/kg max in 78 “pills” is a far cry from the lethal dosage LD50 for mice of 1850 mg/kg, isn’t it?

    And if an OD doesn’t kill one outright, known Ativan OD symptoms include severe drowsiness and fatigue, extremely low blood pressure, and coma. What’s the likelihood one on Ativan OD will be so much as walking on the highway?

  35. Nick Nemec 2022-02-04 08:16

    People who believe in a 6000 year old Earth have self identified themselves as nuttier than a squirrel turd. When they begin to espouse on topics with great authority simply remember this is someone who thinks the earth is 6000 years old. It’s all you need to know.

  36. larry kurtz 2022-02-04 08:27

    It’s important to remember even Thomas Jefferson believed the christianic scriptures were a joke although he was about as far off on the Earth’s age citing 60,000 years as her age.

  37. O 2022-02-04 10:29

    Young Earthers cannot answer the starlight paradox: how can light from stars billions of light years away have reached earth in only 6,000 years?

    the Bible is not a science textbook.

  38. larry kurtz 2022-02-04 11:43

    President Jefferson put Jesus of Nazareth on a par with Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton and recognized the Qur’an as a source for a founding document.

  39. Kurt Evans 2022-02-05 17:22

    “DaveFN” asks me about psychotropic drugs:

    9.75 mg/kg max in 78 “pills” is a far cry from the lethal dosage LD50 for mice of 1850 mg/kg, isn’t it?

    I’m not sure how to verify those numbers.

    What’s the likelihood one on Ativan OD will be so much as walking on the highway?

    I’m not sure about that either, but Joe Boever’s prescribed dosage of Lorazepam was up to 3 pills per day, and he’d apparently taken 78 of them since the day before the crash.

    Nick Nemec writes about me:

    People who believe in a 6000 year old Earth have self identified themselves as nuttier than a squirrel turd. When they begin to espouse on topics with great authority simply remember this is someone who thinks the earth is 6000 years old.

    When Nick speaks with supposed authority about the 2020 crash that killed his cousin, it’s mostly irrelevant that this is someone who thinks his more distant cousins are apes.

    If anyone wants to discuss the crash at the link below, I’d be glad to respond there:
    https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/01/19/incurious-sheriff-volek-saw-boevers-flashlight-at-ravnsborg-crash-scene-dismissed-it-as-reflection/#comment-406365

    “O” writes:

    Young Earthers cannot answer the starlight paradox: how can light from stars billions of light years away have reached earth in only 6,000 years?

    This is at least the fourth time you’ve directed the starlight question at me since 2018, and it’s at least the third time you’ve indicated that young-earth creationists “cannot answer” it. I’ve responded every time:

    https://dakotafreepress.com/2018/10/19/i-♡-amanda-bachmann-so-should-district-24/#comment-118013

    Creationists have advanced several possible answers to the question. As I’ve been explaining here at Dakota Free Press for over five years, the earth may have been in a deep gravity well on the fourth day of the creation week, and gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface:

    https://www.livescience.com/what-is-time-dilation

  40. bearcreekbat 2022-02-05 18:25

    With apologies to Cory for this off topic comment, it seems appropriate to address one of Mr. Evan’s off topic entries here. I did address the overdose Mr. Evan’s overdose suicide theory quite some time ago on a post by Cory that addressed Joe’s death, but Mr. Evans failed to respond to the information i posted at that time, although he responded to virtually every other problem other commenters identified that undermined his “jumping in front of the car suicide” speculation. I have seen Mr. Evans repeatedly refer to the Atvian theory several times since my original post, mostly off topic, so I did not repeat my comment. Enough is enough. Here is Mr. Evans’ off topic comment addressing some questions DaveFN raised apparently questioning the validity of Mr. Evans’ prior speculation that an Atvian OD caused Joe to jump infront of a speeding car on the highway:

    What’s the likelihood one on Ativan OD will be so much as walking on the highway?

    I’m not sure about that either, but Joe Boever’s prescribed dosage of Lorazepam was up to 3 pills per day, and he’d apparently taken 78 of them since the day before the crash.

    As I commented earlier, the reported symptoms of an overdose of this particular drug suggest physical reactions that directly contradicts Mr. Evans’ speculation that Joe had the physical capacity to suddenly jump out on the highway in front of a oncoming vehicle driving at or above 65 mph:

    Someone who has overdosed on lorazepam may experience a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms and exhibit telltale signs including:

    Drowsiness.
    Disorientation.
    Paradoxically increased anxiety or agitation.
    Involuntary eye movements.
    Blurry vision.
    Involuntary muscle contractions.
    Reduced muscle strength.
    Decreased reflexes and impaired reaction time.
    Profoundly lowered blood pressure.
    Severely slowed breathing.
    Unresponsiveness.
    Coma.
    Death,

    https://drugabuse.com/benzodiazepines/ativan/lorazepam-overdose/

    On the other hand, the listed symptoms of an Ativan OD apparently would have significantly slowed Joe’s physical reaction time making it much more difficult for him to jump out of the path of a car moving at or above highway speed that suddenly drifted onto the shoulder directly at him as he walked on the side of the road.

  41. jerry 2022-02-05 18:50

    Well done again bcb. The facts are certainly not something that EVANS is interested in. EVANS is more interested in parroting the same drivel he has been pedaling on post after different post for some time now. If it would be okay with you, I will make a copy of your well researched post and post that promptly after EVANS does his own repeat of the bullcrap he has been spreading.

  42. mike from iowa 2022-02-05 19:08

    Excellent, bcb. Wish i could say it would do any good against Mr. Contrary to Established Facts.

