No. LR-C-81-322
REV. BILL McLEAN, ET AL #
Plaintiff, # IN THE UNITED STATES
#
VS. # DISTRICT COURT, EASTERN
#
THE STATE OF ARKANSAS, # DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS,
ET AL. #
Defendants # WESTERN DIVISON
#
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
ORAL DEPOSITION OF GARTH RUSSELL AKRIDGE, Ph.D.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
APPEARANCES:
MR. DAVID KLASFELD,
Attorney-at-Law
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher,
& Flom, New York 10022
## For the Plaintiffs.
MR. CALLIS CHILDS,
Attorney-at-Law
Attorney General's Office,
Justice Building, Little Rock,
Arkansas 72201
## For the Defendants
2
ANSWERS AND DEPOSITION OF GARTH RUSSELL
AKRIDGE, Ph.D., a witness produced on behalf of the
Plaintiffs, taken in the above-styled case and
numbered case on the 25th day of November, 1981,
before Certified Court Reporters and Notaries Public,
in and for Fulton County, Georgia, at American Civil
Liberties Union, 52 Fairlie Street, Suite 355,
Atlanta, Georgia, at 11:00 a.m., pursuant to the
agreement thereinafter set forth.
GARTH RUSSELL AKRIDGE, Ph.D.
being first duly sworn, was examined and testified
as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLASFELD:
Q Doctor Akridge, how old is the earth?
A People have different dates according
to whose estimate.
Q How old do you think the earth to be?
A I believe the earth to be around -- just
to use a round figure -- 10,000 years old.
Q What about not to use a round figure?
A Well, that's about the closest I can
come. I think it's just -- I would like to stick
with that.
Q Ten thousand years old?
A Yes.
3
Q What is the basis for your belief the
earth is 10,000 years old?
A Well, different astronomical measure-
ments, mainly the thing called the blackbody back-
ground radioation.
Q Mainly, blackbody background --
A Blackbody -- one word -- radiation.
Q What else?
A The possibility that the sun is not --
could not be much older than that.
Q The sun cannot be more than 10,000
years old?
A That's right.
Q What else?
A The decreasing magnetic field of the
earth.
Q What other reason?
A Well, those are all I'd like to talk
about here, I think.
Q How old does the Bible say the earth is?
A To tell the truth, I've never figured
it up, connected dates together. I just don't know.
Q Have you ever had any discussions with
anybody about how old the bible says the earth is?
A Not that I remember, no. I haven't had
that discussion, no.
Q Have you ever heard of Bishop Usher?
4
A Oh, yes.
Q Have you ever heard of an opinion about
how old he thinks the earth is?
A I believe I did. I believe he's got a
date of Creation -- I think it's 4,004 B.C., isn't
that about right?
Q Yes.
Is he wrong?
A You'd have to ask him, I've never added
those up.
Q Added what up?
A The dates the Bible -- tried to arrive
at a Biblical date.
Q You've never had a discussion with
anyone about what the Bible suggests about how old
the earth is?
A Well, tell me what you mean by discussion
about how old the Bible says the earth is? An exact
date or what?
Q Have you ever talked to anybody about
how old they think the Bible says the earth is?
MR.CHILDS: I'm going to object.
This witness in not competent as he
himself has indicated to testify as to
how old other people say the Bible says
the earth is.
5
MR. KLASFELD: I've only asked
him if he's ever talked to anybody.
That's not an objection.
A (The Witness) I have discussed, generally
the Bible with people, but nothing specific.
Q What is it about blackbody ground radia-
tion that leads you to believe that the earth cannon
be more than 10,000 years old?
A Well, the galaxy's self-absorption would
heat up to about three degrees Kelvin in a matter of
a few thousand years, say, under a round number
there, 10,000 years.
Q Can you explain what that means and
what the implications of it are? It has no meaning
to me in terms of a proof why the earth is only
10,000 years old.
A Okay, space has what's called a radiation
temperature of about three degrees above absolute
zero and that means that it's glowing all around,
a very faint glow of about three degrees above
absolute zero. It's not a difficult calculation to
determine that this is about the amount of time that
it would take the galaxy's own self-absorption to
heat itself up from absolute zero to about three
degrees Kelvin. And that general range of age is
10,000 years.
6
Q What do you mean by self-absorption?
A Like you explain a flashlight through
a dusty room. That would eventually heat up the room
just because the dust particles would absorb the
light and radiate or collide with one another and heat
the room up.
Q Is the three-degree Kelvin temperature
rising?
A Nobody knows.
Q Well, if it's not changing, why does
that lead you to some conclusion that it had to take
10,000 years to get where it is?
A Well, you see, for instance, if it did
start out at zero and built up to three degrees in
10,000 years, then, the -- the first measurements
on this would have been in about 1965 and that's
fifteen years ago, approximately, and in that short
time you couldn't detect whether it was rising, going
to remain steady, or decreasing. The time that we
have measured this is too short to tell.
Q I don't know why you are drawing con-
clusions, any conclusion about the fact that it's
now three degrees Kelvin. I don't understand why
you draw any conclusion about 10,000 years old from
that.
A You mean you don't understand the cal-
culation process at all or -- it's rather intricate.
7
Q I guess I don't understand the fact
that three degrees Kelvin has anything to do with
the fact that the earth may not have been here
10,000 years ago.
A The earth may not have been here 10,000
years ago --
Q Why you're saying the reason why you
think the earth is 10,000 years old is because of
the fact that there's this three-degree Kelvin
space radiation temperature. And I don't understand
what one has to do with the other.
A Well, the galaxy emits a fairly well-known
amount of light and it's -- you can also arrive at
a general estimate of the fraction of the galaxy's
own light it absorbs before it gets out of the dust
of the galaxy and that way you can determine the rate
at which the galaxy's dust absorbs its own light
energy and determine the rate at which it's heating
up and how long it would take to heat three degrees;
a general figure, 10,000 years.
8
Q Could it be 20,000 years?
A Probably could. There's no way to
determine exactly. But you could come within general
figures. Like, for example, I've read at different
places in our region of the galaxy, will absorb 20%,
some say 30%, of our own light before it eventually
gets out of the galaxy. So different authors disa-
gree on absolute amounts.
Q Is there anybody who agrees with you
about that?
A Well, I've co-authored a paper with
two other physicists, and we discussed it and had
an agreement, at least us three.
Q Who are they?
A Dr. Slusher and Dr. Barnes at the
University of Texas.
Q What is Dr. Slusher's degree or his
doctorate?
A I think he has just an Awarded Doctorate.
I believe he has a Ph.D. or Doctor's degree.
Q What is his Master's in? Do you know?
A Well, his Master's was in Astronomy. And
I believe he told me that he did his work under
Harlow Shapley.
Q And Doctor Barnes?
A You know, I don't know about what Dr.
Barne's Ph.D. is in.
9
Q Does anyone else agree with you about
this?
A Well, I guess I'll find out soon. It's
to be published, but I haven't published it yet.
Q Were is it going to be published?
A In The Creation of Research Society Quarterly.
Q Is there any reason you chose that
publication to publish your article?
A Well, they have been receptive of other
articles I've written. It's a good trend to keep up,
I think.
Q What about Science Magazine, Nature
Magazine?
A Well, I didn't submit it to them, because
they commonly publish articles only dealing with long-
time spans for the age of the Universe and I just
didn't bother submitting it to them.
Q Have you ever submitted an article?
To Science Magazine?
A Not to Science, no.
Q What magazines have you submitted
articles to?
A Are we just talking about the articles
that deal with the Creation and Evolution?
Q Yes.
A Well, you have my publication list there.
10
This is just for submission s that are not on the
list. I've submitted to the Physical Review and to
the American Journal of Physics.
Q Of which articles are these?
A The article to the Physical Review was
an article which I attempted to relate general
relativity to Fermium Quantum Mechanics, and they
rejected it. Of course, that didn't have anything
to do with Creation.
Well, the other one was the article I
submitted to the American Journal of Physics, more
or less the same article that's there, the Faraday-
Disk Dynamo and Geomagnetism, and they rejected it
also.
Q Do you think they have a bias against
articles that suggest that the earth and the universe
are 10,000 years old?
A Well, you have to ask the editors. But
I know that John Riggen, who is the editor of Journal
of Physics, about three months ago wrote an editorial
in there in which he favored Evolution over Creation.
You will just have to ask them.
Q And in doing the calculation on the
background radiation, why do you start out and take
the belief that it started out at absolute zero and
has been increasing since then?
A Well, that's just the way to get the
11
longest possible age. If it started out higher than
zero and just rose from one to three, you would get
an even shorter age. That gives us the maximum age
you could have.
Q Why do you believe the sun can't be more
than 10,000 years old?
A Well, I can't recall saying it can't
be. I believe I said that it's a possibility that
it's not. The age of the sun depends upon what the
sun draws its energy from. If there is no fusion
occurring in the interior of the sun, then the sun
would not last too long on the time scale that we
are talking about. And would go out in, say, tens
of thousands to maybe a million years.
Q What evidence do you have that there's
no fusion going on inside?
A Well, I have not discovered any evi-
dence. but there is debatable evidence for the lack
solar neutrinos from the sun. Some recent measurements
have indicated that the sun is decreasing in size
and has been doing that for a hundred years. Those
are the two.
