More Comments from Readers – Part III

Here are more comments that we have received from readers of this website blog: 
    Comment #1: “When I read your series about the tree ring data, I was greatly impressed, and it brought back to mind something I heard during a rather heated college class debate a few years ago, but had since forgotten about it. I think it was called something like cross-disturbances or matching or something like that, which would show longer dates than actual without multiple annual tree ring production. Do you know anything about that?” Vince N.
    Response: Thank you for your comment. As for your question, I imagine you are referring to the existence of Migrating Ring-Disturbing Events, what is sometimes called Natural Disturbance Frequency, or the natural causes of tree ring production disturbance. This can result from such things as insect attack, earthquakes, releases of gas, etc. If such disturbances occur at sufficient frequency, and reappear in sequence in other trees at later times, the actually-contemporaneous trees would cross-match in an age-staggered manner, thus creating an artificially longer chronology.

To illustrate this, let’s take a simplified situation in just three trees: tree A, tree B, and tree C. Let’s say they started growing at exactly the same time, and each lived exactly 500 years. If nothing happened in those five centuries, the tree-ring series would normally cross-match perfectly (with each other) according to climatic signal, with the crosmatch point starting with the first ring of each tree. That is, all the constituents of the three-tree chronology would overlap completely, creating a chronology that spans exactly 500 years.
    On the other hand, let’s say that an external disturbance causes rings 2, 6, 9, 14, etc., in Tree A to grow much bigger or smaller than they otherwise would. At about this time, rings 1, 7, 10, 13, etc. are perturbed in Tree B. 300 years after the disturbance of the growth of the rings in Tree A, the sequence of disturbances repeats in Tree B, affecting rings 302, 306, 309, 314, etc. Now this repetition does not have to be exact, since such discrepancies can be covered by inferred missing rings, which are common in the Bristlecone Pine chronology. So, 400 years after the disturbances in the early rings of Tree B, similar disturbances occur in Tree C, affecting rings 401, 407, 410, 413, etc. (Of course, identical reasoning can be applied to many more trees over a much longer period of time.)
    The net result is the fact that Trees A, B, and C (and whatever others we include) will no longer cross-match across their 500-year common growth history. They will now only cross-match at their ring-perturbed ends. The result is an illusory chronology that is 1200 years long, not the accurate 500 years.
    Such cross-matching experiments have been conducted by scientists that show it is only necessary to disturb two or three rings per decade, sustained across at least a few decades, in order to override the climatic signal, and to cause the tree-ring series to artificially cross-match at the ring-perturbed ends.

This information is often presented by John Woodmorappe (a pseudonym), who has written at least 7 books and more than 18 articles showing fallacies in many current scientific dogmas, and is an outspoken critic of radiometric dating methods (The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods), to which he has drawn much ire from mainstream scientists. His “Young Earth Creationist” views often elicit heated debates with “Old Earth Advocates.”
    Comment #2: “You mention Alma 46:41 about plants and herbs the Lord prepared for the Nephites and cover quinine of the Chinchona tree, but having recently returned from several years in the area, there are many other plants and herbs known throughout Peru and the Andes that are unique in the healing powers, including the plant Ayahuasca” Janie Irena K.
    Response: Indeed there are. We have referred to a few over the numerous articles on the subject, and Ayahuasca, which refers to a medicinal drink incorporating two or more distinctive plant species, produce profound mental and physical (and some say spiritual) effects when brewed together.

Ayahuasca (left), the giant woody liana vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) mixed with the leaves of chacruna (Psychotria viridis) and oco yagé; also known as chalipanga, chagraponga, and huambisa (Diplopterys cabrerana), are known thoughout the Andean area, including Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and western Brazil. In fact, at least 42 indigenous names are used for this preparation, and at least 72 different indigenous tribes of Amazonia, despite being widely separated by distance, language, and cultural differences, all manifested a detailed common knowledge of ayahuasca and its use. Still, it is only one of many medicinal and useful plants known in the Andes.
    For thousands of years people of the Andes and the Amazon have relied on herbal medicines to treat common ailments like headaches, infections and inflammations. Today, along with modern medicine, people continue utilizing the same plants with these positive health benefits! Many of these medicinal plants are native to the Amazon and the Andes of Peru, such as Uña de gato (Cat’s Claw), contain high levels of alkaloids that activate the immune system, reduce inflammation, protect against tumor growth and carcinogens; Achiote, good for digestion asthma and antimalarial medicine; Sacha Inchi, a nut known for its extra virgin oil, and has incredibly high levels of Omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids, even more than fish oil; Muña, like an herbal tea that has high levels of calcium and phosphorous and is good for bones and teeth and prevents osteoporosis; and the list goes on and on, with Maca, Coca, Sangre de Grado, etc.
    Comment #3: ”You were right in the last of your articles on “How Far Back Can We Measure Dates? Part XII,” when you wrote “For those who feel we belabored this point far beyond the need over the last several posts, we apologize.” I really got tired of reading the dating stuff over and over again. It was like reading the first half of your first book about winds and currents. Seems you could have condensed all of this considerably” Albert J.
    Response: Thank you for your suggestion. It is always a difficult decision as to how much to write about on a given subject. The problem stems from knowing how much of the opposite view is within the public conscience, i.e., how deeply the error has been engrained in people’s thinking. As an example, it takes the public a long time to accept something—Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and his somewhat revolutionary idea of evolution (Jean de Monet Lamarack, Charles Lyell, Robert Chambers, Alfred R. Wallace, etc.) was not completely accepted in all of its tenets until the 1930s and 1940s, and his centerpiece of evolutionary biology and sexual selection received little attention before 1970! It took more than 100 years to overcome what was in the public conscience regarding the “Great Chain of Being,” i.e., 6000 year old Earth and "God created man" beliefs.
    This is probably because once people buy into an idea, they often cannot be moved from it without a great deal of effort. In this sense, when M. Wells Jakeman earned his doctorate in archaeology and history at UC Berkeley in 1938, and placed the Land of Promise in Mesoamerica, it began a series of events at BYU starting in 1946 with the creation of the first archaeology department that led to hundreds of students being taught that the Book of Mormon lands were located in Mesoamerica.

In fact, the first expedition from BYU archaeology (above) was to Aguacatal, Campeche, Mexico, considered then to be the probable Book of Mormon city of Bountiful, (2^nd thru 6^th expeditions 1948-1961 were also to this location), and culminating in 1984 with John L. Sorenson’s seminal work, “An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon.”
    The point is, since then, anyone (member or critic) talking about the Book of Mormon Land of Promise, home of the Jaredites, Mulekites and Nephites, think Mesoamerica.
    The winds and currents were written about in my first book and numerous subsequent posts in this blog, to try and overcome the fact that in 600 B.C., in a ship “driven forth before the wind,” the only location that could have been reached would be along the Chilean or Peruvian coast of South America. However, that does not change the fact that thousands of people still think Mesoamerica, no matter how illogical that location has become based on modern knowledge, discovery and technology.
    It takes time to overcome people’s erroneous thinking. It takes a bombardment of truthful facts over extended time of repetition to get new ideas to sink down into the public conscience. For those who readily accept truth, it need not be that way—but most people “fight against the pricks,” when dealing with the truth and repetition is constantly required. I apologize for the difficulty this presents to some of you.