Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Bob Pickle.

Sean&#032Pitman: Beyond this, Odom also argues very much as I have regarding the “stars” mentioned in Genesis.

“There is the possibility that the rest of our solar system was brought into existence then [during the Creation Week of Genesis]. However, we would not speak dogmatically on that point. Other heavenly bodies were in existence before our world was created. We would not attempt to say how much older they are than the earth, because the Scriptures do not tell us specifically when they were created. Many of them may be millions of years older than the little planet we inhabit.” – Odom, 1959

This is exactly what I’ve been arguing – that here is the possibility that the rest of our solar system was brought into existence during Creation Week.

I must have misunderstood you. I apologize. I did not realize that you were arguing, like Odom, that the “stars” of Genesis 1 could be referring to our solar system. (Odom in that article never used the “stars” of Gen. 1:16 to refer to stars outside of our solar system, unless I missed something.)

Sean&#032Pitman: How old is your E-mail, because in the Collins’ paper I referenced he argues that the crystals can grow quite rapidly:

The emails are a bit older than his paper.

Note that his paper is posted on a pro-evolution special interest group’s website, not in a standard peer-reviewed journal. At the time of our communications, Collins told me that the standard journals refused to publish his theories on granite. What does that tell you? His peers generally didn’t feel his theories held water. Now perhaps since then his peers have “seen the light,” but we also have the possibility that this special interest group can’t find anything better to attack the evidence for creation with.

Yes, he does argue for rapid re-formation of granite crystals. That’s his hypothesis in that paper. Then he should test his hypothesis and see if he can rapidly grow such crystals in the presence of relatively immense amounts of Rn to see if he can create a crystal with a Po-218 halo inside. He doesn’t get a pass on testing his hypothesis. Mere plausibility arguments don’t cut it.

Re: Collins’ theory, you may not be aware of this fact of physics: A decay chain’s radioactive isotopes when in equilibrium will be present in amounts proportional to their half-lives. Since Rn-222 has a half-life of 3.8235 days and Po-218 a half-life of 3.098 min., there needs to be 1777 times more Rn atoms than the required number of Po atoms in the presence of the growing crystal, in order to have enough Po atoms available at any given point of time (after equilibrium is reached) to become emplaced in the growing crystal. Since Collins is here calling for the growth of large crystals in hours or less, we’re talking about the near instantaneous formation of the part that would encapsulate a single Po halo. (If a small 1 cm crystal grew in 10 hours, it would grow at the rate of 500 to 1,000 halo center diameters per hour: 1 cm = 10,000 microns growth per 10 hours = 1,000 microns growth per hour. A Po halo diameter would be 1 to 2 microns. This small crystal would be growing at roughly 10 to 20 such halo centers per minute.)

Note that Collins is trying to explain the presence of 20,000-30,000 Po-218 and Po-210 halos per cubic cm, as reported in Gentry’s 1968 paper which he cites. Questions I would have are: (a) What naturalistic mechanism does Collins propose whereby the Po-214 halos would be missing from that Norwegian sample? (b) What naturalistic mechanism does Collins propose separated the Po-218 from the Po-210 such that little or no Po-218 became emplaced in Po-210-halo centers, close by Po-218 halo centers in the same nearly instantaneously formed cubic cm of granite?

The more immediate question in my mind is where did all the radiogenic lead go? If there was 1777 times more Rn-222 atoms than Po-218 atoms present per Po-218 halo, then for every Po-218 halo there should be 1777 times as much Pb-206 lurking around somewhere than what is in each Po-218 halo center. Unless there is a relative abundance of radiogenic Pb nearby that could be explained as the remains of the required Rn, Collins theory appears to be a non-starter.