Q What scientific evidence do you have that
there's no fusion going on in the sun?
A Well, you see, if there was fusion at
the least temperature, which is believe by many, then
you would see those small elementary particles called
12
neutrinos coming out in abundance, that you can
barely measure. Measurements have yielded much less
than the amount of neutrinos you would expect. And
probably just background neutrinos, it's an indica-
tion that there's no fusion inside the sun.
Q How can you believe the sun does generate
the energy it creates?
A Well, you know, I don't know. I can
think of several possibilities. But as far as I
believe how it generates its energy, I don't know.
You would actually have to go into the interior of
the sun and find out.
Q That's the only way you could find out
how the sun generated?
A As far as I know.
Q Do yo have any theory of your own?
A Well, I can think of several possibili-
ties. That's something that excites me to think of,
these possibilities.
One theory that did not originate with
me is that the sun derives its energy from gravita-
tional contraction, and it contracts, it heats up,
shines, loses energy, it leaks a little bit, contracts,
heats up. So it's in the process of contracting and
radiating.
Q How fast does the sun contract?
A Well, the measurements of Edya Bernasium
13
indicate about a 10% per century. Measurement of
Erwin Sherpiro and others indicates it contracts
probably none at atall within a statistical era. So
it's really an unsettled question.
Q The article that you had rejected, do
you have the rejection letter?
A No, I don't. I wish I had saved it. I
looked for it and couldn't find it.
Q Do you remember the content of that
letter?
A Well, somewhat. It was the Faraday-Disc
Dynamo article to the American Journal of Physics and
was rejected for several reasons.
One was, like I said, a could of disk
dynamos could oscilate. Another reason that it was
rejected was that the magnetised rock in the earth's
crust indicated that the magnetic field did oscilate.
Another reason was that, in any event, the earth is
known to be much older than the age that I was sup-
porting. And those are the general reasons that it
was rejected.
Q How do you choose the term, 10,000 years,
from your radius of the sun?
A I don't, I don't.
Q Why did you list that formula when I
asked you for the evidence of the earth's being
10,000 years old?
14
A The 10,000 years would come from black -
body radiation. The sun, if it liberates energy by
gravitational contraction, alone could last much
longer than that. It could last several million
years.
Q Who in your field agrees with you that
the sun radiates energy by gravitational contraction
alone?
A Well, there's Dr. Ted Rybka, Slusher,
and Barnes.
Q Could you tell me how mcuh the sun would
have to constrict in order to produce the energy that
it's currently putting out?
A Well, it wouldn't constrict nearly that
much. It would only constrict a few feet, say in
the neighborhood of 70 to 80 feet per year if in
constricting in uniform.
Q Have we been absorbing this 70 or 80
feet contraction per year?
A That's too small to observe the size of
the sun. The size if irregularity is from the sun's
surface much greater than that anyway.
Q Are there other examples of stars that
give off heat by contraction?
A Well, we've not observed, as I recall,
any starts in the process of contracting. By that,
actually seeing them set up and give off heat, not
15
to my knowledge, no.
Q Have any other stars been observed giving
off energy by nuclear reaction?
A I don't know how you tell. We observed
them giving off energy, and that's about all I could
say.
Q What is there about the decreasing
magnetic field of the earth?
A All right. The earth's magnetic field
has been measured for, oh about a little over a hun-
dred years, seems it's about 150, about that time
span. And it's been found to decrease by a few per
cent in that time. So if this process is uniform,
that's an "if", if that process is anything like
uniform, then the magnetic field must have been much
stronger.
If you go back very far, in other words,
say 50,000 years to 100,000, a million years, then
that magnetic field becomes unthinkably large. In
other words, the earth would tear itself apart. It
would have a magnetic field greater than anything we
have ever measured anywhere.
Q In 10,000 years?
A No. It takes more than 10,000 years,
say 50,000, a 100,000.
Q What makes you believe that the process
is uniform?
16
A Well, just that -- let me back up. I don't
know that it is uniform.
Q Well, you are assuming the process is
uniform in order to come to this conclusion?
A Well, you see, you have to assume some-
thing or you can't get any results out atall for
this reason. Nobody's been to the center of the
earth. There could be a little guy down there with
a magnet waving it around for all we know. We don't
think there is.
You have to assume why the earth has a
magnetic field in the first place in order to make
anything useful out of the decrease. Most people
think it's molten metal circulated in the interior
of the core and generating a magnetic field. And
if that's the case, friction alone is going to slowly
use current down, and the magnetic field would de-
crease, that's true. If that's true, then in past
times, the current would have been greater in order
to slow the principal volume down, and the field
would have been stronger. But, you know, nobody's
been to the center of the earth.
Q Until somebody goes to the center of the
earth, we'll never know?
A Never know for sure.
/ / /
17
Q Is that a reasonable assumption of the
processes have been numerous? I think there is evi-
dence that the magnetic field has been reversed over
time.
A Yes, much evidence.
Q What is that evidence?
A The magnetic-reversed rocks.
Q What other evidence?
A Well, we observed other objects doing
this, for example, the sun, reversing its polarity,
although it is a gaseous body, not solid.
Q Any other evidence?
A I can't think of any.
Q How do you explain a magnetically-
reversed rock?
A Let me take a pill and let me think on
that. Why don't you get on to your next question.
I can give you the answer to that which is, I don't
know.
MR. CHILDS: Excuse me, please.
Does the record reflect where these
gentlemen are from?
MR. KLASFELD: Yes.
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) How do you explain the
fact that the sun reverses its polarity?
18
A Well, the polarity of the sun is believed
to be reversed because the circulating currents in
the sun are reversed. But it is another one of those
things that is a theory - nobody has ever there to
see.
Q What evidence is there that the magnetic
field didn't reverse?
A The decrease in the magnetic field
strength that has been occurring, if it continues in
either direction, it is very difficult.
If it continues in forward direction,
in around a thousand years or so you are going to
reach a condition where the earth has zero magnetic
field on the way to reversing its poles. That's bad
because once a magnet stops, it's center is gone. It
won't automatically re-energize itself. In the past,
it's been difficult to see how the magnetic could have
the earth circulating, the magnetic core, if that's
what, indeed, causes this effect. It is difficult to
see how it could have stopped in the past and begin
circulating in the opposite direction, so as to re-
verse the poles.
Once it stops, it stops unless an exter-
nal source of energy is applied.
Q Is there any scientific evidence that
the magnetic field didn't reverse?
A Not that I know of.
19
Q But even that would have taken fifty
to one hundred thousand years?
A Even what?
Q The evidence about the magnetic fields
of the earth, if they didn't reverse, would only lead
you to conclude that it couldn't have existed more
than fifty to one hundred thousand years?
A That's true.
Q So it's really only the blackbody back-
ground radiation that leads you to believe that it
is not more than 10,000 years old?
A For that figure, that's right.
Q Now, you have written an article,
"The Mature Creation: More Than A Possibility." In it,
you argue that it is entirely likely that light was
created from -- en route from all of the stars to the
earth; is that correct?
A I'm not sure if I would use likely or
not, but it is possible.
Q The article is called, "More Than A
Possibility" --
A Yes.
Q -- which is why I used the word "likely"
and not "possibly."
A Well, let's go ahead and use "likely" and
we will see how it turns out.
Q Does that mean thatthe heat was also
20
created at that time?
A Does the article talk about heat?
Q No.
A I don't recall it?
Q No, it didn't. But I am asking you in
light of your theory about blackbody radiation and
the heat.
A I see. No, I believe no.
Q The heat wasn't created?
A No, I believe not.
Q Why not?
A I don't know.
Q How could the light have been created
without the heat?
A The light -- we seem to get two things
mixed up. The light that is connected with three-
degree radiation could. We are talking about possi-
bilities. It could have been or it could not have
been. If it was created, then it would have heated
up now to a temperature greater than six degrees which
is not observed. So since the background temperature
is now around three degrees, you can't say what it
was in times past for sure.
If it was any greater than zero degrees
when it started, it would have heated up much past
three degrees by now.
Q I have a very limited knowledge of this
21
science, but my sort of understanding is that heat
is approximately equal to infrared light.
A That's about right.
Q Then how could your argument about the
mature creation not effect what you just said about
blackbody radiation?
A Well, the blackbody radiation is not
infrared. It is quite a different wave length called
micro wave length.
Q But all of these stars and all of this
light was created at once but that had no effect on
the amount of heat in the galaxy?
A Try to rephrase that one. I don't quite
understand.
Q Well, in your article on "Mature Creation"
you said that all of the stars were created with --
let me back up. In an effort, as I understand it,
to try and explain what you view as a paradox that
there are stars that seem to be billions of light-
years away, yet we are receiving the light of the
earth, but the earth is only 10,000 years old, that
can't be possible because the stars are billions of
light-years away. You argue that it is more than a
possibility, to use your language, that the light
was created at the same time, that the stars were
en route to the earth.
And I am asking if, in addition, you gave
22
me an example of the fact that if you shined a light
into a room, that it will eventually heat up the room
to some degree.
My question is: Doesn't the instant
creation of all of this light in the galaxy effect your
calculation about the blackbody radiation?
A No, the blackbody radiation would not have
been there but would have started when the light was
created, being absorbed by the depths.
(Thereupon, a short break was had.)
