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From: lew@ihuxr.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Creationist references summarized
Message-ID: <587@ihuxr.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Aug-83 17:06:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxr.587
Posted: Sat Aug 27 17:06:34 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 02:38:14 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 95

Last June 22 Paul Dubuc posted an excerpt from "Origins Research" that
responded to Niles Eldredge's book "The Monkey Business: A Scientist
Looks at Creationism". This excerpt contained several references to
Science magazine. I have looked up four of them and would like to
summarize them for interested net.readers.

The first was one of three about pressure changes affecting radioactive
decay rates. (The other two were to other journals) :

	Hensley W.K., Passet W.A., Huizenga J.R. "Pressure
	Dependence of the Radioactive Decay Constant of Berylium-7"
	Science, Vol. 18, Sept. 21, 1973 (pp. 1164-1165)

These authors report a pressure dependence of the decay constant of
(2.2 +/- .1) * 10^-5 /kbar. Well, question is, what is the relevance
of this to dating techniques? The magnitude of the dependence is extremely
small for the range of pressures found in the earth's crust. In "The Earth"
by Sir Harold Jeffreys, we find the statement (p. 406):

"Schuster (1907), F.D. Adams and A.S. Eve (1907) have shown that radioactivity
is not affected by temperatures up to 2500C or pressures up to 2.6 * 10^10
dynes/cm2. The latter corresponds to a depth near 80 km."

2.6e9 dynes/cm2 is 26 kilobars, So the decay rate of Be7 would be speeded
up by a factor of 1.0005 under these conditions. One has to ask, how can
this kind of reference be construed to support creationism?

But that's not what I came to tell you about ...
I mainly was interested in the three references to articles by R.V. Gentry:

	Science Vol. 173, pg. 727 (1971)
	Science Vol. 184, pg. 62 (1974)
	Science Vol. 194, pg. 315 (1976)

These were given as a counter to Eldredge's claim that creationists
hadn't contributed "a single article to any reputable journal". I have
always thought this was an irrelevant criticism, but anyway ...

The titles are:
"Radiohalos: Some Unique Lead Isotope Ratios and Unkown Alpha Radioactivity",
"Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective",
and, "Radiohalos in Coalified Wood: New Evidence Relating to the Time of
Uranium Introduction and Coalification"

Curiously, (ahem) no reference was given to:

	Moazed C., Spector R.M., Ward R.F., "Polonium Radiohalos:
	An Alternate Interpretation", Science Vol. 180, pg.1272 (1973)

What is this all about? Well, radioactive inclusions in rocks form
little (~20 microns) halos around themselves due to defects in the
crystal structure caused by alpha decay. Most of these are due to
uranium and its decay products. You can identify different energies
of decay by distinct rings in the halo. Some of these rings are
due to polonium, an intermediate decay product of uranium. In some
halos, only the polonium halos are evident, but Po has a half life
of about 3 1/2 minutes!

In his first two articles, Gentry works around to the conclusion
that these really are "virgin" polonium halos. Incidentally, these
were observed as early as 1917. The "Alternate Interpretation"
article states.

"Our measurements do not support the polonium halo hypothesis. We
cannot definitely rule out the existence of polonium halos, but it
appears that there is no evidence requiring, or even firmly suggesting,
their existence."

Of course, Gentry doesn't agree. In his second article he states:

"Cursory examination of this halo type could lead to confusion with the U
halo, especialy in biotite, where ring sizes vary slightly because of
dose and other effects. However, good specimens of this type are easily
distinguished from U halos, even in biotite."

Now we have a problem that comes up often in science. A worker comes
up with some really startling results that no one else feels inclined
to believe. But in science you are not right until proven wrong. It
would seem that other workers simply ignored Gentry from this point on.

This act gets repeated at the reference level, where critics of creationism
such as myself get sent hither and yon looking up this and that, all
with the sure knowledge that the creationists have an infinite supply
of these pseudo-conundrums and that they will move on to the next one
as soon as you answer the last one. Please note that there is never
any evidence which "presents a problem" for Creationism!

Take these polonium halos, they require that the inclusions were formed
out of fresh polonium in a matter of seconds - a requirement that any
scientific theory, creationist or otherwise, would be hard put to meet.
Gentry states that the problem, "almost defies reason". I guess this
is supposed to be evidence that the polonium was inserted miraculously
at the creation. But this is not a scientific conclusion.

	Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew