The goal of this blog is to create a list of super facts. Important facts that are true with very high certainty and yet surprising, misunderstood, or disputed by many. This blog aims to be challenging, educational, and fun, without it being clickbait. I determine veracity using evidence, data from reputable sources and longstanding scientific consensus. Prepare to be challenged (I am). Intentionally seek the truth not confirmation of your belief.
Superfact 21: Neutering or spaying a dog at 6 months old can be dangerous to their health depending on breed. It is often recommended that you should neuter or spay your dog by the age of 6 months even as early as 8 weeks. This may be OK for some smaller breeds but is dangerous to the health and longevity of many larger breeds.
Many dog welfare organizations, SPCA, ASCA, etc., recommend that dogs are neutered or spayed by the age of 6 months, or even as early as 8 weeks. It is also a common advice in dog books.
In addition, some veterinarians still hold onto this belief. It is easy to understand why. Dogs running loose and causing unwanted pregnancies resulting in puppies having to be euthanized is a sad problem we don’t want.
Unfortunately, research has shown that neutering or spaying a dog at 6 months old can be dangerous to their health depending on the breed. You may need to wait 18 months or two years, and some breeds should not be neutered at all. In addition to the scientists in the relevant fields, professional and certified breeders, AKC and dog breed clubs and veterinarians who kept themselves informed on this issue are all aware of this.
In other words, we know this to be true, it is an important fact since so many of us own a dog, roughly half of all US households do, and yet this information is highly surprising to many. This is why I consider it a super fact.
This is our Labrador Baylor and German Shepherd Baby. Too early neutering and spaying can severely harm their health.
This less than a year-old article from the AKC states that “an age of six to nine months of age may be appropriate for neutering or spaying a toy breed puppy or small breed puppy but a larger or giant breed may need to wait until they are near or over 12-18 months of age.” The article also provides the following interesting information.
Research conducted by the University of California – Davis reveals that for some dog breeds, neutering and spaying may be associated with the increased risks of certain health conditions such as joint disorders including hip or elbow dysplasia, cranial cruciate rupture or tear, and some cancers, such as lymphoma, mast cell tumor, hemangiosarcoma, and osteosarcoma.
The research conclusions are not surprising. Sex hormones are important in the development of any animal. We know they affect psychological development as well as the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and the immune system.
I believe this is the University of California – Davis article in question. It is from 2020. Notice that the suggested guidelines for age of neutering is beyond 23 months for several of the giant breeds in the table featuring 35 breeds.
Our three months old Leonberger Bronco. The Leonberger is a giant breed you can neuter when they are older than two years old.
Recommended Ages for Neutering and Spaying
Below is a list of recommended ages for neutering and spaying for selected dog breeds.
Australian Shepherd, for neutering and spaying it is your choice.
Bernese Mountain Dog, you should neuter beyond the age of 23 months, but for spaying you have a free choice.
Boxer, neuter and spay beyond the age of 23 months.
Boston Terrier, neuter beyond 11 months, but for spaying you have a free choice.
Doberman Pincher, never neuter, and you need to spay beyond the age of 23 months.
German Shepherd, neuter and spay beyond the age of 23 months.
Corgi, neuter beyond 6 months, but for spaying you have a free choice.
Great Dane, despite being a very large dog you have a free choice for both neutering and spaying.
Rottweiler, neuter beyond 11 months, but for spaying beyond 6 months.
Our mini-Australian Shepherd puppy Rollo. You can neuter this breed at an earlier age.
We used to own a male Leonberger dog, which is a giant breed. Our breeder told us to wait beyond two years before neutering him, for health reasons. This article from Hillhaven Leonbergers states the following “We recommend not neutering until at least 2 years of age…Some Vets would recommend from 6 months but this is NOT a good idea.” To read more about the neutering and spaying of Leonberger dogs click here.
Our Leonberger dog Bronco is giving me a hug. He was about one year old in the picture. That is still too early to neuter him.