/ / /
23
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Dr. Akridge?
A Yes, sir.
Q Why do you exclude the background radiation
from being created originally when the light was
created?
A Well, if the background radiation was
created at that time, then, heat, I think -- however
many thousands of years it's heated. According to the
data I gave you, it wouldn't be double the temperature,
but hotter than it's observed to be.
Q I thought you testified it was changing
so slowly that we can't observe it.
A It is, but we haven't lived six to ten
thousand years. If we could live another ten thousand
years, we might observer another -- some change in it,
but over a hundred years it's almost impossible to
observe a change of a tenth of a degree or a hundredth
of a degree in that radiation.
Q Back to my point.
If you don't know the rate of change in a
temperature why do you draw any conclusion about the
fact that the temperature is three degrees?
A Well, let's not draw a conclusion then. It
could be one of two ways: The Big Bang Theory has it
here one way and the Heating Theory has it another way.
24
But, then, you know, let's take another for instance:
If the universe in the galaxy had been heating itself
for, say, five billion years, that gas included would
be might hot by now and we certainly do observe that,
but, you're right, if we could find it decreasing or
increasing that would probably settle it.
Q Where is it that this radiation comes
from? It comes from the galaxy?
A I think it comes from our own galaxy, yes.
Q Why is it, then, that the background
radiation is uniform and not isotropic?
A Well, it's all equilibrium. It's like
the interior of an oven. If your oven's on 400 degrees
the coils in the wall keep it about that temperature
and it will be the same temperature near the coil as
it is in the middle of the oven; almost equilibrium.
Q Almost at equilibrium?
A Well, to the extent it heats up three
degrees in 10,000 years.
Q Is the dust and gas in our galaxy distri-
buted uniformly?
A Well, no, it's not.
Q Wouldn't that affect the heating caused
by background radiation?
A It would affect the amount of heating that
25
particular -- we likened it to an oven -- that parti-
cular amount of heat that coil produces, but the
radiation, again like the oven is more or less the
same throughout the interior even thought more heat
comes from the coil and not from the center of the
oven.
Q Do all of --
A The temperature is the same.
Q Do all of the stars create energy the
way the sun does?
A I don't know.
Q Either -- do you have any evidence for
any of the stars creating energy in a different way
that the sun creates energy?
A Well, I'd have to say, no, and add to that
that we're really not sure how the sun creates it
energy.
Q Is there any scientific evidence that the
different stars are made up of different elements?
A Yes, there is.
Q Do you believe that some stars are older
than other stars?
A Very honestly, I don't know.
Q How do you explaint the fact that the
different stars are made up of different elements?
26
A I just don't know. I wasn't there when
they were formed. I don't know.
Q Is your belief as a scientist that if you
are not there when it happens or you couldn't go to
the center of it that you cannot have any understanding
about how it happens?
A No, that's not my belief of -- if you
include those words, any understanding, that's true.
Q But you would have a very limited under-
standing?
A I guess I could go along with that.
Q And everybody's guess would be equally
as good?
A My feeling on that is everybody's guessed
that fits the observed data ought to be equally as
good unless you have some that fit better than others
and some contradict more than others.
Q How does your theory of a decreasing mag-
netic field fit observed data of magnetically reversed
rocks?
(Telephone interruption.)
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Could you define for
me, Dr. Akridge, how a scientific method?
A Well, it's a process -- you observe a
phenomena and then you construct a guess as to what's
27
happened. The guess is called a hypothesis. And you
use your guess to test other phenomena as long as
they're accessible.
If your guess works, then, it builds your
confidence in the guess and if it doesn't work, then,
you either junk it or modify it and then go through
the cycle again.
And, eventually, if you have some under-
standing of it and your guess works often, then, you
use another name for it and call it a theory.
And, then, a theory that's worked for
a long time -- it depends kind of on the culture as
to what a long time is -- it is promoted to the place
where it's called a law.
Q When something becomes a law, is it, then,
true?
A No, its just -- my feeling is thatit must
be close to the truth, because it's worked so well for
so long, but I don't say any law could be the true law.
I don't think you have that.
Q What acts does your theory about electro-
magnetic -- the decreasing electromagnetic field --
what facts does it explain?
A It would explain the decrease in the
electromagnetic field. It's also in very good agreement
28
with the laws of electrodynamics; and those two.
Q But it doesn't explain magnetically
reversed rocks?
A You know, I kind of object to the words,
magnetically reversed. It implies that it is magnetized
by reversal or something and I don't believe that
happened. It doesn't explain why some are magnetized
toward the present north and some toward the south.
Q Does the record of rocks reflect only
the one change or does it reflect many changes?
A Very many.
Q This theory doesn't explain any of them?
A No, it shouldn't have changed at all
according to this theory, that is correct.
Q So you have these facts which you've
tested, your hypothesis, and you've found your hypo-
thesis was wanting in that it doesn't explain this
observable data. How does that affect your hypothesis?
A Well, you say, is there any other reason --
see, if you have something that does fit somethings,
but doesn't fit others, that's the time for research.
You say, well, let's dig into this and
find out what's going on -- is the theory wrong? What's
wrong with it? So there are many possibilities and
as far as I know, not too many of them have been looked
29
into.
For example, except for a recent dive off
Mexico the prominent magnetic rocks are not measured
directly, but just by a time-averaged magnetometer
dragged above them on a boat.
The dive in Mexico indicates that is a
rather accurate procedure. It's still one of those
things that up for grams.
A time-averaged magnetometer model drag
doesn't indicate what the individual rocks are doing.
Secondly, the rock magnetized, at least,
on sealevel it's true, or magnetized on stripes on
the surface and people thought they were below the
surface. But there's not the same uniform stripes
beneath the surface so it's one of those paradoxes.
There is another possibility that these
rocks could have been reversed -- magnetized by another
process. It's possible for rocks to be magnetized
reverse or even transversed to -- under different
conditons of stress and pressure so there are a lot
of possibilitys and its a great topic for research,
as far as I know.
Q Do you have any scientific evidence for
any of those other rocks?
A Well, now, the scientific evidence would be
30
the reversed magnetized rocks and I have never -- I
don't have any experience with anybody trying to reverse
magnetize rock under any conditions, really. I don't
know of any such experiment.
Q Are you aware, Dr. Akridge, of any research
that's going on to examine the forms and solidification
of rock on the ocean floor now?
A Well, there's the Submarine Alvin that
tires to examine the so-called chimneys on the bottom
of the floor and pick up rocks samples and actually
lift them off the bottom so we can see what their
condition is and bring them up and analyze them. I'm
aware of that.
And the rest of it, no, I guess there
should be some research going on, but I don't know
of any.
Q Are you aware of any evidence, any scienti-
fic evidence, that these newly formed rocks -- when
I say, newly formed, I mean within our life time --
are magnetized in any special way?
A I'm not aware of it. I just don't know.
Q You're not aware of any evidence that
newly formed rocks are being magnetized both in field
stregth and direction with the present measurement of
the earth's magnetic field.
31
A No, I'm not.
MR. KLASFELD: I'd like to mark as
Plaintiff's Exhibit 1 Dr. Akridge's resume.
(Thereupon, the court reporter
marked Plaintiff's Exhibit 1
for identification.)
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Before I leave the
topic, Dr. Akridge, if there was such evidence as I
described, what effect would that have on your theory?
A Well, would you describe the evidence,
again, so I can understand?
Q If there was evidence that there was
recently formed rock on the ocean floor, the kind
of striping that we've talked about, and the rock
was examined and was found to be -- that the magnetism
in the rock was found to be the same in field strength
and direction as the earth's magnetic field, would
that have any affect on your theory?
A Well, I don't think a single find would.
Many finds like that made under a wide
variety of temperatures and pressures and chemical
environments -- not to support the idea that it's
always that way -- then, that would have a definite
effect on the theory.
Q How many such findings would you require?
A Gee, I don't know. How many different
32
conditions are there?
Q I don't know, I'm asking you. I'm asking
you what, as a scientist, would convince you?
A The different conditions of all the possi-
bilities you could imagine. Oh, we used to, in my
research -- my thesis research, anyway, used to get
about 30 to 60 data to see a general trend of one
set of conditions; about that many finds for the
different possibilities.
Q Before you'd be willing todraw any con-
clusion?
A Well, I think you'd have to have a fair
number. Each individual would have his own separate
amount, but somewhere around that certainly sounds
fine by me.
Q Is this your resume, Doctor, Plaintiff's
Exhibit 1?
A That's my resume, yes, sir.
///
33
Q What was the subject of your masters thesis
in Theologoly?
A The Masters of Theology at the New Orleans
Baptist Theological Seminary did not have a thesis.
You took the prescribed courses of study, a certain
numbers of hours, and that was the degree.
Q Was there any particular area you majored?
A At the time I enjoyed studying languages,
the Greek and the Hebrew.
Q You had an unusual resume. It's a little
hard to follow the chronology.
After getting your masters from New
Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, you enrolled
in graduate school at Georgia Tech in physics?
A Back at Georgia Tech, right.
W Was it your intention when you went to
the Theological Seminary to do work for the church?
A No, sir. It was not my intention. I'd
been interested in origin of the world for quite
awhile. I went to the seminary with the intention of
developing some tools to probe the languages and
attemped to see if there was any real information
there. So that's why I enrolled in seminary.
