Open Letter to ICR

Part XII

Before and since the Arkansas creation trial, I have widely publicized an experimental test, whose outcome unequivocally falsifies both the linchpin of evolutionary geology as well as your hypothesis of the secondary origin of granite and their enclosed polonium halos. Proof that it is a genuine falsification test: It has confronted the worldwide scientific community for over twenty-four years without being contradicted by evolutionists or anyone else.

As a physicist it's very easy for me to identify the reason for your failure to find valid geological arguments to support your thesis. It has to do with experiments.

In 1979 I published an experimental test squarely built on the same paradigm that has long been the foundational test of all modern physical theories — namely, that any theory which makes predictions based on the uniformitarian action of known physical laws is open to verification or falsification depending on whether the predictions of it's fundamental postulates are confirmed or contradicted by laboratory testing.

Now since evolutionists widely affirm that their theory is scientific, then they must hold and do hold to the premise that everything developed solely by the action of known physical laws, which means that they must also hold that granites and their enclosed polonium halos formed naturally, only by the action of known physical laws.

Realizing this fact was to me a God-send, for I saw in it a way where seekers for truth everywhere — especially the common man who might well have been terribly confused about the Bible and Genesis because of his earlier education — could now be brought out of darkness into the marvelous light of God's Word. How could they be thus enlightened? By realizing that God has provided everyone with such a fantastically simple means of linking the Biblical foundations of the Earth with His own unique Po-halo signature of creation.

A great scientific truth is that a theory's validity or falsity is never determined by how much data can be fitted into that theory. Literally thousands of data-points or observations can be put into the framework of a theory, and yet the theory can be completely false. A prime example was the Ptolemaic theory of geocentric planetary motion, which for about two thousand years was accepted as accounting for planetary movements within the solar system. Not until Copernicus published the evidence for his revolutionary heliocentric theory — evidence which completely contradicted the foundational premise of the Ptolemaic hypothesis — did the truth begin to emerge.

Something of a similar nature has been occurring in geology for about two centuries or more. For all that time conventional geologists have so effectively promoted the idea that granites formed deep underground from slow cooling during eons of Earth's history that virtually the whole world has followed their lead. Few realize it as yet, but one of the greatest faux pas in the history of science is that geologists constructed their theory of Earth's geological evolution and ancient age using two fatally flawed assumptions, one being the previously discussed uniform decay rate assumption, and the other being the naturalistic formation of granite. And it is this faux pas that you and ICR appear to have overlooked in promoting a secondary origin of granite. In particular, as will now be shown, the cornerstone postulate of granite's naturalistic formation is even more seriously contradicted by experimental testing than was Copernicus' disproof of the Ptolemaic system.

In 1979, while still a Visiting Scientist in the Chemistry Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, I published to the world's scientific community — see discussion on pages 65-66 of my book concerning the essence of my remarks which were published in EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union — that if the commonly accepted view of granite's origin was correct, then it must be possible to duplicate what happened in nature and reproduce at least a hand-sized piece of granite in the laboratory, and also to reproduce at least one polonium-218 halo in a piece of granite wherein all the halos have been annealed away.

Stated differently, since, according to geological evolutionary theory, granites had formed hundreds of thousands of times throughout Earth's presumed 4.5-billion-year history — and since, furthermore, all these multitudinous occurrences of granite formation are held to have taken place under exactly the same physical laws that now govern the cosmos and the Earth — then it is inescapable that it must be possible to duplicate or synthesize granite in the modern laboratory setting using the same conditions under which granites were presumed to have formed deep underground. On the other hand, failure to synthesize a piece of granite and produce just one polonium-218 halo in a piece of annealed granite would falsify evolutionary geology's uniformitarian assumption about the natural formation of granite and its enclosed polonium halos, and thus prove that God had created both the granites and their enclosed polonium halos in such a way as to verify they were His creation, stamped with His signature, impossible for man to duplicate.