  43. bearcreekbat 2022-02-06 01:01

    Jerry, you bet. This information about the symptoms and effects of an Ativan overdose is readily available on the web from a wide variety of credible sources. I just Googled overdose of Ativan and found site after site all posting similar information.

  44. Kurt Evans 2022-02-06 21:32

    “jerry” writes:

    The facts are certainly not something that EVANS is interested in.

    The Lorazepam bottle found in Joe Boever’s crashed truck had been filled with 90 pills the day before the crashes. His prescribed dosage was up to 3 pills per day, and there were 12 pills left after the crashes.

    Joe left town on foot after dark, didn’t ask anyone for a ride, and declined a ride offered by a passing motorist. No one has given a credible public explanation of why he was out there, and no one has given a credible public explanation of why he’d disabled his truck by driving it into a bale beside the highway earlier that day.

    There are several very serious problems in trying to reconcile the physical evidence with Craig Price’s supposed “reconstruction” of the crash, and it would be a mind-bending freak coincidence if Jason had been cruising down the shoulder inches from the edge of the pavement, with all four wheels outside the rumble strip, at the very spot where Joe was walking.

    These are the facts.

    If anyone wants to discuss the crash at the link below, I’d be glad to respond there:
    https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/01/19/incurious-sheriff-volek-saw-boevers-flashlight-at-ravnsborg-crash-scene-dismissed-it-as-reflection/#comment-406365

    “O” had written:

    Young Earthers cannot answer the starlight paradox: how can light from stars billions of light years away have reached earth in only 6,000 years?

    This is at least the fourth time you’ve directed the starlight question at me since 2018, and it’s at least the third time you’ve indicated that young-earth creationists “cannot answer” it. I’ve responded every time.

    Creationists have advanced several possible answers to the question. The earth may have been in a deep gravity well on the fourth day of the creation week, and gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface.

    Learn more here:
    https://www.livescience.com/what-is-time-dilation

  45. jerry 2022-02-06 22:05

    Conspiracy dude EVANS, here is your response that you will see each time you post your Bull

    Courtesy of bearcreekbat

    As I commented earlier, the reported symptoms of an overdose of this particular drug suggest physical reactions that directly contradicts Mr. Evans’ speculation that Joe had the physical capacity to suddenly jump out on the highway in front of a oncoming vehicle driving at or above 65 mph:
    Someone who has overdosed on lorazepam may experience a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms and exhibit telltale signs including:
    Drowsiness.
    Disorientation.
    Paradoxically increased anxiety or agitation.
    Involuntary eye movements.
    Blurry vision.
    Involuntary muscle contractions.
    Reduced muscle strength.
    Decreased reflexes and impaired reaction time.
    Profoundly lowered blood pressure.
    Severely slowed breathing.
    Unresponsiveness.
    Coma.
    Death,
    https://drugabuse.com/benzodiazepines/ativan/lorazepam-overdose/
    On the other hand, the listed symptoms of an Ativan OD apparently would have significantly slowed Joe’s physical reaction time making it much more difficult for him to jump out of the path of a car moving at or above highway speed that suddenly drifted onto the shoulder directly at him as he walked on the side of the road.

  46. Kurt Evans 2022-02-07 21:59

    “jerry” writes:

    Conspiracy dude EVANS, here is your response that you will see each time you post your Bull

    I’m posting the facts in which you pretend to be interested. Joe’s prescribed dosage of the psychotropic drug found in his crashed truck was up to 3 pills per day, and he’d apparently taken 78 of them since the day before the crashes.

    Maybe Craig Price should have gone all out and accused the attorney general of overdosing on psychotropic drugs and running Joe down on purpose. That scenario would have been far-fetched, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as far-fetched as the distraction-and-coincidence scenario he asserts.

    https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/01/28/robocalls-mobilize-citizens-to-call-impeachment-committee-and-urge-sensible-action-against-ravnsborg/#comment-407438

    “O” had written:

    Young Earthers cannot answer the starlight paradox: how can light from stars billions of light years away have reached earth in only 6,000 years?

    This is at least the fourth time you’ve directed the starlight question at me since 2018, and it’s at least the third time you’ve indicated that young-earth creationists “cannot answer” it. I’ve responded every time, and you’ve ignored my response every time.

  47. jerry 2022-02-07 22:53

    Conspiracy dude EVANS, here is your response to your bull

    As I commented earlier, the reported symptoms of an overdose of this particular drug suggest physical reactions that directly contradicts Mr. Evans’ speculation that Joe had the physical capacity to suddenly jump out on the highway in front of a oncoming vehicle driving at or above 65 mph:
    Someone who has overdosed on lorazepam may experience a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms and exhibit telltale signs including:
    Drowsiness.
    Disorientation.
    Paradoxically increased anxiety or agitation.
    Involuntary eye movements.
    Blurry vision.
    Involuntary muscle contractions.
    Reduced muscle strength.
    Decreased reflexes and impaired reaction time.
    Profoundly lowered blood pressure.
    Severely slowed breathing.
    Unresponsiveness.
    Coma.
    Death,
    https://drugabuse.com/benzodiazepines/ativan/lorazepam-overdose/
    On the other hand, the listed symptoms of an Ativan OD apparently would have significantly slowed Joe’s physical reaction time making it much more difficult for him to jump out of the path of a car moving at or above highway speed that suddenly drifted onto the shoulder directly at him as he walked on the side of the road.

  48. Kurt Evans 2022-02-08 22:25

    “O” writes:

    Young Earthers cannot answer the starlight paradox: how can light from stars billions of light years away have reached earth in only 6,000 years?