Q Why did your interests in the origin
of the world lead you to seminary?
34
A Well, you know, these ministers talk about
the origin of the world. And just to be quite honest
with you, I didn't know if they knew what they were
talking about or not. I wanted to dig around with
myself to see if they had anything worth while to
stay.
Q What did you learn about the origin of
the world from the New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary?
A Well, I learned a little bit about the
Hebrew, that they didn't have any construction
really, could have cared less about the origin.
Q So was your experience there unsatisfactory
in terms of your original reason for going?
A Nothing is a total loss, but that was
somewhat unsatisfactory, yes, sir.
Q Then you changed to physics?
A Yes.
Q Where did you graduate from college?
A Well, I graduated from college at Georgia
Tech here, Bachelors in '62, Masters in '63.
Q And now you have a Ph.D. which you got
in 1975?
A That's correct.
Q What did you do in 1975 when you got your
35
degree?
A At the time I was teaching high school
here at Westminister High School in Atlanta and con-
tinued there for the continuation of the year. And
so for the next four or five months I was teaching
at Westminister.
Q And after that?
A I went to Oral Roberts University.
Q What did you teach there?
A I taught most of the general physics,
general variety physics courses. They have a relative
number of them. I think I taught them all at one
time or another.
Q How large is the Department of Physics
at Oral Roberts?
A I guess zero.
Q They don't have a physics department. They
have a Department of Natural Science which includes
chemistry, physics, and mainly biology.
Q How many peope are that department?
A In the whole department there would be
about -- it can vary. There was usually between, say,
15 and 20 faculty members.
Q Teaching all of the natural sciences?
A All of the undergraduate natural sciences.
36
Q Why did you choose Oral Roberts to teach?
A Well, when I got my Doctor's Degree, I
sent off, as I remember, about a hundred applications,
heard from about ten, and got an interest expressed
from a few. And Oral Roberts was one of those, went
out there and rather liked their faculty, liked their
department head, and decided to move out there and
teach with them.
Q Does Oral Roberts have any kind of religious
requirement for teachers?
A He kind of changes those from time to
time, I think. I'm not sure what he has now or really
what he had back then. If you would like to ask me
a specific question if we had to do or not to do --
Q Well, I guess I meant did you have to
be a Christian in order to teach there.
A I don't know. I suppose you did.
Q But in any event it wasn't a problem for
you?
A No, it wasn't a problem for me.
Q But you weren't asked to sign an oath
or anything like that?
A No, I wasn't, not while I was there.
Q But why did you leave Oral Roberts?
A Let me back up. I do remember that, too.
37
We had to sign an oath in chapel, some kind. I forget
what he said now, some kind of moral behavior, you
won't do different things like -- I've really forgotten.
It was some kind or moral behavior oath at chapel to
be signed.
Q Was evolution taught in the Bible courses
at Oral Roberts?
A Yes.
Q Was Creation Science taught?
A Not that I recall. I don't think it was.
Q Why did you leave Oral Roberts?
A Well, I was trying to get them to teach
Creation in their courses and was told that I was
too Baptist, couldn't do that, and then also the main
reason was that it was just a too religious confine-
ment. There towards the end, you would be kind of
an Oral Roberts University mold or nothing. And I
just can't stand to be confined like that. So, I hung
it up and left.
Q Did you understand what they meant when
they said it was too Baptist?
A Well, I know what I thought it meant.
What I thought it meant was that they are a rather
Pentecostal University. In other words, they deal
in just kind of a different denomination of religion
38
than Baptist. I thought they meant it was not their
denomination.
Q How did their Pentecostal denomination
differ in that regard from your denomination?
A I never did know.
Q You never discussed that with them?
A I never knew. I discussed it with them,
but I never found out.
Q What did they say and what did you say
in those discussions?
A Well, my plea was for openness, let's talk
about the issues and possibilities here. And their
plea was, you didn't need to do that, just the spirit
was more important that the material. And that's how
it got started.
Q Excuse me --
A The spiritual aspect of Creation was more
important than the material aspect. It didn't matter
how it got started, so just don't worry about it.
Q Where did you go when you left Oral Roberts?
A I came back to Atlanta here and taught
physics at Westminister High School again.
Q I don't mean to mislead you. Your resume
says that in the summer you taught at Heritage College.
A Oh, that's right. In the summer there, I
39
taught a three-week course in astronomy at Heritage
College in San Diego.
Q Am I correct, the name of the college,
the complete name is Christian Heritage College?
A I guess that's correct. I've always
called it Heritage, but maybe it is Christian Heritage
College.
Q What course did you teach?
A I taught a course on astronomy there for
them.
Q Was the Bible a required text for that
course?
A No. I don't remember if we even talked
about the Bible in the course.
Q What did you teach?
A Well, if it was a beginning astronomy
course, and we talked about the fact that there are
such things as other stars like our own sun, galaxies
and universal galaxies out there and that how you
can identify the temperature and the type of stars.
And then we went out and looked at the stars. A
couple of times we went to the Mount Palomar Explora-
tory. And that about does it for one of their begin-
ning astronomy courses.
Q Did you teach about how the stars were
40
formed?
A We had a book that did teach the evolutionary
the general evolutionary astronomy model and did also
suggest that we think about it on our own. So,
actually, I guess I taught the evolution model and
asked they think about it on their own. And I don't
know, it's just up to them what they thought about.
Q Did you contrast the evolutionary model
with another model?
A I probably did. I know if I were doing
it today, that's what I would like to do. It stimulates
thinking.
Q What model would you contrast it with?
A I would contrast it, contrast the
recent creation model and the standard evolutionary
model as a formulation of most stars and galaxies.
Q In the standard Creation model, how are
the stars created?
A They were created more or less like
they are today, at the instant of their creation.
Q What brought about their creation?
A Who knows. Who knows either case.
Q Why did you resign from the Westminister
School?
A Well, the faculty was too fussy. They
41
constanty fussed at one another, which is the thing
that brought me over there in the first place. They
seemed to get along very well and had a good feel of
harmony and worked together when I was there before.
When I came back, they just fussed at one another
all the time. I didn't feel I needed to put up with
that, so I resigned.
Q Fussed in what sense?
A They were always trying to get -- like
some of them wanted science money for their depart-
ment or the courses they wanted taught, the options
they wanted taught and ours. And, of course, we're
all going to have that, but it was just a totally
different feeling that I felt. So it was just a
rather bad feeling I felt from the faculty out there.
Q Did you express an interest in teaching
Creation Science at Westminister School?
A Oh, Yes, I did.
Q Did you teach Creation Science there?
A Well, I taught it as part of my course.
We taught the physics course. And as part of it, one
fifth of it is astronomy, historical astronomy. And
when we came to that, we discussed several different
models, heliocentric and creation model. All the differ-
ent models we could think of.
42
Q Did your teaching of Creation Science at
the school have any reason, play any role in your
leaving?
A Well, I wanted them to include more Creation
other than that. That ordinarily they allowed me to
include however much I wanted of it in my own course,
so it played a little part, I guess.
///
43
Q Your resume says that in 1981 you began
teaching at Northside Christian Academy a new private
ACE school. What is ACE.
A Those are the abbreviations for Accelerated
Christian Education.
Q What is Accelerated Christian Education?
A It is sort of a group of self-paced
teaching, a plan for the students to be given indi-
vidual desks to sit at. And they have what they call
paces. They are actually little booklets that are
40 or 50 pages in length. And the student will go
through and read the material in there along with
other assigned supplementary reading or activities.
And to answer the question, when he
finishes with the booklet, then they take the test.
If he passes the test on that subject, then he goes
on to the next one. If he doesn't, he does remedial
work and takes the test until he can. So it is a
self-paced type of instruction.
Q How old are the children?
A Well, they are the school-age children
from grades 1 through 12.
Q Is the Northside Christian Academy
affiliated with any particular church?
A I don't believe it is.
Q Why did you stop doing research on the
mobility and diffusion of various ions?
44
A That's what I did at Georgia Tech. And
when I moved to Oral Roberts University, there was
no equipment for that. That required a rather large
amount of experimental equipment, and they weren't
ready to lay out any funds, nor any physics type
of equipment really in the whole time that I was
there.
And so if there was no equipment, you
cannot do the research. So that's why it was a
problem for me to do it.
Q Did you discuss that with them before
you went to OR?
A No, I didn't. I was just looking back
on it. I think I must have assumed that a fellow
that had been doing research in one area, that a
college would provide for him. But that was a little
naive, I think. But you live and learn these things.
Q What do you anticipate that you would
testify about a trial?
A The subject that we have been talking
about, the radiation, just cosmology in general,
the magnetic field's strength decrease.
Q What else?
A Well, I guess those are the -- cosmology
in general covers a wife variety of stuff. But I
haven't done that much recently in all of it. But
the research that I have done, I feel, at least,
45
prepared to testify about it.
MR. KLASFELD: Mr. Childs, have
you discussed with Dr. Akridge the
limitation of his testimony at the
trial?
MR. CHILDS: Can we agree that
it will be limited to these various
theories which we have discussed
this morning, which indicate that the
earth and the universe was a relatively
recent formation.
(Thereupon, an off-the-record
discussion was had.)
