Creation's Tiny Mystery

At this point in my presentation I related that in early 1987 a staunch evolutionist in Canada had written me about a geology course, "Understanding the Earth," offered by TV-Ontario. He was quite adamant that the third program in the series, "Igneous Rocks," showed the synthesis of granite in a laboratory. I soon obtained a copy of the aforementioned program from Dr. David Pearson, a geologist from Laurentian University, Ontario, who had made the television series in the mid- 1970's. His broadcast notes gave the following description:

A laboratory experiment demonstrates the conditions under which granite might have cooled slowly. Powdered granite sealed in a capsule and heated to 800° C under a pressure of 50 tons per square inch, and then allowed to cool, shows a close resemblance to actual granite. Such conditions of temperature and pressure may therefore be those under which granite crystallizes in nature.

Immediately I began a search for a specimen from that experiment. I called Dr. Pearson for assistance and to find out what he meant by close resemblance. He was unable to help because he wasn't even involved in the original experiment. He indicated this portion of the videotape was a clip from an old Encyclopaedia Britannica film that had been made in the mid-sixties. When I called them in March 1987, the film was no longer available.

Over the next few weeks I pursued a labyrinthian path across America before finally locating one of the scientists involved in the Britannica experiments. He initially indicated that all the specimens from those decades-old experiments had long since been destroyed. Nevertheless, my persistent phone calls caused him to remember that one specimen might still remain packed away somewhere in another part of the country. Circumstances indicated he could not even begin his search for the specimen in question until just a few days before my UT presentation. In spite of considerable odds, the one and only specimen of its kind was found on the evening of April 11, 1987, and sent to me via air express that very night.

[p. 201]

If evolutionists were right, that rock specimen should be a piece of granite. But I had already predicted (pp. 130-131) a different result by comparison with what happens when granite deep in the earth is melted. The granitic magma thus produced may rise to the surface and cool quickly, to obsidian, a glassy rock, or it may cool slowly underground, eventually becoming rhyolite, a fine-grained rock pictured in Plate 11-d (see Radiohalo Catalogue). Rhyolite is quite different from the coarse-grained granite shown in Plate 11-b. Thus I had earlier reasoned: If slow cooling of a granite melt within the earth does not result in the formation of granite—and this is where granite supposedly formed according to evolutionary theory—neither would it happen in a modern scientific laboratory. This was my prediction. When the package arrived Sunday morning, I knew the time had come for it to be tested. I opened the box, examined the specimen, and with a sense of keen anticipation looked forward to showing it the next evening.

Now the moment had come. After describing the foregoing scenario to the audience, I then flashed up on the screen a photograph displaying both the piece of rhyolite shown in Plate 11-d and the rock specimen that I had received just the day before. The texture and color of the rock from the laboratory experiment showed an unmistakable similarity to the rhyolite. The audience could plainly see that granite which is melted, and then slowly cooled under modern laboratory conditions, produces a fine-grained rock almost identical to rhyolite—the fine-grained rock resulting from the slow cooling of molten granite deep in the earth. In neither case does the crystallization process reproduce the original granite rock as postulated by the theory of evolution. My prediction had been confirmed while the fundamental premise of evolution was revealed to be false. As never before polonium halos in granites were shown to be indelible autographs of creation, fingerprints of the Creator, thus identifying the granites as the primordial Genesis rocks of our planet. The audience was quiet as I concluded my remarks to the geology professor:

GENTRY: I will make a suggestion then. If indeed the day ever comes when you are successful in doing what you claim to be able to do tonight, my telephone number will be given to you. You can call me and immediately call WTVK-TV and WBIR-TV [Knoxville's NBC and CBS affiliates]. Make it a city-wide or state-wide public event, whatever you would like to do, and publicly put your evidence where your expertise has been tonight. [Earth Science Associates 1987.—See ESA reference (p. 353) for ordering a copy of this videotape.]

The events of that evening gave the audience new insights into the nature of evolutionary science. The UT geology professor never called me about [p. 202] his references on granite synthesis. Later I called him, but he refused to discuss the matter. Then I wrote to the UT Geology Department chairman for help but received no reply.

Though Dr. Press did not attend, he did send a letter which I read at the UT forum It says nothing to refute the Po-halo evidence for creation but instead tries to minimize its significance by using the ACLU's strategy at the Arkansas trial. There it was labeled "a very tiny mystery." Press's letter (Press 1987; Appendix) refers to it as "one small piece of data," which ignores the vast number of unexplained Po halos in Earth's primordial granites. And what of the evolutionist who claimed granite synthesis was seen on TV? Prior to the UT forum, he also wrote that certain geologists and others had found problems in my work. Thus I invited him to come to the forum so their objections could be publicly examined. But along with other invited evolutionists, such as Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould, he failed to appear.

The UT forum made it evident to the American Humanist Association (AHA) that this growing controversy concerning the Po-halo evidence for creation was rapidly eroding away the very foundations of atheism. How could the AHA counter this evidence when, for over two decades, it had remained unrefuted in the premier scientific journals where it was published? Their only defense was to print the views of the evolutionist who failed to come to the UT forum in their own magazine, Creation/Evolution [XII, 8, no. 1, 13 (1988)]. This article (i) ignores the UT forum results showing the claim of granite synthesis on TV is false, (ii) assumes, without producing any supporting laboratory evidence, that granites and Po halos can form naturally, and (iii) pictures the region near Bancroft, Ontario — a site where I have reported Po halos in the micas — as explainable only by evolutionary processes. To obtain this result the article first quotes geologists to establish an apparent evolutionary history of the Bancroft region, and then it concludes that the Bancroft rocks were formed exactly as these geologists imply — a clear example of circular reasoning.