This article from the Saint Bernard Club of America states that “above all, no giant breed puppy should be altered before the growth plates in the bones have matured and closed, usually between 15 and 24 months of age.” This Newfoundland dog magazine states : Currently, the recommended age that a Newfoundland dog should be neutered is 18 to 24 months due to the possible health problems that can arise from altering before that age.
According to the article above you should wait to neuter Saint Bernard Dogs until they are close to two years old. Saint Bernard Stock Photo ID: 1713912484 by fred12.According to the article above you should wait to neuter Newfoundland Dogs until they are between 18 to 24 months old. Newfoundland dog Stock Photo ID: 1925281937 by Marsan.
Even though the expert advice regarding the best age for neutering and spaying varies, it is clear that doing it at six months old is too early for many breeds and can harm their health.
Superfact 17: Fossil fuels kill a lot more birds per gigawatt hour than wind power does. Cats, windows, cars, poison and powerlines are examples of things that kill a lot more birds than wind power does. Wind power killing birds is not the huge environmental problem it is often made out to be.
Wind power killing birds is often mentioned as a slam dunk environmentally based argument against wind power and evidence for the hypocrisy of environmentalists. This is misguided. Wind power killing birds is a real problem and it should be addressed, and it is being addressed. No energy source comes without environmental problems. However, wind turbines account for only a small fraction of overall bird deaths compared to other human causes. It is not a good argument against wind power, and it does not demonstrate any hypocrisy by environmentalists. In fact, a study made in 2012 (overview here) concluded that fossil fuels killed 24 million birds per year in the US, which correspond to 35 times more birds per GWh than wind power kills according to this study. Even though this study and other similar studies are estimates based on assumptions that are far from perfect, they are good indicators that replacing fossil fuels with wind power likely saves birds rather than kills them.
In any case, as this Wikipedia article states, collisions with wind turbines are a minor source of bird mortality compared to other human causes. According to the graph below cats kill 5,600 times more birds than wind power and collisions with powerlines kills 99 times more birds than wind power, and yet we rarely discuss these problems. Even though these numbers are estimates they are mostly confirmed by other studies and analysis, as this overview from MIT and this analysis by Hannah Richie shows. The numbers aren’t the same, but they make the same point. FYI Hannah Richie is the deputy editor and lead researcher at Our World in Data. Our World in Data is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems. They are associated with Oxford University and is one of the most respected statistics, analysis and research organizations in the world.
From Wikipedia: Universiteit van Nederland, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsAn alternative graph taken from Hannah Richie / Our World in Data, using alternative sources essentially showing the same thing. Sources: Loss et al. (2015), (2013), US Fish and Wildlife Service; Subramnayan et al. (2012), American Bird Conservancy (2021).
Wind power has been on the receiving end of false claims, nonsense, and strange rumors for quite some time. It is not the only energy source maligned by false information, but it is an interesting case study in misinformation regarding energy sources. To read about nonsense and rumors about wind power click here.
Superfact 12: The United States is both a Republic and a Democracy
I believe that most people do not find that statement surprising in the least. When I became a citizen of the United States, through naturalization (I am originally from Sweden), I had to learn about the US government, and I was told by the US government officials that the United States is both a Republic and a Democracy.
However, I’ve come across a lot of people who state something like “The United States is a Republic and therefore not a Democracy” as if being a Republic and a Democracy are mutually exclusive. Well, as this article explains it is not. To be very specific, the United States is a “federal constitutional representative democracy.” Because the United States is indeed both a Republic and a Democracy and yet many would dispute that fact, I consider this to be a super-fact.
This is an article from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services on the topic that confirms that the United States is a Republic and a Democracy. This is an article from NPR on the topic. This is what the Wikipedia entry on the United States says under the headline “Government and politics” “It is a liberal representative democracy “in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law.””
The United States is a representative democracy. Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com
It should be noted that United States is not a Direct Democracy, like ancient Greece, but it features some aspects of it in referendums. Just like most democracies around the world. Another thing to note is that the Economists Intelligence Unit downgraded the United States from a full democracy to a flawed democracy in 2016. But it is still a democracy.