MR. CHILDS: I'll read this:
I, DR. AKRIDGE, would like to present
testimony in the area of cosmology
relating specifically to the Big Bang
Expanding Universe Theory versus A
Recent Creation In The Age of The Sun.
Any Addition to that, I would
feel comfortable with saying that any-
thing within the scope of the articles
that he has given you, I think that he
could testify if we need him. Okay.
At the trial at this time, cosmo-
logy, the Big Bang Expanding Universe
46
MISSING PAGE 46
47
Q Dr. Akridge, could you be more specific
about the source of the background radiation?
A Okay, how about an analogy, is that all
right?
Q I will tell you at the end of the analogy.
A Your oven at home, if you turn it on,
the heating coil begins to heat on the inside. Two
things heat up: the gas in the oven as the air in
the oven begins to move more rapidly the molecules
and that is what we sense as heat; and another thing
that happens that you probably -- another thing
happens, there's an infrared wave length of light
that gets trapped in the oven -- walls of the oven,
mostly what you sense unless you put your hands near
the elements and the heat from the air feels hot,
but regardless of whether there's any air or not.
There's no light whether or not it's visible to the
eye -- infrared light.
If you were to seal up the oven and pump
the air out and turn on the heating coils, the walls
would come to some temperature and there would be
no air in there at all. But the infrared wave length
would still be trapped in the oven so it's the --
so there is just light energy contained in the oven.
And we say -- well, in that case, for
an oven, it would be a temperature of about 400 de-
grees above absolute zero, which would mean that
48
it's -- the light energy in there is in thermal
equilibrium, not heating and not cooling the walls
of the oven; the walls would be at that temperature.
Well, that's the radiation that I'm
explaining to you in the galaxy; that the inner region
between stars our galaxy contains a little dust, but
practically not at all. Really, if it contained only
a paper thickness of dust between us and the nearest
star, we couldn't even see the nearest star through
it for it's very diffuse gas.
In other words, compared to your oven,
all the air would be pumped out, essentially, so
that the energy that's there is totally -- almost
totally the electromagnetic energy, lowgrade light
energy.
In this case, its longer wavelengths
than infrared, which could be called microwaves.
Q What is the wavelength of the radiation
you're talking about?
A Let's see, it's about 1/10 of a centimeter,
I think; maybe it's a 1/100th of a centimeter. I
don't know exactly, but on that order of wavelength
the microwaves generally extend toward that order
of magnitude in this general length.
Infrared is about a hundred times shorter
-- a hundred or a thousand times shorter still.
Q What is the specific source of this
49
wavelength?
A The radiation?
Q Yes, what is the source that generates
this wave of 1/100th of a centimeter or 1/10th of a
centimeter?
A In space, you mean the three-degree
radiation we're talking about?
Q Yes.
A The source would be starlight that used
to be visible or infrared light or ultaviolet star-
light that had been absorbed by the dust of the
galaxy and re-radiated and possibly re-absorbed until
it's in equilibrium with the light, lowgrade light,
that's already there.
If there's none, then that's the first,
but after it goes into equilibrium and just adds to
it.
Q I'm sorry, I didn't understand. It has
to be in equilibrium with what?
A Well, the light would be degraded in
energy until it's got the same average energy of
the lowgrade light that's already there.
Q Which light was already there?
A Well, the three-degree radiation light
that's there now.
New light re-absorbs by dust and re-
radiated would add to the three-degree light that's
50
already there and increase it a little bit.
Q What wavelength would this light start
out at?
A Visible light would be about, oh, say,
about a decimal point and, say, six zeroes and some
number; about ten to the minus seven meters.
Q It's getting bigger?
A Much longer wavelength.
Q Does this happen only within the galaxy?
A Are you talking about other galaxies in
our galaxy?
Q Yes.
A Gee, I don't know. If they have dust
and they appear to, then you'd have a similar process.
Q Why isn't light from sources other than
our galaxy included in your calculation?
A They -- for one thing, they wouldn't
have had time to get here in ten years. Another
thing, the light that -- the three-degree light would
come from another galaxy and if it could get here,
would be rather spread out, more like a light in the
corner. By the time it gets to you it doesn't feel
as hot in intensity as it is when it gets closer.
Most of the galaxies are so distant it
wouldn't have much effect.
Q What do you mean, the light isn't here
yet?
Transcript continued on next page
51
A Yes.
Q I see stars with the naked eye from the
other galaxies, to I not?
A That's right.
Q What do you mean, the light isn't here
yet?
A My view is that if our galaxy were
created without any radiation background, zero radia-
tion there and it's heated up in the last few thousand
years, then it seems reasonable -- although I guess
not necessarily -- that's what happened to other
galaxies. But, really, who knows about the other
galaxies?
Q I guess my question is, what does it
mean? I see this star. Doesn't it mean that the
light from the star is here for me to see?
A It means you see the -- it means you
see at least light you think came from that star,
that's right.
Q How do you explain it?
A Explain what?
Q The fact that I see light from a star
that's beyond this galaxy.
A Well, in that case, the light just had
to be -- had to have been created en route around
the star at the same time the star was created.
Q My question is then, how many other
52
other galaxies are there?
A Well, who knows? Billions may be
measured -- I mean photographed -- but who knows
about how many are out there?
Q But at least billions?
A I think an estimate is from two to three
billion, something like that.
Q And the total of the light from these
billions of galaxies would have no heating effect
on our own?
A That's right. The visible light -- all
we're aware of because they're totally so far away.
It's the invisible light. We look at the sky and
we don't see any of them.
Q Is it your understanding that the source
of this background radiation is that each one of these
stars in the galaxy is a separate source of background
radiation?
A That would be the original source for
it, yes.
Q Shouldn't that make for little hot spots
all over the galaxy in terms of background radiation?
A It would make for local hot spots, but
you think the stars themselves would be local hot
spots, and no matter how you interpret where they
came from, there are these stars; there are local
hot spots and gases in the galaxy. The dense clumps
53
are local hot spots, but they're still three-degree
radiation regardless of where you say it comes
from, so that's got to be.
Q Is another hypothesis that the galaxy
was hot but it's cooling down to reach the level of
three degrees?
A Well, you can make that hypothesis, you
know. That's just a guess and if you said that,
then you'd have to discuss that, well, it must be
losing energy faster than it's absorbing its own
energy. And I think that there's kind of a dust
cloud there.
Radiation, loses as I remember, 25% of
its energy. As I remember, the rate of energy loss
is about 25% of the rate of the total energy within
it, at least in the unit's volume, so it would just
be a mass of numbers. It would have to be eventually
heat up to some temperature to at least be in equi-
librium absorbing the energy from the other galaxies
as it radiates.
If it started out hotter than that, it
would cool down. The question is what would be
an equilibrium temperature? I don't know.
Q If the universe was expanding, would it
be cooling?
A It might and it might not.
Q Might not? Why wouldn't it?
54
A Well, it would depend what is on at the
boundary of the universe.
For example, if you can, imagine a uni-
verse contained within a metallic boundary so nothing
could get out.
/ / /
55
Q I've always wondered what's beyond the
other side of the metallic boundary.
Q If you get there, let me know. Let's
just take a for instance, because this would cool the
universe. If the universe is contained in a kind of
metallic balloon, you know, and everything is con-
tained in there, the matter can't get through the
walls. The light reflects off the walls, then,
sure enough, as it expands, it's got to cool because
the same total of energy is spread over the greater
volume, and the temperature goes down. And in addi-
tion, it doesn't work against the walls for
expansion.
Of course, nobody that I know of thinks
there's such a coating on the outside of the universe.
If it were, it would cool.
Q And if it weren't to cool?
A Well, there would be no such coating
in the room here. If you shine a flashlight, the
light would stay here in degrading wavelengths from
red to infrared to microwave. It would go out the
door. And, supposedly, if you could have somebody
stationed, ahead of them, as it passed them it would
be the same color. It might be spread out, but it
wouldn't cool the color.
So, I don't think so.
Q Do we receive radio waves from other
56
galaxies?
A Oh, yes.
Q Do these radio waves receive reflex or
calculations without background?
A I haven't included them. I don't think
they would be anywhere near the source of energy
that the -- say, I think I used 20% of our own
galaxy's energy, would effect it. If it would,
then that would make it heat faster and would effect
the calculations. I just don't think it would make
any difference.
Q Is background radiation a radio wave?
A Well, it's a microwave which means that
it's a longer wave length. Electromagnetic wave is
what it's usually called, a radio wave, but the same
thing is vibrating the electromagnetic field.
Q Let me understand this. The background
radiation is picked up by various dust particles,
absorbed by various dust particles, and then re-
radiated and absorbed and re-radiated and absorbed;
is that right?
A Uh-huh.
(Positive response)
Q How wide is the band of the background
radiation?
A You mean in distance or wave length?
Q Wave length.
57
A Well, it's a statistical kind of a
distribution, and so the wave length span, wide
length of wave length, it would be the dominant
wave length that would be that microfrequency.
Theoretically, all wave lengths are wide to some
extent.
Q Is the universe expanding in your
opinion?
A No.
Q Is it highly possible? Could I have
misunderstood your article on the expansion of the
universe?
A Well, I don't know. What did you
understand about it?
Q I understood it to say that the universe
was expanding but that the Hubble constant calculation
that was done to say how long it had been expanding
for was inappropriate for that purpose, but that the
universe itself was expanding?