However, to those unfamiliar with geological terminology, such reasoning can appear superficially plausible if quotes are selected that closely interweave the factual mineralogical descriptions of the rocks with evolutionary theories of their origin. This mixture of fact and supposition can easily leave the impression that the presumed evolutionary origin of those rocks is as scientifically valid as the mineralogical descriptions. Unfortunately, this combination of scientific fact and evolutionary theory produces a [p. 203] deceptive maze which continues to confuse geologists and others concerning my views, as is shown by two quotes from the C/E article:

Since Gentry's God can do anything, he concludes that God created the region to have the features of age and activity that it exhibits and that [H]e made "Genesis rock" look for all the world like a recent intrusion, thereby fooling thousands of geologists. . . . (C/E, p. 30)

Still we must give Gentry his due. Nothing in geology fully explains the apparent occurrence of the polonium halos as described by Gentry. They do remain a minor mystery in the field of physics. But this does not mean that no explanations are possible or that it is time to throw in the towel and invoke the "god of the gaps." . . . (C/E, p. 31)

I appreciate the Creator God as One who cannot lie or deceive; so He cannot be responsible for deceiving geologists into thinking that instantly created rocks formed over long ages. Geologists should look to their own assumption of uniformity as the reason for their confusion about the origin and age of created rocks. Moreover, there is nothing "apparent" about the occurrence of Po halos in granites and their associated rocks. Their existence is beyond question, having been experimentally confirmed in published scientific reports for over two decades. But why did the Creator leave unambiguous evidence they originated with primordial polonium? Why did He scatter these halos throughout a type of rock that a 39,000-foot drill hole in the Kola Peninsula has revealed (Appendix, p. 322) are the foundation rocks of the continents?

Consider that God created primordial Po halos to command the attention of scientists — especially physicists and geologists — that they might understand this marvelous record of instantaneous creation is etched within those rocks that the Bible expressly designates (Appendix, p. 323) as the "foundations of the earth." Such consistency between science and Scripture affirms the accuracy of the entire Bible, in contrast to the numerous contradictions that Po halos present to the evolutionary framework. Those who ignore these contradictions will doubtless continue to err when examining my published evidence for creation and a young earth, as is evident in two letters sent to an archaeology journal. My reply (Appendix, pp. 339-352) is relevant because it shows why Pb (lead) and He (helium) retention in deep granites provides strong scientific evidence consistent with an approximate 6000-year age of the earth. This evidence is to the age of the earth what primordial Po halos are to its creation. Evaluation of other related comments is also included in this edition (Appendix, pp. 331-338).

Continuing Censorship at Science

In 1989 two geologists reported mainly on three giant halos in quartz [Science 246, 107 (1989)] and, as an aside, suggested that Po halos in mica resulted from U/Th beta decay instead of Po alpha decay. Since data in my 1968, 1971, and 1974 Science reports refute this idea and since Science traditionally grants scientists an opportunity to correct errors it prints about their work, I sent a letter of correction. But Science's editors determined to prevent their readership from learning that the Po-halo evidence for creation is still valid. After my first letter of correction was rejected, I sent a revised response to them, and it too was rejected (Appendix, p. 32 7-329).

Confirmation of Science's intent to censor the implications of this evidence came in a cordial letter from one of the geologists who authored the above report. This letter (Appendix, p. 330) contains two important facts: First, it states their idea of a beta-decay origin of Po halos was made without actually having acquired a Po halo themselves; second, it states Science had made a direct request, prior to their report being published, that they omit any reference to "instantaneous creation" as a possible explanation for Po halos.

Likewise, Brent Dalrymple's recent treatise "The Age of the Earth" (Stanford University Press, 1991) — which he admits was initiated because of the creation science controversy — completely omits any discussion of my scientific reports supporting creation and a young age of the earth. The reason given in his Preface (p. x) is that he has dealt with the "scientific" arguments for a young age of the earth elsewhere. Actually, he has been silent on my young earth evidence and his arguments against the "tiny mystery" of creation were refuted in 1984 and in 1986 (Appendix, pp. 268-303). Are Science's actions and Dalrymple's silence consistent with Dr. Press's criterion (Appendix, p. 324) to "consider all the evidence" relating to Earth's origin and age?

Do Science's editors and others perceive Creation's Tiny Mystery as the Achilles' heel of evolution? Have America's highest scientific echelons decided to black out this "tiny mystery" while at the same time presenting to the media the idea that evolutionists would "flock to the sites" of any data that question their theory? But what will happen if the media decides to probe the misuse of power that has kept this blackout in operation? Would this arouse the public to what Creation's Tiny Mystery reveals about our roots? The decades ahead may provide many answers.

In any event, my intent is not to cast aspersion on those who continue to accept the evolutionary model of origins. To trace the handiwork of creation, as I have endeavored to do, is an end in itself; to try to duplicate the handiwork of the Grand Design is in another realm altogether.

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