Robert V. Gentry
Encyclopedia
Robert V. Gentry is a nuclear physicist and young earth creationist, known for his claims that radiohalos provide evidence for a young age of the Earth
. He is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
.
from the University of Florida
, and thereafter worked in the defense industry, in nuclear weapons research. In 1959 he was influenced by a televangelist, and subsequently converted to Seventh-day Adventism and strict creationism. Thereafter he entered the doctoral programme at Georgia Institute of Technology
, but left when he was refused permission to work on the age of the Earth
for his dissertation.
By this time he was convinced that radiohalos might be "the key" to determining the age of the Earth, and vindicating flood geology
. He continued to work on the subject at home using a small microscope, publishing his results (minus his creationist conclusions) in prestigious scientific journals. In 1969 while Gentry was affiliated with an Adventist college in Maryland, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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
.
In the late 1970s, Gentry challenged the scientific community to synthesize "a hand-sized specimen of a typical biotite-bearing granite" as a test of his claims. The scientific response was dismissive, with geologist G. Brent Dalrymple stating: "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
" be given equal time in public schools with evolution
. The defense lost and Act 590 was ruled to be unconstitutional (a verdict that was influential on, and upheld by, the Supreme Court
in Edwards v. Aguillard
).
Gentry has devised his own creationist cosmology
and filed a lawsuit in 2001 against Los Alamos National Laboratory
and Cornell University
after personnel deleted ten of his papers about his cosmology from the public preprint server arXiv
. On 23 March 2004, Gentry's lawsuit against arXiv was dismissed by a Tennessee court on the grounds that it lacked territorial jurisdiction
, 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." He also noted that the book contains considerable autobiographical material and he observed that "[i]n general I don't think educators will find its worth their time to tread through this creationist's whining." 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 Ronald L. Numbers, a prominent historian of science.
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
. He is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
.
Career
Gentry received a masters degree in physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
from the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
, and thereafter worked in the defense industry, in nuclear weapons research. In 1959 he was influenced by a televangelist, and subsequently converted to Seventh-day Adventism and strict creationism. Thereafter he entered the doctoral programme at Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
, but left when he was refused permission to work on the age of the Earth
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
for his dissertation.
By this time he was convinced that radiohalos might be "the key" to determining the age of the Earth, and vindicating flood geology
Flood geology
Flood geology is the interpretation of the geological history of the Earth in terms of the global flood described in Genesis 6–9. Similar views played a part in the early development of the science of geology, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists in favour of an...
. He continued to work on the subject at home using a small microscope, publishing his results (minus his creationist conclusions) in prestigious scientific journals. In 1969 while Gentry was affiliated with an Adventist college in Maryland, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the DOE's largest science and energy laboratory. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville...
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
McLean v. Arkansas
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258-1264 , was a 1981 legal case in Arkansas.A lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by various parents, religious groups and organizations, biologists, and others who argued that the...
.
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-bearing granite" as a test of his claims. The scientific response was dismissive, with geologist G. Brent Dalrymple stating: "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
McLean v. Arkansas
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258-1264 , was a 1981 legal case in Arkansas.A lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by various parents, religious groups and organizations, biologists, and others who argued that the...
case over the constitutional validity of Act 590 that mandated that "creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
" be given equal time in public schools with evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. The defense lost and Act 590 was ruled to be unconstitutional (a verdict that was influential on, and upheld by, the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
).
Gentry has devised his own creationist cosmology
Creationist cosmologies
Creationist cosmologies encompass a variety of theories of Young Earth creationists that are designed to support the religious belief that the universe is only a few thousand years old, in line with a literal reading of Genesis...
and filed a lawsuit in 2001 against Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
and Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
after personnel deleted ten of his papers about his cosmology from the public preprint server arXiv
ArXiv
The arXiv |Chi]], χ) is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance which can be accessed online. In many fields of mathematics and physics, almost all...
. On 23 March 2004, Gentry's lawsuit against arXiv was dismissed by a Tennessee court on the grounds that it lacked territorial jurisdiction
Territorial jurisdiction
Territorial jurisdiction in United States law refers to a court's power over events and persons within the bounds of a particular geographic territory. If a court does not have territorial jurisdiction over the events or persons within it, then the court cannot bind the defendant to an obligation...
, 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." He also noted that the book contains considerable autobiographical material and he observed that "[i]n general I don't think educators will find its worth their time to tread through this creationist's whining." 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 Ronald L. Numbers, a prominent historian of science.
Selected publications
- Creation's tiny mystery. Knoxville, Tenn.: Earth Science Associates, (1986) ISBN 0961675314
External links
- Earth Science Associates, Robert Gentry's website about radiohaloes.
- The Orion Foundation, Robert Gentry's site criticizing Big Bang cosmology.
- Talk Origin's critique of radiohalos
- Additional ways of naturally forming Po halos
- Answers In Creation article arguing that radiohalos do not support a young earth
- Defendant transcripts in McLean v Arkansas where you can read the transcript of his deposition.