BobRyan: Gentry’s response to his critics is compelling. But it hasn’t …

Comment on MBA employee discourages students from attending LSU by Carl.

BobRyan: Gentry’s response to his critics is compelling.

But it hasn’t been convincing enough for the following people as shown on the Geoscience Research Institute:

Some cautions regarding the usage of creationist materials
Overinterpretation of radiohalos

R. H. Brown, H. G. Coffin, L. J. Gibson, A. A. Roth, and C. L. Webster. 1988. LITERATURE REVIEW: Examining Radiohalos (Review of Creation’s Tiny Mystery) Origins 15:32-38.

http://grisda.net/subGi/?page_id=43

(Unfortunately, the links from that page don’t work. The book “Creation’s Tiny Mystery” was written by Robert Gentry.)

Gentry’s work with radio halos is widely acclaimed, but his attempt to prove a fiat creation by means of the halos has been soundly discredited. Gentry claimed that his halos we found in primitive granites, but examination of his specimine sites showed that they came from intrusions. Thus, they do not support his argument.

Carl Also Commented

MBA employee discourages students from attending LSU

BobRyan: The third link provides the “unrefuted Palonium” argument.

So, I followed your third link

Earth Science Associates
http://www.halos.com/faq-replies/index.htm

and found this as the third item:

“This letter is essentially a repeat of Dr. Dalrymple’s 1995 letter. It likewise mentions the unrefuted claim of the Polonium halo evidence, indicating that three years of additional research by evolutionists had still turned up absolutely nothing.”

I followed that link
http://www.halos.com/faq-replies/dalrymple-to-fellow-geologist-11-1995.htm

and found this:

“The movement is beginning to affect some college classes, too, as members of “Genesis clubs” enter classrooms with disruptive (and difficult to answer) questions. How would you answer a student who claims that the presence of Polonium halos in granite demonstrates that granite had to have formed suddenly (i.e., was specially created)?”

Because Dalrymple asks, “How would you answer a student …” the claim is made that “ three years of additional research by evolutionists had still turned up absolutely nothing.” Give me a break. Dalrymple’s letter was a promotional for memberships, not a presentation of science.

Here’s what a more responsible creationist site has to say:

Answers in Creation – Bringing the Bible and Science Together Without Conflict
http://www.answersincreation.org/polonium.htm

“Young earth creation science advocates have made a mountain out of a molehill in their use of radioactive halos to support their cause. However, when you look at the truth behind their claims, you see major problems.”


MBA employee discourages students from attending LSU

BobRyan: As I said – Gentry’s response to his critics deals in compelling detail with the argument about intrusions.

Bob,

You are amazing. Can you not get beyond the fact that the evidence for the age of the earth is not what we’d like it to be? Gentry made an honest try to show the earth was young, and he failed. People as conservative as Brown, Coffin, Gibson, Roth, and Webster agree that he didn’t make his case. What we want and what we have are very different.

I don’t know what you may have read on the subject of creation, but the way you talk sounds nothing like the writing of the people mentioned above who represent the core of credible Adventist scientists. All of them acknowledge that the scientific evidence favors a long history of the earth.

Here are a few statements from the Geoscience Research Institute:

http://www.grisda.org/faq/

“4. How can creationists explain radiometric dates of many millions of years?
Creationists do not have an adequate explanation. Some possibilities have been proposed, but they are not compelling because they do not explain why the lower layers generally give older dates than the upper layers.”

“5. What unsolved problems about the age of the Earth are of greatest concern?
The most difficult question is probably the apparent sequence of radiometric dates, giving older dates for lower layers in the geologic column and younger dates for upper layers. Other questions include why radiometric dating systematically gives ages that are much older than suggested by the biblical record; an explanation for traces of activity in the geologic column; and an explanation for the long series of layers in ice cores.”

When you can resolve these problems, you will have something important to offer. Until then, the evidence for a long history of life remains very compelling and it’s our theology that needs to be adjusted.


Recent Comments by Carl

Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’

These layers should have been washed away many times over by now. That’s the problem.

Well — maybe. I’d say the real problem for your position is that no one has proposed a comprehensive model that can explain the evidence of geology within about 10,000 years. That is such a huge problem that I don’t know why we are talking about anything else. The evidence for life beyond 10,000 years is massive as compared to the few objections that Sean has collected.


Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
Sean,

I understand better how you have reached your conclusions. You have a powerful bias that the Bible must be literal history, and that predisposition has driven much of your scientific thinking. What still mystifies me is that you attempt to take the open issues of science and use them as an argument that a short history is equally as believable (I think you claim more believable) as a long history. That is one huge leap.

I’ve read parts of your personal Web site, and it seems to me that you have failed to establish your points. In what you have written, I have found no compelling evidence to believe a short history. You do well in raising doubts about the standard model, but doubts on one side are not a convincing argument on the other side.

You do not have any detectable theory of how the earth could possibly come to be as it is within about 10,000 years. Your discussion above again misses the major issue. The evidence that is at odds with a short history is much greater than the evidence that is at odds with a long history. You have come nowhere close to showing otherwise. Ten thousand years is a very short period of time.


Report on LSU constituency meeting
Here’s a link for Hammill’s interesting report:

http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive11-15/15-2hammill.pdf


Report on LSU constituency meeting
@BobRyan:

Not found in Adventist literature.
Not found in Quiquinium voted documents.
So “general” as in you and a few of your closes friends?
How is that “general”?

The Consultant Committee on Geoscience Research was terminated and a new emphasis was instituted for staff activities. Research tended to concentrate on selected areas where the data were most supportive of the 6,000-year biblical chronology of Bishop Ussher. Before long, the tacit policy arrived at in the 1950s during the General Conference presidency of W. H. Branson (to the effect that the 6,000-year chronology need not be emphasized in Seventh-day Adventist publications) was abandoned. (Richard Hammill, AAF Spectrum, Vol 15, No. 2 p 41)

I did not know Dr Hammill personally, so, no, this wasn’t cooked up among my closest friends.


Report on LSU constituency meeting
@Art Chadwick:

The theology department has preceded the sciences by some year in losing confidence in the Scriptures and in promoting belief in naturalism.

Here again is the suggestion that we must interpret Scripture literally or else we are “losing confidence” in them. I think it often works the other way around. By insisting on literal details, we can miss the most important point and make it more difficult to believe.

The tragedy of this Web site is that it thwarts the creative thinking that we need for dealing with modern science issues. It’s not an easy problem, and the success of this site will drive many thinking people into seclusion. That’s where we’ve been for decades.

In the 1950s, there was a general understanding that Adventist literature would not emphasize a 6000 year history. President Robert Pierson brought that to an end and set us on a path to avoid any science that we did not like. The result is that many Adventists are very suspicious of science and scientists.

If truth has nothing to fear from examination, which sometimes seems to be a Adventist assumption, I say it’s time to stop trying to fix LSU. Students are pretty good at figuring out who to believe. So, if you’re afraid to think out of the box, go where you’ll be told what to think. If you want think it out for yourself, go where the box has been opened.

I have little doubt that Geanna, Adventist Student, and many others will figure things out with or without the “help” of the reformers sponsoring and speaking on this site.