Open Letter to ICR

To:	Andrew Snelling and ICR RATE group members and officers, including Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and other creation science organizations.
From:	Bob Gentry, July 11, 2003.
Topic:	Pre-publication draft of comments on ICR's Impact article #353.
Focus:	Primordial polonium halos and deep hole drilling point to granites as Earth's primordial Genesis rocks, identical with the biblical foundations of the Earth: It's a great biblical and scientific truth that shines as a lamp in a dark place, one that is growing brighter and brighter unto the perfect day (Pr. 4:18).

Preface and Introduction

Preface

ICR's November 2002 Impact article #353 (to view, click HTML or PDF), authored by my good friend Andrew Snelling, has successfully refocused attention on the origin of granite and has brought the topic to a very high level of prominence to a very wide audience by virtue of Andrew's claimed disproof of the primordial origin of granite and their enclosed polonium halos. According to #353 this disproof rests squarely on Andrew's claim of having discovered unequivocal evidence that granites are secondary rocks whose origin can be traced to the melting and cooling of fossil-bearing Flood rocks. In their public promotion of a secondary origin of granite Andrew and ICR proceed to claim this is indirect evidence that polonium halos in granites must also be secondary.

Scientific protocol requires these claims be carefully evaluated, for they deny my decades-long series of publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, containing results which show why polonium halos in granites are primordial, and hence that the host granites must themselves also be primordial. The failure of any scientist — atheist or agnostic, evolutionist or creationist, including Andrew — to respond to my widely published challenges over the last twenty-five years to refute these results and publish their findings in the same peer-reviewed journals, constitutes scientific proof that this remarkable evidence for Earth's recent fiat creation remains as immovable as the granites themselves. This is no surprise, for when God called planet Earth into existence on Day 1 of creation week, He made it impossible for man to overturn or account for His Fingerprints of Creation by any natural processes.

Introduction

In November 2002 ICR used its private publication, Acts & Facts to call into question my widely published scientific evidence of Earth's young age and rapid creation. In early 2003 someone informed me that ICR's Vice President, Larry Vardiman, had sent him a report, authored by Andrew and Mark Armitage, which claimed to falsify various aspects of my results on the primordial origin of polonium halos in granites. It was marked "confidential," so as to prevent my viewing it. I was informed it was to be presented at the forthcoming Fifth International Conference on Creationism. This is a déjà vu of events leading to the Second ICC in 1990, when its organizers and their chosen editors selected two highly adversarial evolutionists to criticize my work without giving me opportunity to reply. The evidence now in hand suggests that ICR and the Fifth ICC organizers, and their present editors, are planning a repeat of 1990. This document will be enlarged to respond to that paper.

The hundred thousand or so trusting souls who received Impact #353 — and possibly another hundred thousand who also may have read it by now — may well believe they have been given new truth about granites and their enclosed polonium halos. ICR's thrust against my work is curious considering that Andrew has long been an integral part of the two Adventist Media Production videos, The Young Age of the Earth and Fingerprints of Creation, both of which strongly endorse primordial polonium halos as evidence of the primordial origin of granites, as well as an approximate 6000-year age of planet Earth. Andrew's strong affirmation of all these positions is widely known both nationally and internationally through these videos.

Internationally, the videos have been translated into Serbian, and are now airing on many of the most prominent TV stations all throughout the Balkans. I continue to get glowing reports of God's providential leading in bringing this to pass. The videos are already in China and are presently being translated into Korean. Moreover, they have recently been translated into Spanish and Portuguese and, in what I consider to be a miracle of God's intervention, they will soon begin airing in Spanish via satellite all over North and South America, and Western Europe. And negotiations are already underway for the Portuguese version to air on satellite TV that covers all of Brazil. Moreover, they have also been translated into Russian, and just a few months ago I received a letter from someone who viewed Fingerprints of Creation on Polish TV. Clearly the Lord is continuing to lead very powerfully in their distribution and airings.

Nationally, in 1996-97, the Young Age video aired nine times all across North America on the Eternal Word TV Network (EWTN), which is part of the Global Catholic Network. Many EWTN viewers called, expressing how it strengthened their faith in the Bible, and to order their copy. Additionally, both videos have been airing on Public Broadcast Television (PBS) for almost the last two years; but not without opposition. One organization, long known for their acceptance of radiometric dating and an ancient 4.5 billion year age of the Earth, made rather strong attempts to prevent the PBS airings. The reason may not be hard to find; both videos reveal why these positions are in error, both scientifically and biblically. This may explain why strenuous attempts have been made to prevent their distribution and airing.

The fact that both Andrew and ICR, and other entities, have independently published criticisms of my scientific results, without either one giving me opportunity to respond, is within their First Amendment rights, and I respect their freedom to say and print whatever they choose. They should likewise respect my freedom to publish my opinion that such actions are contrary to the 1984 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Freedom of Inquiry resolution. I discuss it at length in my book Creation's Tiny Mystery, contrasting its principles to the way that evolutionists have long suppressed the creationist implications of my published reports. The NAS passed it in 1984 to lend moral support to foreign scientists whose research and discoveries, and other human rights activities, had come into conflict with the prevailing views of certain totalitarian-dominated regimes. Consequently they were under threats of imprisonment or worse, and the Academy saw fit, through their resolution, to awaken the conscience of the worldwide scientific community to muster as much high-level scientific support for these beleaguered colleagues as possible. It's a situation that is still ongoing many years later; certain scientists in those countries are still under threat because of their research or human rights activities. Of course, in principle it's no different than individual Christians in those countries being persecuted or threatened for their own personal evangelism, or because they belong to a certain religious entity that may be on the foreign government's blacklist.

This pre-publication draft exposes the fallacies of Andrew's and ICR's recent claim of having discovered unequivocal evidence of the secondary origin of granite from fossiliferous Flood rocks; coincidentally, it also exposes the fallacies of radiometric dating and Earth's 4.5 billion-year geological evolution. It is convenient to respond to both views simultaneously because they both are critically hinged on the same common, erroneous assumption concerning the secondary origin of granite and the enclosed polonium halos. This response may also be helpful in dispelling the considerable confusion that exists in many creationist circles concerning whether an ancient age of the Earth really contradicts the Bible. It seems that many who accept an ancient Earth have not been correctly informed as to the implications of what they believe. In fact, belief in an ancient Earth is virtually identical with the conventional geological evolutionary scenario which pictures formation of granites occurring deep underground tens of thousands of times, millions of years apart, throughout a presumed 4.5 billion-year period of Earth history. Both the Young Age and Fingerprints videos explain briefly why this is the downfall of the entire system of radiometric dating that underpins belief in an ancient planet Earth. This document more fully details the scientific and biblical reasons for this conclusion, while also showing that an ancient Earth is the foundation of both geological and biological evolution.

Until now I have generally not contested the wide dissemination of faulty claims and criticisms about my work. To remain silent any longer would leave the erroneous impression that these fallacious claims have credibility, when in fact they do not.