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Mr. Ennis |
(Attorney for the ACLU):
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Q |
You tried to find some and had not found it—
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A |
Well, I was reading what other people said— . . . [inaudible].
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Q | You testified in your direct examination—I think you will
quite candidly acknowledge—that you had what you described as
a biased perspective—that you were interested in finding evidence
if it exists.
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A | Yes. |
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Q | And your question was, did my religious belief have any
evidence in science, this is what I was very much interested in
[inaudible]. [p. 307]
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A | Absolutely, yes.
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Q | And didn't you then decide that the only way you could
rationally live with yourself would be to undertake a research project
to determine if there was evidence to support your belief(s) in
Genesis?
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A | I think this is true.
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Q | So you began your research into radiohalos as a result of your
inquiries into the Bible and of becoming a Seventh-day Adventist.
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A | Absolutely.
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Q | Is it fair to say that the last person before you to do any
substantial work on radiohalos was Henderson in 1939?
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A | I think so, yes.
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Q | The research you do is very specialized and requires quite
sophisticated equipment including ion microprobe, microprobe
spectrometers, cyclotrons, and other equipment like that, does it not?
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100
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A | Well, initially all you have to have is a microscope, a razor
blade, and a piece of rock. That's all it takes to find the halos. Now,
to actually demonstrate the experimental support for what I've said,
you do need sophisticated equipment. But Henderson identified
the polonium halos basically only with the, only with using the
microscope.
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Q | Dr. Gentry, let me ask you this. Are you aware of any changes
in the constancy of alpha decay or beta decay rates that have been
identified experimentally?
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A | No, I'm not. At the present time, no.
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Q | You testified to some extent about singularities. You said that
singularities were something that could not be explained on the basis
of known physical laws.
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A | This is how I formulate the hypothesis of the Big Bang versus
the creative event.
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Q | Given our current understanding, would it be fair to say that
the singularity would have to be thought of as an extension of natural
law?
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A | I think that's fair. Yes.
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Q | Is it your present opinion that there is no physical process short
of a singularity which could cause any significant alteration of radioactive
decay rates?
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120
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A | Yes, I agree with that.
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Q | You believe the occurrence of a worldwide flood was the result
of such a singularity or extension of natural law, do you not?
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A | Yes, let me qualify and say that when I say extension of natural
law, what I am basically saying is the processes in operation at that
time were above and beyond what we normally consider today. Yes.
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Q | And you believe that those processes were caused by the direct
intervention of the Creator? [p. 308]
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A | Yes, I do.
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Q | In 1976, you published a paper suggesting that there was
evidence for primordial superheavy elements—
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A | Yes.
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Q | And because that paper questioned more conventional
understandings, it did receive wide notice, did it not?
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140
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A | Well, now the reason that the paper on primordial, primordial
superheavy elements elicited a lot of interest is because people
had been looking for and had spent a lot of money looking for
superheavy elements for 10 years at least. And so whenever I said
anything about superheavy elements, it was like ringing a bell all over
the world—it wasn't necessary that it had to be primordial,
although—
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Q | Well, let me ask it this way. If the existence of primordial
superheavy elements had been confirmed, that would have required
drastic revisions of many existing ideas concerning nucleosynthesis
and nuclear theory, would it not?
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A | This was generally understood to be the case, depending on
what element it was.
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Q | When your data was re-examined using more sensitive techniques,
it was found that superheavy elements were not present, is that correct?
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A | Well, the techniques that we used to re-examine—actually
the original results were made, of course, using protons, and the
people who did—
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