To reiterate, the significance of all this was that it was published in an established, widely-read scientific communication that went out to the entire 20,000-plus membership of the American Geophysical Union. It was published because the AGU Editor saw something in what I said that he recognized as presenting a challenge to evolution that had never appeared before the scientific community previously, and he was fair enough to approve it for publication, and let the chips fall where they may. But there was absolutely no response from the worldwide scientific community from 1979 until the time I was scheduled to appear as expert witness for creation in December 1981 at the Arkansas creation trial. (Neither has any provable claim of granite synthesis or polonium halo duplication appeared in scientific journals or otherwise since then.) So I presented this challenge during my testimony at the trial. Indeed, the challenge preceded my testimony by a few days because David Williams, the Arkansas Assistant Attorney General, closely cross-examined Brent Darymple, the ACLU's leading geology witness, about why geologists had not been able to synthesize granite, nor produce a polonium-218 halo.

As my book recounts, it was here that the ACLU almost lost their collective shirts before Judge Overton. Why? Because Brent gave such evasive answers as to why evolutionists hadn't been able to synthesize even a small piece of granite, and why neither he nor any of his colleagues could account for or duplicate the existence of polonium halos in these rocks. When pressed for an answer as to the cause of his and his colleagues' continuing failures to meet the challenge of creation, as a last resort he was forced to call polonium halos "a tiny mystery," for which he hoped someday to find an answer. Nevertheless, Judge Overton accepted Brent's lame excuses, and the ACLU barely escaped. As you know, Andrew, my recounting of that close call is a centerpiece of my book, as well as being featured in the Fingerprints video.

Well, why should I go into this much detail and again emphasize the importance of this crucial test? The answer is, first, because of its enormous implications in proving that neither granites nor their enclosed polonium halos formed by the action of natural laws. In particular, even though at this writing over twenty-four years have lapsed since first being published, we find that evolutionists and certain creationists continue to make every attempt to bury the whole issue. Why? Because it's something that very definitely experimentally tests their view of Earth's history and which, when applied to the issue at hand, clearly disproves their view of granite's secondary origin. Since it's something they cannot scientifically counter, to them it has become unwanted information, and their only recourse is to either ignore it, or otherwise do their best to imply it has no significance for the evolution/creation controversy.

Not surprisingly, then, the evolutionists and creationists who combined forces about ten years ago at the Second ICC to criticize my work, didn't want any part of admitting that thousands of attempts of granite synthesis over the last several decades had miserably failed to produce the much sought after confirmation of the evolutionary prediction of granite's naturalistic origin. They wanted to hide the fact that all this had come to the worldwide attention of tens of thousands of evolutionists, not only those in geology, but in all fields of science, and with absolutely nothing but a deafening silence for a response.

Perhaps many who read this document may not know that the failure of world-renowned evolutionists to overthrow the primordial polonium halo evidence for granites' fiat creation at the 1981 Arkansas trial resulted in great consternation within the ranks of the ACLU contingent of lawyers and geologists. It was during the trial that I learned that, behind the scenes, the ACLU was much concerned that this evidence was being presented in such a widely publicized forum without their being able to refute or overturn it, even when they had the best minds in evolutionary geology at their disposal. In the six months after the trial, while still a Visiting Scientist at ORNL, their anxiety was somewhat muted, for they were hoping that some evolutionist somewhere would surely come forward quickly to refute the primordial polonium halo evidence for creation, and do so publicly. What concerned them most was that two years earlier I had proposed the experimental test that could be done in the here and now to clearly settle the crucial question of whether granites and their enclosed polonium halos were of secondary origin, or whether they both were part of Earth's primordial creation. They were doubtless hoping that some evolutionist would quickly produce a synthesized piece of granite and, coincidentally, to replicate a Po-218 halo in an annealed piece of granite.

