Robert Vance Gentry (July 9, 1933 – January 28, 2020) was an American

young Earth creationist 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 ...

and

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

, known for his claims that radiohalos provide evidence for a young

age of the Earth The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years. This age may represent the age of Earth's accretion (astrophysics), accretion, or Internal structure of Earth, core formation, or of the material from which Earth formed. This dating ...

Thesis

Gentry noted that the 218 polonium radio halos only formed at temperatures below 300 degrees and were visible for less than 3 minutes, thus requiring the Precambrian granites where they are to have formed by a quick process yet "mysterious" cold, highlighting the singularities of the continental crust in relation to the oceanic crust. When questioned in debates that defended the thermal paradigm in the formation of the earth's rocks, Gentry challenged them to then reproduce Precambrian granites containing the same, in miniature, since such a process should then be able to imitate the formation of granites containing halos. After unanswered decades, Australian geologist Andrew Snelling proposed a model "in which hydrothermal fluids separated 222 Rn and their parents' Po isotopes 238 U in zircons and transported them over very short distances along cleavage planes in the host and adjacent, biotites until 222 Rn decays and the Po isotopes were chemically concentrated in radiocentres, to later produce the Po radiohalos."

Career

Gentry received a master's degree in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

, and then worked in the defense industry in nuclear weapons research. In 1959, he was influenced by a verse he read in the Bible while looking at polonium halos, and subsequently converted to

Seventh-day Adventism The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath ...

. Thereafter, he entered the doctoral program at

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

, but left when he was refused permission to work on the

for his dissertation. By this time he was convinced that radiohalos might be the key to determining the age of the Earth, and might be capable of vindicating

flood geology Flood geology (also creation geology or diluvial geology) is a Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile :geology, geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, th ...

. He continued to work on the subject at home using a small microscope and attempted to publish his results (minus his creationist conclusions) in one or more peer reviewed scientific journals. In 1969, while Gentry was affiliated with an Adventist college in Maryland,

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

invited him to use their facilities, as a guest scientist in the hope that his work on radiohalos might lead to discovering super-heavy elements. This relationship was terminated as a result of his participation in '' McLean v. Arkansas''.

Claims and criticism

Gentry has had strong disagreements with other creationists over some details of flood geology. A number of creationists, including fellow Seventh-day Adventists, have criticised his work. In the late 1970s, Gentry challenged the scientific community to synthesize "a hand-sized specimen of a typical

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron- endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more al ...

-bearing granite" as a test of his claims. The scientific response was dismissive. Geologist G. Brent Dalrymple stated: "As far as I am concerned, Gentry's challenge is silly. … He has proposed an absurd and inconclusive experiment to test a perfectly ridiculous and unscientific hypothesis that ignores virtually the entire body of geological knowledge." In 1981, Gentry was a defense witness in the '' McLean v. Arkansas'' case over the constitutional validity of Act 590 that mandated that "

creation science Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without ov ...

" be given equal time in public schools with

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

. Act 590 was ruled to be unconstitutional (a verdict that was upheld by the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in ''

Edwards v. Aguillard ''Edwards v. Aguillard'', 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public s ...

''). Gentry has devised his own creationist cosmology and filed a lawsuit in 2001 against

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

after personnel deleted ten of his papers about his cosmology from the public preprint server

arXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...

. On 23 March 2004, Gentry's lawsuit against arXiv was dismissed by a Tennessee court on the grounds that it lacked

territorial jurisdiction A jurisdiction is an area with a set of laws and under the control of a system of courts or government entity that is different from neighbouring areas. Each state in a federation such as Australia, Germany and the United States forms a separat ...

, as neither defendant in the case was considered to have a significant presence in the state of Tennessee. His self-published book ''Creation's Tiny Mystery'' was reviewed by geologist Gregg Wilkerson, who said that it has several logical flaws and concluded that "the book is a source of much misinformation about current geologic thinking and confuses fact with interpretation." Wilkerson also noted that the book contains considerable autobiographical material and he observed that " general I don't think educators will find it's worth their time to tread through this creationist's whining."Gregg Wilkerson, "''Creation's tiny mystery'' Review" in ''Reviews of Creationist Books'' ed Liz Rank Hughes,

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a Nonprofit organization, not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of con ...

, 1992. page 55 This criticism of Gentry's "frequent whining about discrimination" has also been made by fellow creationists, who concluded that "his scientific snubs resulted more from his own abrasive style than from his peculiar ideas", according to critic Ronald L. Numbers, a historian of science.

Selected publications

* * * * * *Robert V. Gentry, (1986). ''Creation's Tiny Mystery''. (Knoxville, Tenn.: Earth Science Associates) Page 66

References

External links