    This is at least the fourth time you’ve directed the starlight question at me since 2018, and it’s at least the third time you’ve indicated that young-earth creationists “cannot answer” it. I’ve responded every time, and you’ve ignored my responses every time:

    https://dakotafreepress.com/2018/10/19/i-♡-amanda-bachmann-so-should-district-24/#comment-118013

    Creationists have advanced several possible answers to the question. As I’ve been explaining here at Dakota Free Press for over five years, the earth may have been in a deep gravity well on the fourth day of the creation week, and gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface.

    Learn more here:
    https://www.livescience.com/what-is-time-dilation

    Have you seen any of my responses to your starlight question, “O”?

  49. grudznick 2022-02-08 22:31

    Mr. Evans writes:

    blah blah. Blah blah blah. Fake Science. blah blah

    grudznick clarifies:

    grudznick is a real scientist, and I speak #4Science. Do not pay attention to the 5 Gs. They are not rotting the brains of most fellows.

  50. jerry 2022-02-08 22:36

    EVANS is still in a deep gravity. Seek help man,

  51. Kurt Evans 2022-02-08 22:59

    “grudznick” accuses me:

    Fake Science.

    You and “jerry” both seem to know a lot more about “fake” than you know about science. It’s as if you’re coordinating your troll comments using the same half-brain.

    Learn more here:
    https://www.livescience.com/what-is-time-dilation

  52. All Mammal 2022-02-09 00:44

    When I divvy up my dad’s baby aspirin and folic acid each week, I take the pills(90 each) out of the bottles and put them into containers that he is able to open himself. And each day of the week has three compartments for morning noon and night so he doesn’t have to worry about overdosing, as long as he knows what day it is and whereabouts the sun is in the sky.

    So Mr. Evans, your assuming that Mr. Boever ate all the missing pills in the bottle is pretty arrogant. There are infinite possibilities where those pills may have wound up other than his belly.

    And I have insisted on walking my ass home many times. Even argued with friends who didn’t want me to walk at night alone in the ‘hood, and I wasn’t suicidal. I just wanted to walk alone at nighttime like Patsy Cline did.

    Furthermore, hitting a man out enjoying a summer night’s circumambulation on the other side of the solid yellow line on the road, the one that indicates the part vehicles are restricted to, is not astronomically unlikely like you imply. An accident is more likely to happen when you are in or around a town. Risk goes up the more frequent and longer periods you drive outside your clearly marked designated lane. The AG isn’t likely to truthfully admit to how many times and for how long he drifted across the line that night. And the late hour compounded with exhaustion from all the schmoozing at the party and the haughtiness of thinking the law doesn’t apply to the AG increase the likelihood of hitting the one pedestrian as well. Don’t forget the law of attraction in your formula too.

    Killing someone during the commission of a crime should have put the AG in cuffs and got the man booked in county and charged accordingly. I know people who have sat weeks in Pennington County squaller for nothing more than driving while not white and on a suspended license.

    So back your boy all you want but you are offensive and plain mean attempting to blame Mr. Boever with accusations he can’t refute….because your boy wantonly killed him. So tacky.

  53. bearcreekbat 2022-02-09 10:00

    I have to say that the points in All Mammal’s last comment makes a whole lot more sense than the ad infinitum repeated speculation of Evans.

  54. grudznick 2022-02-09 22:45

    Mr. Evans, who has yet to meet grudznick for dinner at that fancy SteerFish joint it is said he has some stake in, said:

    You and “jerry” both seem to know a lot more about “fake” than you know about science. It’s as if you’re coordinating your troll comments using the same half-brain.

    Who is this Mr. “jerry” you refer to regarding being a fellow scientist? As an entity all #4Science, and a student of Dr. McT who invented the movement all about #4Science, grudznick welcomes fellow Scientists. Like Mr. Jerry. He should join us for our steak dinner. grudznick will buy.

  55. jakc 2022-02-14 10:58

    “As a traditional Bible Protestant and former high school science teacher, I’m a supporter of this bill”

    Well, I’m pleased to see “former” in that sentence. But I’m a supporter of this bill too, if “teach the controversy” means finally teaching evolution in HS biology classes.
    I don’t imagine my junior high biology course, taught by none other than Jim Lintz, would have been much improved, but I suspect though that my HS biology teacher could have done a fine job teaching evolution.
    Evolution, and natural selection, won out 150 years ago over the various forms of creationism because they were better explanations for the variety of life. The creationist scientists of the 1850’s had largely abandoned biblical literalism.
    I read that a slight majority of Americans now believe in evolution, meaning that 40% do not. Frankly the majority don’t understand it. Remember the old saying, “there are no stupid questions”? Well, if you don’t understand why “if man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkey?” is a stupid question then you were probably never taught about evolution.
    So teach the controversy. I don’t think it will make too many kids into fundamentalists but I think it will make some fundamentalist kids question their beliefs.

    Also, and I couldn’t help myself here
    “Creationists have advanced several possible answers to the question. As I’ve been explaining here at Dakota Free Press for over five years, the earth may have been in a deep gravity well on the fourth day of the creation week, and gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface.”