Is the United States a democracy?
If you ask google / AI this question “Is the United States a democracy?”. The answer you get is:
The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government.
When I asked ChatGPT the same question (Is the United States a democracy?) I got this answer:
Yes, the United States is considered a democracy, but more specifically, it is a representative democracy or democratic republic. In a pure democracy, citizens directly vote on all laws and policies. In a representative democracy, like in the U.S., citizens elect officials (such as members of Congress, the president, and local representatives) who make decisions and pass laws on their behalf.
The U.S. system is also based on the principles of constitutional democracy, where the rule of law, individual rights, and the separation of powers (between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches) are foundational. The Constitution guarantees these principles, which are designed to protect minority rights while allowing majority rule through democratic elections.
In summary, the U.S. combines democratic elements with a framework that ensures checks and balances to prevent abuses of power.
The United States Capitol Building in Washington DC. Photo by Patrick Morris on Pexels.com
Partisan politics aside, the consensus seems to be that the United States is both a Republic and a Democracy.
The scientific evidence overwhelmingly show that Earth is billions of years old. There is no credible scientific evidence for a young Earth.
This is the second post on my super-factful blog. As I mentioned in my first post the goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important and known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many. These facts are not trivia, they are accepted as true by the experts in the relevant fields, the evidence that the fact is true is impressive, and they are important to the way we view the world and to what we believe, and yet they are hard pills to swallow for many. They are not scientific theories or complicated insights but facts that can be stated simply.
In lack of a better term, I am referring to these facts as “super facts” and so far, I’ve made a list of more than a hundred. In addition to just stating the fact I will explain why we know that it is true and discuss the evidence, give background information and provide links. However, my posts will not be deep dives into the topics in question. I will try to remember to suggest resources for further study. I am open to suggestions for super facts as well as challenges to super facts I’ve posted, or other things I written that someone may disagree with. In fact, I would find that helpful, as long as we can discuss the issue in good faith and keep it friendly.
I will certainly be open to counter arguments but let’s keep it friendly. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com
My first super fact, which is this post, is “We Know That the Earth is Billions of Years Old”. To some this may seem trivial whilst others dispute it. The scientific community states that Earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans evolved over millions of years. This is not in dispute among the scientists / experts in the relevant fields, and yet a lot of non-scientists do not believe this. A 2019 Gallup poll showed that 40% of US adults believe that God created humans in their current form within the last 10,000 years. Therefore, I think this is a good example of a super fact.
Is Earth 4.5 billion years old or 6,000 years old? Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com. It was originally taken by Bill Anders and published by NASA.
Older Beliefs
As a teenager I believed that Earth was 6,000 years old. That was before I knew much about science. I had read agenda driven books that left out, or wrongfully dismissed the evidence for an old earth while presenting faulty arguments for a young earth. Just learning about the relevant science was enough for me to realize that I had been bamboozled. At first, I dug my heels in, but I eventually realized that the belief that earth was 6,000 years old was not tenable and unsupportable by science.
If I had known and understood any of what I am posting in this post when I was 14 years old, I don’t think I would have been bamboozled by the young earth creationist books. However, I can add it was not the only time I was bamboozled. I am hoping my blog will lead to some new insights and good reflection including for myself.
Perhaps some new insight. Perhaps some intellectually honest reflection. Photo by Keegan Houser on Pexels.com
“Old Earth” Vs “Young Earth”
Below I am first presenting some evidence for “old earth” and then some arguments, or faulty evidence, for “young earth”.
The various measurements include radiometric dating of rocks and crystals and meteorites found in the earth’s crust as well as moon rocks. There are a number of radiometric dating methods, not just carbon-14.
For example, comparisons of the abundance of carbon-12 and carbon-13 has been used to established that the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels, not another source of carbon. Radiometric dating methods use the relative abundance of radioactive isotopes in materials. For example, I-129 (Iodine 129) decays to X-129 (Xenon 129) with a half-life of 16 million years. So, if only a quarter of the original amount of I-129 remains you know that corresponds to 32 million years.