It’s really worse than that. From Collins’ paper:

Uranium is commonly found in scattered zircon crystals in granite (as noted above), but some uranium may also be concentrated in late stages of granite crystallization in pegmatites in the mineral uraninite because of its very large atomic size. Biotite and fluorite crystallizing near this uraninite could plausibly contain Pohalos because the concentrated uranium atoms in this uraninite and in fluids bringing this uranium to the pegmatites would be an abundant source of radon 222Rn and polonium isotopes.

Because U-238 has a half life of 4.5 billions years, then for every Rn-222 atom required, there should be 430 billion atoms of U-238 lurking around somewhere, assuming equilibrium. If he wasn’t proposing nearly instantaneous crystal formation, the numbers would be a little better. If you need 5 billion atoms to produce a single dark Po-218 halo, and you need 1777 times that much Rn-222, you then need 430 billion x 1777 x 5 billion atoms worth of U-238 per Po-218 halo, assuming that 100% of the Rn-222 gas produced by the U-238 deposit just happens to float over to near the vicinity of the future 1-micron diameter Po-218 halo center.

I suspect that the rapid removal of Po from availability due to emplacement in the nearly instantaneous growth of the crystal might mess up the above scenario. Will the cloud of Rn decay fast enough to replenish the Po lost, such that the crystal can continue its rapid growth, encapsulating more and more Po, to the tune of thousands of Po halo centers per cubic centimeter? Sounds like a miracle to me, the very thing that Collins, reportedly a devout Methodist, is trying to disprove ever happened.

Sean&#032Pitman: As I’ve mentioned several times already, I just don’t see that your ideas are required of the Biblical accounts nor are they fundamental to one’s reading or understanding of the key claims of the Bible or the Gospel message. That is why I don’t consider your ideas fundamental to Adventism ….

MH 414 and 8T 258 use the phrases “formation of our world” and “creation of the earth” when speaking of how God did not use pre-existing matter. I therefore looked up every reference this morning to creation or formation of the world or earth, and could not find one single statement that suggested a passive gap theory. To the contrary, Ellen White associated these phrases with the 6-days of creation, and the gift of the Sabbath, which does suggest that we are indeed talking about something that potentially affects the fundamentals of Adventism. One interesting example:

The creation of man in the beginning, the formation of the heavens and the earth, the beauty and glory with which the Creator had clothed all nature, had called forth the wonder and admiration of the universe of heaven, their reverence and love. (RH 7-15-09)

So the unfallen worlds and the angels watched as God formed the heavens and the earth. And that indicates that the formation of the heavens and the earth out of nothing occurred well after the unfallen worlds were created. We therefore can’t really use the fact that there already were unfallen worlds to argue that the formation of the world out of nothing could have happened a billion years before creation week.

By observing the memorial of the creation of the world in six days and the rest of the Creator on the seventh day, …. (3SM 256) (dated 1901)

The Sabbath was to stand representing God’s power in his creation of the world in six days, and his resting upon the seventh day. (GCB 3-4-1895)

Human Philosophy declares that an indefinite period of time was taken in the creation of the world. Does God state the matter thus? No; He says, “It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days [not six indefinite periods of time; for then there would be no possible way for man to observe the day specified in the fourth commandment] the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed.” (TM 135; PH086 33) (dated Jan. 12, 1898)

Consistently, she refers to the creation of the earth, which she elsewhere said was not out of pre-existing matter, as occurring during the 6 days, and of which the Sabbath is a memorial. The Sabbath is certainly not a memorial that God formed the earth billions of years ago.

The topic of intelligent design is a powerful tool to use to present the truth. I’m all for it. But in a meeting conducted by a representative from a major ID organization, it was surprising to hear him espouse an old earth/life view, and put down a young earth/life view, indicating that none of the scientists they had working with them held a young earth or young life view. The radiometric dating of dinosaur bones could help at a time like that, but I used the halo and retention rates evidence that evening and in correspondence to suggest to him that there was indeed an evidentiary basis for a young earth/life view, and he was open to the material and suggestions.

Bob Pickle Also Commented

Recent Comments by Bob Pickle