    No. Just no.

    time dilation does not affect the speed of light; rather, it is an effect of the speed of light. Light (photons) travel through space, not time. A particle at the speed of light does not experience the passage of time; it is only slower particles that experience the passage of time. Ordinarily, we don’t notice that the faster we travel through space, the slower we travel through time, but we do (and every time you use a gps device is proof). That is what time dilation is, and it can’t explain how you can light from billions of years away if the universe is only 6,000 years old. I have no idea what this deep gravity well that the Earth was in for a day, or why that would even matter. As an answer, this is akin to making the Kesel rul in 12 parsecs

  56. jakc 2022-02-18 20:25

    My goodness Kurt

    This is why I don’t try to teach science to creationists. It’s like teaching a pig to sing – it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
    Kurt, I imagine you are a smart man. I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically. It takes a smart man to convince himself of such nonsense as the 6,000 year-old Earth, and once he goes down the rabbit hole he can make plenty of clever arguments to keep himself there. Hopefully someday you will be able to convince yourself that your understanding of the Bible is wrong. And you might perhaps think you can say the same thing about evolutionists, but no, you can’t.
    You drive around in a car, perhaps one using petroleum products found by one of those well-trained geological engineers from the School of Mines, oil found by those engineers because they understand that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. It’s how they know not to drill in eastern SD or Iowa, or even most of western SD. You might be using a GPS device in your car, one that depends on time dilation (both due to the effect of the speed of the satellite and the fact that the satellites sits higher in the gravity well – gravitational time dilation and velocity time dilation! Though really, time dilation is time dilation). In short, when it comes to practical matters, you believe in science.
    Now, since I’ve gone this far, I might as well pretend other people are reading this and explain gravitational time dilation and other matters.
    Newton thought that the speed of light changed depending on the frame of reference and that time was a constant. Smart man, but he was wrong. Scientists kept measuring the speed of light as a constant, regardless of the frame of reference. Einstein eventually realized that there are no privileged frames of reference and that the speed of light, and not time, is a constant. Thus, time dilation.
    A particle without invariant mass, such as a photon, does not acquire relativistic mass due to its velocity, and, in essence, always travels at the speed of light. If we consider space time as an X-Y graph, we would chart a photon at (C, 0), and a particle at complete rest (0,1), with C being the speed of light. Plot a line between those two points, and we’re all there. For those of us on Earth, with a starting speed of less than 0.0001C, it took a very long time before Einstein noticed that the faster you travel through space, the less you travel through time.
    A second consequence of traveling faster is that relativistic mass increases: the more massive you are, the slower you travel through time. Einstein recognized the connection between invariant mass (sometimes called rest mass) and relativistic mass (variant mass) and understood that if traveling faster led to more mass and time dilation, then more gravity would lead to more mass and time dilation. Time travels differently depending where you are on Earth (though the fact that you can spend a week in Lusk Wyoming in the course of an afternoon is an entirely different effect.)
    So how does light that starts a billion years away get to Earth in only 6,000 years?
    Well, a light year is about six trillion miles. 6,000,000,000,000 miles. And a billion light years is about 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. So in 6,000 years, light travels about 36,000,000,000,000,000. As you can see, that is only a small fraction of the distance.
    The short answer is that light a billion years away doesn’t get here in 6,000 years. And where does time dilation come into this? It doesn’t. Time dilation doesn’t change the distance
    You can imagine that the Earth was in a gravity well and suffered time dilation, so that only 6,000 years passed on Earth while the light had billions of years to get here, but that means the universe is billions of years old.
    Imagining that the Earth was in a deep gravity well on the fourth day of creation is an explanation, but it still means that the universe is billions of years old.
    And, it’s a complicated explanation. This gravity well would have caused extreme dilation differences across the Earth, and extreme stresses as well. It’s hard to understand why the Earth wasn’t pulled apart or why we don’t see any evidence of the this gravity well. It’s hard to understand how it explains anything because at the end of the day, gravity well solution or not, the universe is billions of year old.

    And now Kurt, you understand how gravitational time dilation works

  57. Nick Nemec 2022-02-19 09:58

    jakc, your efforts are futile. Kurt is stubborn and blinded by his own hardheadedness, once he makes up his mind on something, right or wrong, he will never change it, admitting past mistakes is beyond his ability. No amount of evidence or logical argument will change anything, he knows better than the rest of the world.

  58. jerry 2022-02-19 11:12

    True that. Great information jakc. Mr. Nemec is correct for sure. Evans reminds me of Ted Kaczynski.

  59. Porter Lansing 2022-02-19 11:15

    Muchos gracias, jakc.
    I learned mucho reading your post, Amigo or Amiga.

    I’ve stopped addressing The Old Country Singer’s neglected sons, but you go for it.
    I will predict (which is how you get the young fella’ to react) he’ll take your entire post and focus on the final sentence and two words.
    “you understand”

    Get big, Kurt. You owe it to yourself; with all you’ve gone through.

  60. Kurt Evans 2022-02-23 21:36

    “jakc” responds to me:

    You can imagine that the Earth was in a gravity well and suffered time dilation, so that only 6,000 years passed on Earth while the light had billions of years to get here, but that means the universe is billions of years old.

    I’m not imagining that the earth “suffered” time dilation any more than I’m imagining that the rest of the universe “suffered” time dilation. I’m also not imagining that 6,000 years or billions passed before the light from distant stars got here. I’m pointing out that gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface. If the surface of the earth is the frame of reference, that means the universe may be approximately 6,000 years old.

    You suggest that “there are no privileged frames of reference,” but you seem to demand privilege for yours.

    This gravity well would have caused extreme dilation differences across the Earth, and extreme stresses as well.

    No, the gravity potential may have been the same or nearly the same across the earth, allowing for little if any local gravitational stress or time dilation.

    Nick Nemec writes:

    Kurt is stubborn and blinded by his own hardheadedness, once he makes up his mind on something, right or wrong, he will never change it, admitting past mistakes is beyond his ability. No amount of evidence or logical argument will change anything, he knows better than the rest of the world.