There are a lot of other radioactive isotopes with a wide range of half-lives that can be used for radiometric dating, including uranium-lead dating (U-235, U-238, Pb-206, Pb-207), Samarium–neodymium dating, Potassium–argon dating, Rubidium–strontium dating, Uranium–thorium dating, Chlorine-36 dating, Argon–argon dating, Iodine–xenon dating (I-129 – Xe-129), Lanthanum–barium dating, Lead–lead dating, Hafnium–tungsten dating, Oxygen-Oxygen dating (Isotopes O-16, O-17, O-18), Potassium–calcium dating, Rhenium–osmium dating, Uranium–uranium dating, Krypton–krypton dating, Beryllium dating (Be-10 Be-9), and many others as well the mixing of dating methods.
These dating methods use radioactive decay to establish age, and the various isotopes mentioned have half-lives from a few thousand years to billion years.
There are also dating methods that do not use the relative abundance of radioactive isotopes to establish age. In fission track dating you count the “track” markings left in it by the spontaneous fission of , for example, uranium-238 impurities. In this case you don’t need to know the initial abundance of the radioactive isotope.
In luminescence dating methods you don’t even rely on radioactive isotopes but the effect that background radiation has had on materials. Stratigraphy, or stratigraphic dating, is a relative dating method that uses layers of sediment, rock, debris, and other materials to date events.
Radiometric dating uses the rate of radioactive decay and knowledge of initial relative abundances to establish age. Earth comes out to be billions of years old, not 6,000. Stock Vector ID: 2417370135 by grayjay
We can see galaxies that are billions of lightyears away.
This does not establish the age of the earth, but young earth creationists typically also believe in a young universe. In addition, an old universe makes a young earth implausible.
The light from a powerful stellar object or a galaxy that is five billion light years away took five billion years to reach us.
We know stars are old because they develop according to certain physical processes.
These physical processes give different stars different lifespans. You can establish the age of a star by determining where it is along its development. An example is our sun. It has fused (burned up) up around five billion years’ worth of hydrogen, so we know it is around five billion years old.
The heavier elements in our solar system originate with older stars that burned out and exploded.
Our solar system, the earth and our bodies contain many kinds of elements heavier than iron. However, elements above iron in the periodic table cannot be formed in the normal nuclear fusion processes in stars. But they can be formed when massive stars die in a supernova explosion or when neutron stars (dead stars) collide. A massive star living, dying, exploding in a supernova, and after that the heavy elements are spread all the way to our solar system, is not a process that can take only 6,000 years. It’s millions and billions of years. It is also interesting to note that this means that parts of our body consist of materials originating in faraway dead stars. We are stardust.
Electromagnetic radiation, including light, and heat transfer, travels from the inside of the sun to the surface and this process takes 100,000 years.
The photons are emitted and reabsorbed over and over, which is a relatively slow process inside the side. If the solar system, the earth, the sun, etc., is only 6,000 years old, how can we see the sun?
Heat / radiation transfer from the inside of the sun to the surface of the sun takes 100,000 years.
Finally, some young earth arguments
Radioactive decay rates have changed drastically (No!)
First, this is an ad hoc argument that lacks evidence. Secondly this claim cannot work. The rates of radiometric decay (the ones relevant to radiometric dating) are a result of fundamental physical properties of matter, such as the probability per unit time that a certain particle can “tunnel” out of the nucleus of the atom.
You can’t change fundamental physical properties without destroying physics and how atoms work. The claim is also contrary to empirical evidence. For example, analysis of spectra from quasars show that the fine structure constant has not changed over the last ten billion years.
Another problem with this argument is that for a young earth you would need the decay rates to have been millions of times faster in the past, which would require changes in fundamental properties that would have plenty of noticeable effects on processes other than radioactive decay, not to mention the radiation being millions of times stronger than today. That’s a lot of radiation for Adam and Eve to survive. It would have fried everything.
