Kevin R. Henke is an American

geochemist Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the e ...

and former instructor at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

's department of Geology. He currently works as a senior research scientist at the University of Kentucky's Center for Applied Energy Research. He is well known for his criticism of

young earth creationism Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, contradicting established s ...

and the scientific arguments they make for a young earth. In particular, he has been critical of the

RATE project The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscience, pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a ...

's results, which claim to show that zircons contain too much helium to be billions of years old, and has argued that Russell Humphreys, a young-earth creationist who was involved in the project, has made errors in his research. These flaws include that, according to Henke, "The vast majority of Humphreys et al.'s critical a, b, and Q/Q0 values that are used in these "dating" equations are either missing, poorly defined, improperly measured or inaccurate." Henke has also accused Humphreys of misidentifying his specimens, fudging his data, and not considering the possibility of helium contamination in this research. He has also criticized John Woodmorappe for arguing that

radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to Chronological dating, date materials such as Rock (geology), rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurity, impurities were selectively incorporat ...

is unreliable. On one occasion, Henke called

Kent Hovind Kent E. Hovind (born January 15, 1953) is an American Christian fundamentalist apologist and convicted tax evader. His young Earth creationist ministry focuses on denial of scientific theories in the fields of biology (evolution and abiogene ...

on the phone regarding Hovind's $250,000 challenge to "prove" evolution. Hovind told Henke that in order to win the money he would have to recreate the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

in a laboratory. Henke responded by proposing several alternative "proofs" that pertained to geology (his field of expertise), but Hovind refused, saying that the project must be chosen by him and it must not pertain to the area in which Henke has scientific expertise. Hovind therefore required Henke to prove that dogs and bananas had a common ancestor, and lowered the award to only $2,000 should he succeed. Henke accepted the challenge, and later drafted a contract, which was then posted on

Talk.origins talk.origins (often capitalised to Talk.Origins or abbreviated as t.o.) is a Usenet discussion forum concerning the origins of life, and evolution. Its official purpose is to draw such debates out of the science newsgroups, such as sci.bio.evo ...

. However, one of Henke's requirements was that the judges be unbiased, and Hovind rejected the challenge for this reason, insisting that he should be the only one who can choose the judges.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henke, Kevin 1957 births American geochemists Living people University of North Dakota alumni University of Kentucky faculty People from Friend, Nebraska American critics of creationism