They had a golden opportunity to do this at the 63^rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the AAAS in Santa Barbara in June 1982, where the AAAS sponsored its widely advertised Evolutionists Confront Creationists Symposium. The organizers chose ICR's Duane Gish and Harold Slusher to present the creation view in opposition to eight presenters for evolution. But Slusher backed out. When I learned of this I volunteered and, very reluctantly, the symposium organizers invited me instead.

In attendance were several hundred evolutionary geologists; all were hoping that Brent Dalrymple would somehow be able to redeem his failure to solve the tiny mystery of creation at the Arkansas trial in either of two ways. One way doubtlessly hoped for the most was that Brent would have actually demonstrated the synthesis of a hand-sized piece of real granite in the lab, and that he would also somehow have demonstrated how he was able to synthesize just one Po-218 halo in a piece of granite from which all the halos had been annealed. Failing either of these, they hoped he would somehow be able to portray a plausible evasion to this dual challenge that I had thrown down during both my trial testimony and prior publication in EOS. The history of that challenge, which caused much consternation among the ACLU entourage at the trial, and has continued to cause very great consternation in the ranks of evolutionists generally — and even some who call themselves creationists — is summarized in my book.

Well, Brent failed to produce the goods, and I learned that at least one prominent evolutionary biologist at UC Santa Barbara was perplexed as to why geologists were unable to produce the critical proof for geological evolution. But for the most part the several hundred geologists went away apparently unconcerned about his failure.

Now if evolutionists had really wanted to know the truth about granite's origin, they would obviously have been ecstatic about immediately following up on this test. Why? Because after more than two centuries of nothing more than speculation and guesswork based on their own uniformitarian-based interpretations of various rock formations, it would at long last have afforded them the golden opportunity to be in step with the foundational principle of all modern physical theories — which is that a theory is not a scientific theory until its fundamental postulates have been confirmed by laboratory experimentation.

Well, the passage of time has shown that evolutionary geologists want nothing to do with a laboratory test that would challenge their prevailing paradigm, which is, "We know the truth about Earth's history because we believe that our uniformitarian way of interpreting the rocks is valid." Yes, they believe they know. Tragically, they overlook the fact that they are doing exactly what 2 Peter 3:2 says scoffers are going to be saying in the last days — namely, "Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation?"

In essence they have long played the game of pretending to have a scientific theory of Earth's origin and development, all the while hoping that no one would ever catch on to the fact that over the last fifty years their continued speculations about granite formation have really been tested many times, and found to be fatally flawed. In other words, if they would only have stopped to consider the situation, they would realize that countless laboratory experiments have shown that granite does not form in the laboratory when attempts have repeatedly been made to duplicate its formation under the conditions duplicating the high pressures and slow cooling deep in the Earth. By now there have been five national and international symposia on the Origin of Granite held by the world's most eminent geologists, and many hundreds of papers have been given presuming to throw some light on why the origin of granite is still a geological mystery. As our Fingerprints of Creation video points out, the reason it remains a mystery to evolutionists is that they ignore the fact that all their attempts to reproduce granite in the laboratory continue to fail. In the parlance of modern physics, their theory of granites' naturalistic formation has been repeatedly falsified, and the god of this world has so blinded their eyes that they cannot see it.

Indeed, this failure is something that evolutionary geologists have desperately tried to hide for decades. Nothing disturbs them more than the fact that God put the creation/evolution issue before the world in the context of an experimental test that can decide the issue in the here and now. Indeed, the continued failure of evolutionists — and those creationists who have long opposed the clear implications of my scientific results — to synthesize only a hand-sized piece of granite, and the subsequent production of a Po-218 halo in it, proves that the God of Heaven left an unambiguous signature of His creation in the rocks He created. We thus see how clearly the Lord made it possible to distinguish the true from the false when it comes to the question of the origin of the granites. Where does this bring us?

Earlier we saw that granites easily qualify as being part of the biblical foundations of the Earth. Now we see that the decisiveness of this test presents an insurmountable scientific obstacle to the position that you and ICR are now attempting to persuade the creation science community to accept. The question is what is to be done about it.