    That’s five complete sentences and three comma splices, and Nick seems to be projecting.

    I’m a former old-earth macroevolutionist who used to feel sorry for young-earth creationists. I’m also a former liberal, turned conservative, turned paleoconservative, turned libertarian. I’ve admitted many past mistakes, and the claim that I’ll never change my mind about anything is absurd.

  61. grudznick 2022-02-23 22:27

    Mr. Evans says

    I’m a former old-earth macroevolutionist who used to feel sorry for young-earth creationists. I’m also a former liberal, turned conservative, turned paleoconservative, turned libertarian.

    As a hard-core libertarian in my soul and frequent luncher with Mr. Evans, grudznick says:

    I’ll entertain things in my mind about anything is absurd. I mean, why not? I’m a libertarian at heart like my good friend Bob.

  62. jakc 2022-02-26 16:23

    Thanks to the kind remarks from so many of you. Sorry I had to be away for so long, but I’ll try to wrap things up here.
    Many years ago, I was at a café looking at a chess problem in a newspaper. Another gentleman noticed and offered me a game. He thought because I was looking at a chess problem, I was a better player than I was. After less than ten moves, he stopped the game. He could see that I could not offer him a good game, and honestly, I could tell I was losing badly, even if I didn’t quite understand why. We talked about chess, and he recommended a couple of chess books available at a local book store. (Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev and A Chess Primer by the great Capablanca, if you’re interested). I didn’t debate him about chess. I listened, and bought the books, and am a much better chess player for having done so. Chess had always fascinated me, but chess is not religion. Devotion doesn’t count, and I needed to know a lot more about chess before beating me could be of any interest to a good player (at that point, in any game with a good player, losing was a foregone conclusion).

    And kids, this is why I don’t argue science with creationists

    “You suggest that “there are no privileged frames of reference,” but you seem to demand privilege for yours.”

    First, the fundamental point of Einstein’s work is that there are no privileged frames of reference. Unless this is meant as a joke, I’m not sure you understand what a frame of reference. Second, well there is no second. For anyone reading along, if you learn anything from this discussion, learn that.

    “I’m not imagining that the earth “suffered” time dilation any more than I’m imagining that the rest of the universe “suffered” time dilation. I’m also not
    imagining that 6,000 years or billions passed before the light from distant stars got here. I’m pointing out that gravitational time dilation may have allowed
    the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface. If the surface of the earth is the frame of reference, that
    means the universe may be approximately 6,000 years old.”

    I appreciate that you are being sincere Kurt, but you don’t seem to understand that this is not a refutation as to why time dilation doesn’t explain how light can travel billions of light years in only 6,000 years. It’s a confirmation. The amount of time dilation on earth doesn’t affect the distance the light has to travel or the time the light has to travel. To bring back the chess analogy, we are at a point in the game, where you don’t understand that you’ve left a knight hanging because your Queen can no longer defend it without giving up mate. I write “understand” and not “realize” for a reason. Even a good player can miss a move that blunders away a game, but afterwards, a good player will recognize when the position was lost. You don’t understand that your position is already lost even after I have explained it to you.

    In a game of chess, I could quickly demonstrate your error, but this is of course not a game of chess. I’m not going to argue this point further because I can see that you are wrong and that you won’t understand why until you understand more.
    I can see from your comments that you are feeling disrespected, but I am not disrespecting you. I am disrespecting your arguments. Your argument falls in the Emily Litella “What’s all this about endangered feces” class of argument. I think you are probably a smart man because it takes a smart man to convince himself of something so silly.

    “No, the gravity potential may have been the same or nearly the same across the earth, allowing for little if any local gravitational stress or time dilation.”

    No, just no. Only God could have designed this gravity well to achieve this effect. And if God did, well, why does God need a gravity well to do this?
    I can’t refute the argument “God created the universe 6,000 years ago and all hints otherwise are snares created by God to confuse us.” Believe it if you will, but it is not a scientific argument. I can refute creationism/young Earth as science, but if God did all these things, well then God did. I don’t believe God did. I don’t know why God would create so many traps to lead us astray. Even when scientists believed in creationism, it was never science. It was simply the best explanation that they had. It is why evolution replaced creationism in science – it is not only a better explanation, but it is science.

    Think about the science of Star Trek, that beloved show for SF fans who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. The science of Star Trek at least had a veneer of credibility, unlike Lost in Space or Space 1999, where every bit of science was ludicrous. A whole SF culture arose, trying to make sense of the details, trying to make those details work together, a whole Star Trek apologetics. In the end though, it can’t be done. The logic and implications of the science were sacrificed for the stories, and when you break past the veneer, the science of Star Trek makes no sense because it was never meant to make literal sense.

    Years ago, I was driving across the west late at night on one of those lonesome, non-interstate roads, and I was listening to a fundamentalist preacher on the radio. He started with how there were once prophets, there were no new prophets – a shot at the Mormons I suppose – because we have the Bible now. He then explained that all you need is the Bible, the word of God. As he preached, I had a thought. All a fundamentalist preacher needs to do is to teach people how to read. I don’t need you to explain the Bible to me – it’s the word of God, and your explanation is the word of man. If I can read, God won’t lead me astray. People might. The idea that the Bible tells us that the Earth is only 6,000 years old is the work of men, not God.