A Close. Here's what I attempted to convey
in the article, that if the universe is presently
expanding, that it could have been created that way.
It didn't have to have started out as a nugget and
expanded where it is now. I don't recall saying it
is expanding or that I tried to prove that it was.
That if it is, it didn't have to have started at a
central point.
58
Q But you don't believe that the universe
is expanding?
A Well, no I don't.
Q The article makes reference to the
Hubble constant?
A Yes.
Q And it says that certain limitations are
on the Hubble constant. To what distance is the
Hubble constant compared from?
A How do you -- could you verify the
Hubble constant for large distances? Usually that's
what is used to measure large distances, so how could
you verify?
Q What I'm asking is what distance has
Hubble's law been verified?
A Well, the law has been verified by
different methods. Some are more reliable than
others. It's not the fault of anybody. It's just
the business you can do. Probably the best method
is to use what's called cepheid variables, and they're
just pulsating stars, very light pulsating stars,
and you can use them to at least infer the distance
to a galaxy that contains them, since you know
something about how bright they really are. The
trouble is, you can't seem them individually except
just the closest of the galaxies, because once you
get a galaxy so far away, you can no longer resolve
59
those stars. So that's about the best direct test
of Hubble's law, and that would take you out to, gee,
I'm not sure of the lineup. Let me just make a wild
guess. It would be about 10,000,000 light years.
The closest galaxy would be something
on the order of -- well, the magellanic clouds, I
guess, would be a galaxy, but about 10,000,000 light
years.
Q Your article on the expansion of the
universe said, page 176, "The Hubble equation only
can be checked out to a distance of one or two
billion light years." Is that wrong?
A Checked?
Q I'm quoting your article, "The Hubble
equation can only be checked out to a distance of
one or two billion light years."
A Well, that was a while back. I have in
my mind a much less accurate check than I explained
to you, a much less accurate check would say if you
see a galaxy which you could make out in light years
away with enough equipment that you, at least in
some approximation, determine how far away it was,
if it was very dim. If all galaxies are more or less
the same, or if you have some way in telling if they
are different in just looking at them like spiral
or color or something, then if you look at a galaxy --
and you know, if you got right up on it, it would be
60
very bright. But if you looked at it and it's
very dim, you say, that must be a very long way away.
You're assuming it's dim because it's small, and that
is a much less accurate test.
I'm not really sure what I had in mind
there, but that wouldn't be nearly as accurate as
a cepheid variable.
Q Are you familiar with B. L. Lacertan?
A No, I'm not.
Q You're not familiar with the fact if a
galaxy moved to measure distance?
A No.
(Thereupon, a short recess was had.)
/ / /
61
Q What experimental evidence do you have
that supports your Theory of Background Radiation?
A Well, it is there and the dust is there.
And the dust absorbs the light and the energy has
got to go somewhere. So that's the evidence that
I presented.
Q I understand that you observed that there
is background radiation?
A Right.
Q You have observed that there is dust?
A Yes.
Q Other than making those two observations
and drawing the conclusion, what other kinds of evi-
dence do you have?
A That's it.
Q Dr. Akridge, are you a member of the
Creation Research Society?
A Yes, I am.
Q What kind of a member are you; a voting
member or a sustaining member?
A Voting member.
Q As a voting member, did you have to sub-
scribe to certain beliefs?
A I think to vote, you have to sign a state-
ment that you believe in a young earth. And I am not
62
sure that's on it. There are some statements that you
do have to sign to vote.
MR. KLASFELD: Let's take a break for
a minute.
(Thereupon, a short break was held.)
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Dr. Akridge, does the
Creation Research Society require that you believe
that the Bible is literally true?
A I don't remember.
Q Do you believe that the Bible is literally
true?
A Depends on what you mean by literal. Try
and give me a real precise term when you say literal.
Q Do you believe what the Bible says is
historically true?
A Are you talking about just historical
parts now? There is poetry and everything else in
the scriptures. I am wondering if you are talking about
just the historical things.
Q Was there an Adam and Eve?
A Yes, I think there was.
Q Were they the first two humans?
A Yes.
Q Was there an Ark?
A I think there was.
63
Q Was there a world wide flood?
A I think there was.
Q Which parts of the Bible are you referring
to as poetry?
A Well, some parts are poetry, I would say.
Job is written as poetry, many of the books around
Solomon and Job, all throughout the Bible.
Q Is there any scientific evidence that
would lead you to believe that Adam and Eve were not
the first man and woman?
A Do you say were not?
Q Yes.
A I guess not, no.
Q Is there any scientific evidence that
would lead you to believe that there wasn't a world
wide flood?
A That there was not?
Q Uh-huh.
A You are actually asking me a question out
in the field, but I will give you the answer just as
a person. I know there are things that I find diffi-
cult explaining, large salt beds that appear to be
the result of a long-time evaporation are hard for me
to understand on a short-time scale.
Large limestone beds which appear to be
64
the result of marine fossils, living and dying and
accumulating are hard for me to understand and similar
things like that. Maybe there is an explanation;
I hope there is. But it kind of baffled me.
Q What did you mean by short-time scale?
A Well, we talked about the time 10,000
years. To pin it down, let's say 10,000 years.
Q Why 10,000 years?
A That's the general figures that I would
come up for the age of the galaxy based upon three
degree radiation.
Q What does that have to do with the scienti-
fic evidence for the world wide flood?
A I thought you were asking for scientific
evidence that would deny world wide flood --
Q Yes.
A Well, if these things were laid down by
the world wide flood and any time during the last
10,000 years, they wouldn't have had time to evaporate
to the depths. The marine, coral, or shellfish of any
kind wouldn't have time to live and die and accumulate
to form massive amounts of limestone that are known
as far as I could figure in that time period. If that
occurred, it was within the 10,000 years.
Q Why do you think that the flood occurred
65
within 10,000 years?
A Well, the age of the galaxy. The whole
galaxy is less than 10,000 years old. You couldn't
have had a flood before the galaxy is created.
Q What is the time scale of these factors
that had to do with the world wide flood?
A Maybe you need to rephrase the question
then maybe; I am misunderstanding it. Please rephrase
it or repeat it.
Q I think that I asked you what scientific
evidence would you accept that there was no world
wide flood? And your response was that the soft depo-
sits that appeared to have been left by the evaporation
of water and the formation of the dying specie creatures
did not seem to fit into this short-time scale.
And I asked you what the time scale of
those factors had to do with the world wide flood?
A Well, you see, to take a hypothetical case,
if the world were a million years old and you had a
world wide flood, a million years ago, there would be
time for whatever salt accumulated in such a flood.
There would be time for it to dry out, and there might
have been time for that many fossils -- I mean marine
plant and animals to live, die, and accumulate.
So it is coupled with the time, too. Really,
66
I thought you were asking me what evidence would deny
a flood recently.
Q I didn't say anything about recently.
A That's the way that I was answering the
question. As far as just a world wide flood at any
time, I really don't know. I have never thought about
it. It would take a little more time to think about
it than I want to give right now.
Q Does the Bible say anything about when
the flood was?
A As I recall, it does in terms of age. But
we have to read it and see. I wouldn't want to try
and quote part of the Bible from memory unless I have
one.
Q Would the Bible suggest to you that it was
less than three million years ago?
A The flood?
Q Yes.
A Well, it would seem to me that that would
make it less than three million years ago, although
there again the interpretations of the Bible is differ-
ent.
Q Would it be less than 50,000 years ago?
A To me?
Q Yes.
67
A To me, it would.
Q At what age would it make it?
A I would say somewhere -- sometime less
than 10,000 years old, I would say.
///
68
Q The Bible says that?
A No, I said that. Don't blame that one
on the Bible, that's mine.
Q Does the Bible say anything about how
long ago the Flood was? You said that it did.
A In terms of Noah's live, but the rest
of it we have to go through the Bible and look
through it. I don't want to quote that from memory.
I can't remember the details. I just don't know.
Q What scientific evidence is there that
the Flood took place less than 10,000 years ago?
A Well, much of the sedimentary layers
that appear can be interpreted in terms of a flood
as well as in terms as anything else. The fossils
have sediments.
Q How do you interpret the sedimentary
layers to lead you to believe that they are 10,000
years old or less?
A How do I interpret --
Q How did that lead you to the conclusion
that they were laid down more recently than 10,000
years?
A Well, if I would just look at them, I
really wouldn't know when they were laid down. It
beats me. I'm not a geologist. I just don't know.
The only thing that would have been from
the time scale -- I don't know, but they could have
69
been as the result of a large single event as well
as many long-term but very slow events.
Q Are you familiar with the Varves?
A No.
Q Are you familiar with any of the work
that's been done to date the ice in Greenland and
other places?
A Over there in the place that begins with
an "I" Aigu or something like that?
Q Maybe.
A I read the two articles in Scientific
American that have come out about it. That's the
extent of what I know.
Q How far did those articles say that
the ice went back?
A That's supposed to be the oldest rock
on the planet or thereabouts. Just from memory,
I recall them saying around three and a half billion
years; certainly in the billions of years.
Q Are you familiar with the technique of
radiometric dating?
A I have never done it myself, no.
Q And people who do radiometric dating,
how old do they think the earth is?