In addition it is also a mystery how the dozens of different radiometric dating methods could have remained consistent with each other throughout time and add the fact that there are dating methods that do not rely on the decay rate of isotopes.
Young earth creationists sometimes make the claim that the initial ratios between isotopes may have been different.
That the initial ratios/condition were different in the past and therefore radiometric dating is unreliable is a better argument, but it also fails. In this case you must take it case by case for each radiometric dating method and situation. There are some rare cases of mistaken assumptions but there are also cases where the amount of the daughter isotope is known to have been zero, which makes it easy and reliable.
The speed of light in vacuum has changed throughout history (No!)
Similar to the situation above, this objection does not work because the light speed in vacuum is a fundamental constant that is not believed to change, and it would be very strange if it could change. It has been measured and no change has been seen. An example is the Einstein’s equivalence of energy and mass E = mc2. If the speed of light once was millions of times faster than now, the energy contained in a kilogram would be a trillion times larger than now. Where did all that energy go?
Another example, from electromagnetic theory the speed of light is determined by the inverse of the square root of the electric constant multiplied by the magnetic constant (see below). You would have to drastically change the strength of the electric and magnetic fields (by the trillions) to get the speed of light to be millions of times faster. If you for example made the electric field a trillion times weaker how would atoms hold together?
Yet another example, Planck’s law features the speed of light in vacuum constant. In physics, Planck’s law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a given temperature T, when there is no net flow of matter or energy between the body and its environment. Changing the speed of light in vacuum would turn light into very slow microwaves. How would Adam and Eve be able to see? Not to mention that the proportionality constant on the right-hand side of Einstein’s field equations has the speed of light in it. Gravity would essentially disappear. The light speed in vacuum shows up in many other physical relations as well.
A few equations in which the speed of light in vacuum is a fundamental constant.
The earth’s magnetic field has been weakening during the last 130 years as if it was formed from currents resulting from earth being a discharging capacitor (claim by Thomas Barnes). This would make an impossibly strong magnetic field already 8,000 years ago.
I remember this being one of the arguments in a young earth creationist book that I read as a teenager. However, there are a number of problems with this claim.
The first problem with this argument is that there is no good reason to believe that earth’s magnetic field acts this way. It does not act like a discharging capacitor.
We know that earth’s magnetic field has reversed itself several times thus disproving the discharging capacitor model.
Thomas Barnes’ extrapolation completely ignores the nondipole component of the field.
Earth’s magnetic field. Stock Vector ID: 1851166585 by grayjay.
If the earth and the moon were billions of years old there would be a hundred feet thick dust layer from meteorites on the moon. The moon landing proved otherwise.
This is yet another argument I remember reading in a young earth creationist book (Scientific Creationism by Henry Morris) as a teenager. The problem with this argument, as I would later find out, is that Morris’ claims about a hundred feet thick dust layer was based on faulty and obsolete data. The expected depth of meteoritic dust on the Moon is less than one foot (after billions of years).
An old earth would be covered by 182 feet of meteoric dust.
This is another claim that I remember from Henry Morris’ book. The observed rates used in Morris’s calculations are based on dust collected in atmosphere; this measurement was contaminated by dust from the earth. More recent measurements of cosmic dust influx measured from satellites give an influx rate of about 1% as large, corresponding to a 66 centimeter at most thick over 4.5 billion years.
Basically, the evidence for an old earth is very compelling whilst young earth objections to that evidence fails, and young earth arguments tend to fail. At least I am not aware of any valid young earth argument. In addition, based on my readings of young earth creationist books, these books tend to be conspiratorial in nature and making implausible claims about scientific community having certain agendas. There is a reason the young earth view is nearly universally rejected by the relevant scientists.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that the fact that we know that the Earth is Billions of Years Old is a super fact. We know it’s true, it is important, and yet large portions of the public reject that fact.
Super Facts 