    The Bible has two creation stories, the Seven Days story and the Adam and Eve story. Again, for those reading along, you might pause here to re-read Genesis, and you will clearly see these are two distinct stories. They are also contradictory in some of the details, contradictions that could easily have been harmonized by the person who wrote these stories down. That person believed in God but saw no reason to make sure that every word of the story could be literally true and did not. For any of you who wish to believe the Bible is the word of God, understand that other people have believed it to be the word of God without requiring it to be literally true in all things. When Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, he means for his apostles to understand what it is to be a good neighbor and a servant of God. Is the story less true if it is not literally true?

    Imagine you are at the Pearly Gates, and God is questioning you about your right to enter.

    God: “You can enter if you produce a passenger pigeon.”
    You: “God, you gave them to us for food. We ate them all.”
    God: “There were millions, and you killed them all for food? I gave them to you for food, but a good farmer saves some seed.” (Sighs and tries again) “Well, show me a Carolina parakeet. They didn’t taste good, and surely there must be a few around.”
    You: “Well, the feathers were really pretty in hats. And we wanted to farm all the land they lived on, so they’re gone too.”
    God thinks for a moment. “Well, how about a Dodo? There must be Dodos left. They didn’t taste good, they didn’t have pretty feathers and they were on a remote island.”
    You: “Uhh . . . no. We found them. Turns out they remembered Noah and they ran right up to us. And they might not have tasted good, but when a sailor has been at sea eating salt pork for months, any poultry tastes good. So they’re gone too.”
    God isn’t pleased but tries one time. “Alright, I’ve got one. It’s from a remote island, it doesn’t taste good and it’s shy about people. The Tasmanian tiger.”
    You: “Nope. We were worried that they would kill sheep. And we wanted to raise sheep on their land.”
    God: “So, you were worried that the Tasmanian tiger would kill so many sheep, the shepherds would starve to death?”
    You: “Well, no, but they would have made less money.”
    God: “Didn’t you even try to keep some alive?”
    You: “We tried to keep them alive in zoos, but they wouldn’t breed.”
    God: “I didn’t create them to live in zoos. Why didn’t you just free the last few and let them breed the way I intended?”
    You: (rather uncomfortably) “Well, the sheep thing . . .”
    God: “Tell me, do you believe in the story of Noah?”
    You: “Yes I do. Every word of it.”
    God: “So you know how I had Noah save two of every living thing, and how after the flood I said I wouldn’t destroy them again because humans were evil? And how I made a covenant with humans, and with every living thing?”
    You: (nervously) “Errr . . .yes. . .”
    God: “And you believed?”
    You: (enthusiastically) “Yes!”
    God: “Well, before I send you to Hell, would you mind telling me what part of that story you didn’t understand?”

    I for one am astounded when the meaning that fundamentalists take from that story is that evolution isn’t true rather than that they ought to be the most ardent conservationists on the planet and that protecting God’s creation ought to be their most fundamental principle.
    I mean any of you who lived off-campus at college can look around and see, whatever else, we are not getting our damage deposit back.
    And now, the short version of the Pearly Gates story: You: (to God) “Is there where we enter Heaven?” God: “No. You just came from Heaven.”

    To make a long story short: Think differently. Stop thinking God is trying to fool us and accept that God’s creation works in much the way it appears to us. Learn to read the Bible in a way that doesn’t make you deny science.

    Or just enjoy it like Star Trek – a crackling good story with some positive moral lessons and really bad science.

  63. Porter Lansing 2022-02-26 19:29

    Hear, hear jakc #outstanding

  64. jerry 2022-02-26 20:17

    I am more convinced than ever that Christian fundamentalists are the most dangerous animals on the face of the planet. Black Mamba’s were close, but these fundamentalist young earthers, are far more slimy and dangerous. Humanity will do much better when they become as extinct as the Dodo.

  65. Kurt Evans 2022-02-26 21:26

    I’d written:

    I’m pointing out that gravitational time dilation may have allowed the light from distant stars to reach the earth while less than 24 hours elapsed on its surface.

    “jakc” writes:

    The amount of time dilation on earth doesn’t affect … the time the light has to travel.

    Actually it does.

    I can see from your comments that you are feeling disrespected, but I am not disrespecting you… I think you are probably a smart man because it takes a smart man to convince himself of something so silly.

    You’re obviously disrespecting me.

    Only God could have designed this gravity well to achieve this effect. And if God did, well, why does God need a gravity well to do this?

    I’m not sure He does.

    It is why evolution replaced creationism in science – it is not only a better explanation, but it is science.

    Microevolution using recombinations of preexisting genetic information can be scientifically observed. Macroevolution requiring new genetic information can’t.

    The idea that the Bible tells us that the Earth is only 6,000 years old is the work of men, not God.

    The Bible doesn’t say the earth is exactly 6,000 years old, but the historical evidence that it’s approximately 6,000 years old is the work of both God and humans.

    [The Seven Days story and the Adam and Eve story are] contradictory in some of the details …

    Actually they’re not.

    When Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, he means for his apostles to understand what it is to be a good neighbor and a servant of God. Is the story less true if it is not literally true?

    No, but your supposed analogy fails on multiple levels.

  66. jerry 2022-02-26 21:54

    Very funny Evans

  67. All Mammal 2022-02-27 00:55

    I love and appreciate when knowledge and hard-earned wisdom is generously given to anyone willing to chomp it up. For free! Thank ya kindly everyone dropping gems.

  68. Anne Beal 2022-02-27 08:45

    Teachers who object to parents looking over their shoulders are trying to hide something.

    Many years ago, my son, who had been President of the Senior Class, active in Debate & Drama, got early acceptance to USD….and needed remedial math when he got there. That was a shock: Paying college tuition for what was supposed to be free in high school.