A Well, I don't think I'm going to answer.
You're just have to ask them. I don't want to tell
70
someone's opinion.
Q What's the range?
A Surely it would depend on what you're
dating. I just don't know. I don't think I'm
qualified to answer that one. You'll have to ask
a person what he thinks about it.
Q How do they figure up that ice in
Greenland was three and a half billion years old?
A In the article, as I recall, they did
a --
MR. CHILDS: I'm going to object
to this. The witness has indicated
that he did not have the expertise
on radiometric dating. I'm not going
to instruct him not to answer, but
I will interpose an objection.
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) You can answer.
A Are you still asking the question?
Q Yes.
A I recall it's a method called isocrons
radiometric.
Q How does this information from the
rock in Greenland, the salt beds, the buildup of
marine layers -- how does that fit in with your
71
theory about the background radiation?
A Well, those particular ones conflict
very strongly on the times, you see. Ten thousand
years conflict terribly with three and a half
billion years, so those two won't fit in at all.
Q Using your definition of scientific
method, how, with your theory, do you deal with this
contradictory information?
A Well, like I said, whenever you get
contradictory information, that's a chance for
research right there. And I think I would rethink
the three-degree radiation.
See, if there was some other interpre-
tation of it, that's -- that fits that particular
set of data better and if I were one of those radio-
metric data fellows, I would rethink my methods and
see if the radioactive samples that I'm measuring
could be interpreted in any other way, other than
long age, and try to rethink it all.
It's a good chance to have a good research
project going.
Q Have you rethought your research about
background radiation?
A I rethought it many times, you know.
My procedure is to write it down -- I have several
of my articles that haven't been submitted yet --
72
and find things that are wacko, about them, and let
it mature for a while in my mind and, then, I
rewrite them and eventually submit them. But they
change quite a bit and sometimes I throw them away
altogether.
And, after I submit them, there are
some things I wish I could change. So, yes, we
thought it through several times and I'm still
more satisfied with my interpretation that any
other that I can think of.
Q As a scientist, you're more satisfied
with that one piece of data that you have in the
face of this other contradictory data from a
host of different disciplines?
A Well, are we talking about data or
interpretation?
See, if a fellow says something is
three and a half billion years old, that's an
interpretation of data. The amount of radioactivity
in the sample, that's the data. Ant the data for
three-degree radiation is the intensity and wave-
length of radiation.
So when the test's through, we're
talking about interpretation of data.
Q All these experts in all these fields
interpret this data. You apparently interpret the
salt deposit data in a certain way that troubles you.
73
Do you, as a scientist, feel any need
to reflect on other experts' interpretations of
the data in their fields in terms of development
of your own theory?
A Well, I see a need to get together
on it. People should feel free to share ideas
on different theories about what the interpretation
of the various data is.
My experience is that any time you have
people and they think about interpretation of what
they've got in their hands and what they measured.
they'll come up with different interpretations.
And you learn and you compare those things and you
feel share to free them.
Q You said you feel share to free them?
A I did do that, didn't I?
You need to be able to freely share
those pieces of information and your thoughts on
them. And, so I see that as a great need here.
Q Let me show you this application for
the Creation Research Society and ask you if you
filled out one similar to it when you became a
member?
A Is this like the first sheet of the
Creation Research Society Quarterly?
Q Yes, I think so.
A That's the tear-off. That's the one
74
MISSING PAGE 74
75
Deluge, was an historical event, worldwide in its
extend and effect."
Do you believe that?
A I do.
Q Four, "Finally, we are an organization
of Christian men of science, who accept Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior. The account of the special
creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman,
and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis
for belief in the necessity of a Savior for all
mankind. Therefore, that can come only through
accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior."
Do you believe that?
A Well, I believe -- except the first
sentence, I suppose it's correct. I don't know
if all the members are Christians or not.
Q Fair enough.
A But other than that.
Q I'm supposed to be a lawyer, so I read
every word of these carefully.
What is the scientific evidence for the
statement that, "All basic types of living things,
including Man, were made by direct creative acts of
God during Creation Week?"
A Gee, I don't know. That's kind of
biology. I don't know.
76
Q Are you aware of any scientific evi-
dence?
A Well, I don't think -- I don't even
think I'm competent to offer any kind of testimony
on that. That's totally unrelated to anything I
have any familiarity with.
Q Are you aware of any scientific evi-
dence in support of that?
A In support of what?
Q The statement that "All basic types
of living things, including Man, were made by direct
creative acts of God during Creation Week?"
A I've heard it talked about pro and
con, but I don't remember how the argument went
or what they were. I don't know.
Q Would you accept any scientific evi-
dence that could prove that all basic types of
lving things, including Man, were not made by
direct creative acts of God?
A That is a hypothetical thing. If such
evidence appeared, then would I accept it?
Q Yes.
A Certainly, I would. You cannot deny
the facts, but you can deny interpretations of them.
I don't think of it happening, but if it did, then
that's the breaks.
Q What evidence would you accept?
77
Q What evidence would you accept?
A Of what?
Q As a denial of that statement.
A Well, I just told you I can't imagine
any evidence conclusively disproving it, si I
don't know.
Q Can't imagine any evidence that you'd
believe -- that would lead you to believe that that
statement was scientifically true?
A No, I really can't.
Q What scientific evidence would you
accept that would lead to believe that the Great
Flood described in Genesis was not a historical
event?
A Let's see -- no, I can't -- I can't
dream them up. Maybe you could supply me with a
simple hypothesis and see what I feel like. I can't
think of something -- like if you found and didn't
find that it would -- I don't know.
/ / /
78
Q What evidence would you accept, what
scientific evidence would you accept, that would prove
to you that the account of special creation of Adam
and Eve was not true?
A Well, I will accept any evidence of any
kind regardless. But I can't imagine what evidence
could conclusively prove it.
(A short recess.)
MR. KLASFELD: I'd like to mark as
Plaintiff's Exhibit 1 a xerox of a document
that Dr. Akridge supplied to us this morning.
It's a two-page document, the first page of
which is the copy of a file folder, and it
says "Doug", I believe it's, "Parsons" on
it. And the second is a letter from Mr.
Parsons to Dr. Akridge.
(Whereupon, Plaintiff's Exhibit
No. 2 was marked for identifi-
cation by the court reporter.)
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Would you look at this
letter, Dr. Akridge, and tell me if it's a letter that
you, in fact, received from Mr. Parsons?
A Looks like it. Looks like it. That's
his letter to me.
Q Right. This indicates that you replied
to him?
79
A Wrote him something. I don't have a copy
of my letter to him.
Q Do you recall what it is that you said
in the letter?
A I just don't have -- I didn't keep my
letters at the time. I just wrote that so I would
know I have answered the fellow is all.
Q The first sentence of Mr. Parsms' -- is
it Parsms?
A I think it's Parsms.
Q P-a-r-s-m-s?
A Yes.
Q It says, "I have an interesting conversa-
tion concerning evolution versus creation. I am
essentially interested in the earth being 10,000 years
old or less. If you have copies of articles you have
written, I would appreciate it.
Do you know why he was interested in
arguments that the earth was 10,000 years old or less?
A I don't know why. And I never met him,
never received another correspondence from him. I
have no idea.
Q Do you have any reason to believe that the
standard radiometric data procedures are in error?
A You know, there are a lot of procedures
80
like which one are you talking about?
Q Is it potassium-argon?
A Well, potassium-argon is the -- let me
answer it this way. I have no reason to doubt that
the facts that they come up with are at all in error.
But the facts aren't to date with the amount of radio
activity of a certain species. And so I don't doubt
the radio, you know, the measurements that are made,
but I feel free to question the interpretation of the
age that they draw from it.
Q What is the interpretation that they make
that you disagree with?
A Well, I don't think that they are as old
as they say, but that's just my feeling. And I'm not
an expert in radiometric dating and don't claim to
be. So I think I will just let someone else argue
that one for awhile.
Q Are there some assumptions they make that
you don't go along with?
A Well, you know, I feel certain that the
different methods make different assumptions. And if
you would just tell me one of the assumptions, I might
be able to tell you what I thought about it. But still
I'm not an expert.
Q Well, the assumption as I understand is
81
that the rate of decay was relatively constant over
time. Is that an assumption you disagree with?
A No, I don't disagree with that assumption.
Q If the rate of decay was relatively con-
stant over time, what is it that you disagree with
about the result?
A For potassium-argon?
Q Yeah.
A Well, there must be something else involved
in that calculation. What else is it that's involved
in it?
Q Well, I understand there's a difference
of the two elements.
A Uh-huh. (Positive response.)
Q And the decay of one element into the
other element and that you can measure the rate at
which it's taking place and knowing how much of what's
called the daughter element which is the new element
that's created, if there -- did you make a judgment
on how long that took?
A To come from where?
Q How long it took to create the daughter
element from the other element.
A From no daughter at all to the present?
Q Yeah.
82
A Well, you could certainly answer that
question. And, you know, I feel with great recision
how long it would take for all the daughter to accumu-
late from initially pure parent given the species as
to game. I feel you could answer that question with
relative accuracy.
Q You believe that's an incorrect assumption?
A I don't believe in -- I said I don't
believe they do that in radiometric dating method.
Q What do they do that's different?
