Vance and Korelei Nelson
Creation Truth Ministries is a Canadian evangelical organisation run by a husband and wife team – Vance and Korelei Nelson. They have both been involved in proselytising creationism in the UK, including in state education. The Nelsons were part of the team that John Mackay planned to put into Millfield School in Lancashire in the Spring of 2006.
Indeed, the Nelsons went on to teach creationism at a private summer camp which was associated with Mackay’s tour. At the time, CTM’s web site bragged that it was making presentations in state schools, but, in the fine tradition of fundamentalism, failed to inform anyone what schools were involved. Obviously the British public and parents of children at the schools were of no importance to the Nelsons.
CTM appears to be closely allied to John Mackay’s Creation Research International as part of a network of affiliated individuals and organisations. For example, in August 2006 Mackay and Vance Nelson appeared together on religious television in Canada. They worked together in 2005.
CTM’s main geographic area of coverage is Western Canada – Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Colombia. It is based in Alberta. In general creationism is a lot less entrenched in Canada than it is in the USA with its baggage of social backwardness.
CTM’s stage props basically consist of a travelling “museum” of fossils and the party piece of the fossilised teddy-bear (we jest not).
CTM allows teddy bears to be sprayed with water at a high temperature and mineral content for about a fortnight. The effect is the same as that which occurs in any area of hard water (high in calcium carbonate). The stuff gets deposited on, and in, the Teddy Bear.
This, to the fantasy world of Nelson, is evidence that fossilisation takes places quickly and therefore there are no old fossils. They are all 6,000 years old or less. Nelson, who is not a chemist, claims that the trick he is doing is the same as the permineralisation process which accounts for about half (his claim) of fossil dinosaur bones.
It is an easy trick to convince the gullible of his wisdom. Except that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. What he appears to be doing is showing something that's moderately common in nature and often goes under the loose name of petrifaction (it’s wrongly used in that context). You can find this sort of thing on the Isle of Purbeck, for example. Neolithic shells and leaves have been “preserved” in a spring with a high concentration of calcium carbonate (much of the strata in Purbeck is either chalk or Limestone).
In these circumstances, the deposit can build up around or inside the object on which it is being deposited, leaving the original material largely intact.
In the case of fossil dinosaur bones, the same process really doesn’t occur. All of the soft material of the creature disappears long before fossilisation begins to occur. In about half of cases, minerals are deposited out and in the bone (which is porous and has cavities) so that the bone (and only the bone) material may get preserved. This is called permineralisation.
In practice, though, chemical reactions between the preserving minerals and the bone material alters the bone material or, in many cases, completely replaces it. The latter process is called petrifaction. In some cases the outer part of the fossil bone may be wholly of petrified material whilst the inner part may be permineralised. In practice what Nelson claims to be permineralised fossil bones are frequently part permineralised and part petrified.
His Teddy Bear is a con-man’s sleight of hand to try and convince the gullible that all fossils are less than 6,000 years old. Nelson claims that his Teddy Bears are examples of permineralisation. They are not. They are nothing of the sort whatsoever. They are technically examples of entombment, not fossilisation.
He also uses them to claim that they show fossils could be created very quickly; unfortunately the Teddy bears do not explain what really happens – bones do not tend to become fossils within 6,000 years. Nor do the Teddy Bears explain cast and/or mold fossil bones or petrified fossil bones.
This is what some of our contacts have commented on Nelson’s “science”:
The anti-evolutionists are very weak in chemistry and time scales. Let's look first at the composition of bone: it is mostly calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, and calcium apatite (a mixed phosphate and carbonate), and a little silicate.
When buried for millions of years, and exposed to heat and hot water solutions that contain small amounts of dissolved iron, manganese, and particularly silicon (as silicates), a very slow replacement and re-deposition process occurs. Everything is slightly soluble, and phosphates slightly more than silicates. The process is abetted when the solution is acidic, as often occurs (owing to sulphides and sulphates), and attacks the carbonate components. It can also be abetted when the solution is highly alkaline, as occurs in sodic solutions, pH>9. The result is gradual transformation of phospho-carbonates with complex silicates, usually related to orthoclases and plagioclases. Electronegativity and solution potentials are important, too. The process is abetted by high pressures—almost always the new crystalline compound has lower molar volume than the original.
The fundies do not recognise that 'instincts' about what happens in a chem lab over minutes is vastly different when imagined over 100+ million years, at high temperatures, at high pressures, and under anaerobic conditions.
I know this is quite generalised, but looking up the rate equations for P (valence 4) being replaced by Si (4) as a function of temperature and pressure exceeds my energy.
It's possible, though rare --- it sometimes happens that the outer layer of the bone becomes mineralised first, and since this is impervious to water, no more minerals can be carried inside the bone.
It was one of the reasons why it was hoped that ancient DNA could be extracted from fossil bones (but alas, it now appears as if every known instance of ancient DNA is just contamination).
(Lenny Flank, BCSE member.)