    My daughter’s history classes consisted of watching an “historic” (costume piece) soap opera. Her math classes consisted of watching videos of basketball games. She was having a terrible time in math. My attempts to assist her were blocked because her test papers consisted solely of a numbered list of answers. No problems, no calculations, just answers. For all either I or her teacher knew, she was making the same mistake over and over. I didn’t even know if the problems were multiplication or division, as there was nothing on the paper but answers, and half were marked wrong. I began to understand why my first-born had needed remediation.

    Another day, I was standing outside a classroom waiting one day and overheard a different history teacher’s lesson on John Winthrop: “there’s a picture of him in your book, he had some interesting ideas.”
    That was it.
    Open enrollment came along just in time and I got her out of there.

    Many years ago I heard an account of a lesson about the attack on Pearl Harbor as delivered by a teacher on the west coast (I have some recollection that it was in the state of Washington but not sure.)
    It was supposed to be inspiring, or something, because the teacher explained to the kids “the worst thing about it was, nobody ever said they were sorry.”
    The worst thing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, the worst thing about the US entering WWII, was that nobody ever said they were SORRY???

    What’s sorry is the state of education, that’s what’s sorry.
    It’s taken a long time for the parents to catch on to this mess.

    Too bad if the teachers don’t like it. Maybe it’s time for teachers to tell us they’re sorry.

  69. larry kurtz 2022-02-27 08:52

    South Dakota deserves Republicans like Mrs. Beal.

    Despite urging from the primate of the Church of of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers to get inoculated during a pandemic a Sioux Falls, South Dakota school district with ties to the sect has joined a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing/masking mandate. Representing the Diocese of Sioux Falls pro bono is the Alliance Defending Freedom, identified as a hate group in 2016 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

  70. larry kurtz 2022-02-27 09:16

    Mrs. Beal’s reactionary, brittle and heartless Republican comrades are the same people who publish the Winner Advocate and are canceling their subscriptions to the Tristate Neighbor after Janelle Atyeo published a story of two men who fell in love and got married.

    https://www.agupdate.com/tristateneighbor/livestock/beef/something-new-coming-from-varied-backgrounds-in-the-livestock-industry-couple-finds-common-goal-in/article_a17c93a8-8ce9-11ec-84d6-e74f73480410.html

  71. jakc 2022-02-27 14:49

    I had intended to let Kurt have the last remarks on this topic, as am I satisfied with what I have written, and what a fair reader would decide, but there is one point I need to address.

    My responses have been made with an effort to treat people kindly, but perhaps I lack the tact of an old professor of mine. I heard him respond to a question in class once that showed the student had learned absolutely nothing. He didn’t berate the student for failing to learn, or even shame the student – the premise of the question was both ignorant and offensive – but handled it with grace, gently explaining why the premise of the question was completely wrong.

    Kurt tells me I have disrespected him. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity, and so I will apologize

    Kurt, I am sorry for having disrespected you

  72. Bob Newland 2022-02-27 15:20

    Kurt deserves respect as a troubled human being. His goofy opinions deserve none.

  73. Bob Newland 2022-02-27 15:25

    Anne Beal, if we accept your anecdotes as accurate depictions of the respective events, they are, indeed, reflections of the sorry state of education.

    But if you present them as evidence of why we should accept Jensen’s “creation science,” you are joining with the problem.

  74. grudznick 2022-02-27 19:52

    Mr. jakc, I shall make sure to point out to Mr. Evans the unintended feelings of disrespect he felt were not intended by you, sir. Mr. Evans and I often discuss respect and civility over biscuits and gravy, so I am sure he will take it very well. As long as he’s on his meds that day.

  75. jakc 2022-02-27 20:36

    Thank you grudznick

  76. Kurt Evans 2022-02-27 21:58

    I’d written:

    Microevolution using recombinations of preexisting genetic information can be scientifically observed. Macroevolution requiring new genetic information can’t.

    “jakc” writes:

    I had intended to let Kurt have the last remarks on this topic …

    Unless you believe the origination of new genetic information can be scientifically observed, you don’t seem to have much choice.

    In a previous comment, “jakc” had written:

    This is why I don’t try to teach science to creationists. It’s like teaching a pig to sing …

    Now he writes:

    My responses have been made with an effort to treat people kindly …

    If that were true, it would be obvious that you’d failed.

    Kurt tells me I have disrespected him. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity, and so I will apologize …

    You’ve given me many reasons to doubt your sincerity, so I’m unable to accept.

    In another previous comment, “jakc” had written:

    I have no idea … why [a deep gravity well] would even matter. As an answer, this is akin to making the Kesel rul [sic] in 12 parsecs …

    The Millennium Falcon made the Kessel run in approximately 12 parsecs after its navicomputer mapped a shorter and faster route through the Akkadese Maelstrom. It appears that you eventually googled gravitational time dilation. If you’re going to attempt analogies with fiction, maybe you should google this too.

    I’m not disrespecting you. I think you’re probably a smart man because it takes a smart man to argue about things you don’t understand with the demeanor of a pompous, egomaniacal windbag. (/irony)

  77. Kurt Evans 2022-03-02 20:28

    Larry Kurtz writes:

    2 billion year old rock (give or take 100,000 years or so) is exposed in the Elk Creek area.

    I’m not seeing this at the link you posted, Larry. What’s your source? And how was the age of the rock supposedly determined?

  78. Nick Nemec 2022-03-03 06:21

    Larry Kurtz, I hope you realize Kurt Evans is an expert on many things, maybe even most things, possibly all things. Methods of aging rock strata are just one of his areas of expertise, his talents are wasted on this lowly blog. We should be honored with his presence.

  79. larry kurtz 2022-03-03 06:58

    It’s true, Mr. Nemec. Mr. Evans is a performance artist like Tucker Carlson is: make stuff up then display it for an audience.

  80. jerry 2022-03-03 08:24

    Good for his mental health when the pills wear off.

  81. mike from iowa 2022-03-03 08:57

    How old are the oldest rock fragments located in the Black Hills?
    In general, the oldest rocks in South Dakota were formed more than 2 billion years ago, during the Precambrian Period. They consist of the granites and metamorphic found in the core of the Black Hills.Sep 5, 2017

  82. Nick Nemec 2022-03-03 09:26

    mike from iowa, you are oviously ignoring the gravitational time dilation Mr. Evans previously explained.

  83. mike from iowa 2022-03-03 10:27

    I hope so, Mr Nemec. Inadvertently or not. I should have added Christ wasn’t even a gleam in is Dad’s eye back then.

  84. jerry 2022-03-03 10:32

    The dilation of Evans eyes, is what tells the tall tale.

  85. Kurt Evans 2022-03-03 17:44

    “mike from iowa” had written:

    In general, the oldest rocks in South Dakota were formed more than 2 billion years ago …

    That claim appears to have been copy-and-pasted from a free promotional tourism publication, which of course makes no attempt to tell its readers how the age of the rocks was supposedly determined.

    Nick Nemec responds:

    mike from iowa, you are oviously ignoring the gravitational time dilation Mr. Evans previously explained.

    As I’d noted last week in one of my comments above, the gravity potential may have been the same or nearly the same across the earth, allowing for little if any local gravitational stress or time dilation.

    “mike from iowa” writes:

    I should have added Christ wasn’t even a gleam in is Dad’s eye back then.

    According to the first chapter of John’s Gospel, Christ was with God the Father in the beginning.

    Here are verses 1, 14, and 17:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… The Law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

  86. larry kurtz 2022-03-03 18:38

    It’s important to remember HB 1172 went down in flames a month ago because it simply served as red meat to the tiny gaggle of christianic religionists who wish some supernatural extraterrestrial will save the planet from socialism.

  87. mike from iowa 2022-03-03 18:51

    .Here are verses 1, 14, and 17: Prove these are factual.

  88. jerry 2022-03-03 20:01

    Evans, here are some verses that I like
    “Please allow me to introduce myself
    I’m a man of wealth and taste
    I’ve been around for a long, long year
    Stole many a man’s soul and faith

    I was ’round when Jesus Christ
    Had his moment of doubt and pain
    Made damn sure that Pilate
    Washed his hands and sealed his fate

    Sing along

  89. All Mammal 2022-03-03 20:50

    The laws given to Moses don’t quite cut the mustard. God is not man, therefore she would have made a final draft without the absence of commands such as:
    -Thou shalt not rape
    -Thou shall not abuse children
    -Thou best not torture or subjugate life
    -Thou should refrain from playing God with life
    -Thou bet not besludge the land, air, or water. In fact, worship that fine holy trinity: water, ice, cloud molecule
    -Thou shall take only what you need
    -And wash yo ass.

    But then again, all children are already aware of such basics. So we really don’t need a book or chiseled tab to tell us not to screw our moms or crap where we eat. Oh wait, those aren’t included either.

    I’m not so sure Thou shall not kill is entirely applicable. If an alien landed in the street and looked like he was going to do gnarly things here, I think that commandment is bunk; hit the gas and run that freak over.

    Seems some guy, a goombah if you will, told Moses to be obedient to his vain, self-flattering laws. Its only when shifty devils lack self knowledge; (aka are not aware of their own dissension from God or are not aware of their own likeness to God) insecurities and bumbling arrogance cause the upcoming zombie apocalypse pt. gazillion.

    The deluge should be here any minute thanks to Xenobots and CERN and GMOs and CRISPr and biohacking. Its this tendency man has to defile ourselves and the planet that old storybooks should preach about.

  90. mike from iowa 2022-03-04 10:20

    Little gift of reality and truth to you, Kurt Evans, from a lady who knows of such things, Sheila kennedy.

    https://sheilakennedy.net/2022/03/jesus-and-john-wayne/

    White fake kristians have no connection to the alleged jesus of the kristian bible.

  91. grudznick 2022-03-04 10:48

    I found a pretty old rock the other day when they drove me through Spearfish Canyon on the way to sup and retrohale at Steerfish Steak and Smoke. They told me that canyon near where Mr. Evans lives has rocks that are 600,000,000 years old. That’s older than my rock, I’m sure.

  92. jerry 2022-03-04 12:20

    John Wayne was a racist draft dodger who said ““I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that’s what you’re asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/reason/2017/01/31/fact-check-did-john-wayne-express-racist-views-to-blacks-and-american-indians/984860007/

    John Wayne was just like these fakey christian nationalists, pro putin and anti American.

  93. jakc 2022-03-10 13:54

    To Mike from Iowa

    The oldest precambrian rocks in the Black Hills are the granites and the slates, ranging from 1.8 billion to perhaps 2.5 billion years old. The Roadside Geology of South Dakota is an excellent general interest guide, written by Dr. JP Gries, who taught at the School of Mines for more than 40 years. The book is based on his field notes, and you can keep a copy in the car for your enjoyment when you are out driving around. There may still be a few old-timers in the oil patch who found the oil you’re using in car by applying the geology lessons they learned from Dr Gries. A recent book dealing with mountain uplift in North America, with some attention to the Black Hills, is How the Mountains Grew by John Dvorak (which also includes some details on radiometric dating)

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