A Well, I don't want to be obstinate, but
I don't want to assume I know a lot about it. I think
I would rather let you or your associates answer
that. You asked me some precise questions and I could
just tell you really just a totally nonexpert answer.
Just as a feeling, I would tell you what I did feel.
Q I guess what my question basically is over
the long haul is there all these different unrelated
ways that come up with substantially greater ages for
the universe and the earth that you believe to be
correct?
A I understand that.
Q You're not expert in these areas, but
you reject -- you reject it as satisfactory evidence,
and I'm wondering why.
83
A Because other people that have done work
on that show for different reasons that the radiometric
dating processes, the interpretation of the ages that
they get from them, are in error.
Q Who?
A Well, there's a fellow by the name of
-- let's see, friend from St. Cloud University, St.
Cloud, Minnesota, as Russell Arndts, A-r-n-d-t-s,
has done some work on it, and has concluded that they
are a result of mixing, not of radiometric decay.
Q And how did you become aware of -- is it
Dr. Arndts?
A Uh-huh. (Positive response.)
Q How did you become aware of Dr. Arndt's
work?
A Heard him give a seminar in Atlanta here
about six months ago.
Q Was this a seminar of the Bible Science
Association?
A Yes, it was.
Q Was it a seminar which you were also a
lecturer on astronomy?
A That's right.
Q Does anybody agree with Dr. Arndts?
A Gee, I don't know. He didn't give any boos
84
from the crowd that night.
Q I am sure he didn't.
A So I don't know. I wouldn't know. I've
never heard of a poll taken on his work.
Q Are you aware of any criticism of Dr.
Arndts' work?
A Let me see. No, I'm not.
(Short Pause.)
Q (By Mr. Klasfeld) Based on this speech
by Dr. Arndts at this Bible Science Association, you're
prepared to reject all of the evidence from radio-
metric dating?
A Well, I'm prepared to rethink it. But
you can't rethink it all just on the spur of the moment.
It takes a lots of time, and really I don't know if
I will ever get around to doing that. It's a totally
different field. It does bear rethinking.
Q Are you aware of the efforts that people
who do radiometric dating make not to mix the -- to
be sure that there was no mixing of the mother element
and the daughter element?
A You mean while they are doing their dating
process?
Q Yes.
A Before they arrive on the scene?
85
Q I don't guess I'm too aware of that. I
explained to you, I'm not an expert on that.
What did they do?
Q My understanding is they do very highly
sophisticated tests to insure that it didn't happen,
because it's an obvious concern. I guess my point
is, you would have to think these people were utterly
stupid to think that they don't take any consideration
with the problems that Dr. Arndts has raised.
A Well, you just have to ask them about that.
I don't know.
Q Is his complaint a very sophisticated one?
A Not too sophisticated. As I remember it
does have a little math associated with it, nothing
much more than averaging, adding fractions, though.
Q But people that are at least competent, if
not clever scientists, I mean, don't you think they
took into consideration what it was that Dr. Arndts
said?
A Well, looks like they should have, but I
don't see any account of it.
Q Where have you looked for such an account?
A Well, the only two articles that I told
you that I read about it were in Scientific American
where they presented the isocrons, and I didn't notice
86
anyway that they said that they could be sure that
mixing the argons -- in fact, come to think about it,
I don't know how you could be sure mixing didn't occur
when you weren't there to observe that id didn't.
Q You're not an expert in the field?
A No.
Q Are you familiar with carbon-14 dating at
all?
A I just heard about it, but I'm certainly
not qualified to testify about it.
Q And this sort of notion of Dr. Arndts'
is sufficient for you to, as a scientist, to completely
disbelieve all of the work, all of the people who are
doing radiometric dating?
A Well, you see, to me it's not a matter of
the odd. Truth is never a matter of the odd. You can
have the odds on your side or against it. I would
like to rethink these things. And equally good inter-
preation comes up even though the odds are astronomical.
In this case, my ownself, I say I'm ready
to rethink that, so the odds don't matter to me.
Q I'm not talking about the odds. When
Einstein critized Newton and his theories, his criticism
was a very sophisticated one based on new reasoning and
new thinking and Einstein's own approach to it.
87
Dr. Arndts' criticism, as I understand it,
is not at all sophisticated, not at all new and is
something that it strikes me that these scientists
working in the field must have given some thought to.
A I guess you ought to ask him about that.
Q My point is, I'm asking you as a scientist,
how you evalute this information of Dr. Arndts.
A Well, like I explained, that's worth re-
thinking the whole thing to see how each side arrives
at its conclusion. And if there's really a way, you
can tell the difference.
Q Let me just understand. You, as a scien-
tist, if there's a whole realm of scientists or
authorized other scientists working in a certain area
and some other scientists makes sort of an unsophis-
ticated criticism of what it is that they are doing,
that one scientist criticism would lead you to rethink
the whole of science that they are looking at.
A If I were interested in it, yes, it would.
Q You make reference to cratering in one
of the articles in Creation Research. Are you aware
of cratering as a technique for dating objects in the
galaxy?
A Just generally, but I did write that article
on it. That's true.
88
Q It's sort of standard astronomers use
cratering as a technique for dating. What time
periods did they come up with and age?
A Well, I think it would be somewhere in
the neighborhood of four billion years.
Q Does it concern you that that's
approximately equivalent to the age that we get
for the rocks by radiometric dating?
A Well, you mean that the two are agreed?
Q That the two are agreed and completely
dissimilar from your own theory?
A Not much. In fact, I would rather
expect that they would be compatible with one
another based on just a general evolutionary model
of the development of the universe through the last
five billion years.
Q Do the decay rates of isotopes have
anything to do with the cratering of bodies in the
galaxies?
A In terms of causing them or internal
heating or what?
Q Does the analysis of the decay rates
of isotopes bear any similarity to the analysis of
the cratering rate of the bodies in the galaxies?
Did those analyses -- are they in any way dependent
on one another?
89
A Oh, no, not as far as I know, not for
the analyses I know. As far as I know, they seem
independent, you're right.
Q Now, do all astronomers believe in
evolution?
A Gee, I don't know.
Q You mean some astronomer who is going
out there and he's counting craters and he's counting
rocks in the galaxies, does he care what the answer
is?
A You've got me. I don't know. I guess
you would have to ask somebody. You're asking me
to guess. Human nature, I can't do that.
Q You said the fact that both of these
methods stem from the evolutionary model didn't
give you any concern that they agreed with one
another. I mean, what bias does some counter have?
All he's doing is counting. He's counting rocks,
he's counting craters. What bias does he have to
come up with the number that the same -- that you
get from the isotopes breakdown?
A Well, if all he's doing is counting
craters and saying so many craters per square mile
or whatever, that's fine. Nobody has any argument
with that.
The same with the radiometric data. If
90
somebody says a certain dumber of curries of
radioactivity, no problem with that. It's the
interpretation you're drawing from them.
You see, the less cratering, they say,
that means the surface must have been formed fairly
recently, because cratering occurred four billion
years ago in the solar system. That's a whole
different ball game. That's an interpretation.
So cratering us in dating is not
strictly a matter of counting. It's a matter
of counting and then inferring an age based on
what the belief is, of the solar system. It is
like a long time ago.
Q And you believe age is based on an
evolutionary bias?
A Well, I do. If you had no way to
tell when surface solified, then it wouldn't
matter how many craters you counted or didn't
count. You couldn't tell how old the surface was.
Q But only somebody who believes in
evolution could come up with the number four billion;
is that what you're saying?
A Gee, there's all types of people in
the world. It's a different question, that a person
who believed that the world was only 10,000 years
old sure wouldn't come up with a date like that.
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Just as evolutionists being able to do it,
I don't know. You would probably argue about
what evolutionary is.
Q I was trying to pick up what you said,
the coincidence of the radiometric dates of the
cratering dates didn't concern you, because they
were both based on the evolutionary model?
A Do you want me to explain that?
Q Yes.
A Okay. The model goes like this. About
four a half billion years ago, most of the planets
and moons in the solar system were somewhat fluid,
and the earth, too. And therefore, about that time
they all began to solidify , at least the surface
did.
And the impact craters that began to
impact, formed craters that were made, and then all
the debris was gone. It impacted with something that
left the solar system.
And also about that time, these deposits
of minerals solidified on the earth, and so you have
both these events occurring at the same time.
And if you have an object with prac-
tically no craters on it, then you say to yourself,
it must have been formed after the surface had
solidified, so after four billion years ago. On
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the other hand, if you have something that you get
a radiometric dating from, you date from whatever
that original process was, the way you assume it
condensed, all about the same time.
So no wonder you get the same dates.
If there's not anything wrong with the theory. In
fact, internal consistency is rather nice. You ought
to have that in any scheme, that anybody dreams up.
But you do have to check against it, that you don't
think it proves anything. It's necessary, but it
hardly proves anything.
Q How is Dr. Arndts' criticism about the
possible mixing of the daughter and the parent
explain the fact that with different test samples
we get approximately the same date?
A I think that I started trying to give
an explanation, I'll probably mess it up somewhere,
and I don't think I want to do that. I would much
prefer you contact him.
Q Well, I'm asking you as a scientist
who said that he's heard one person who no one else
in the field agrees with offer an criticism of the
entire field. And on the basis of that criticism,
you as a scientist rejected all of the conclusions
coming out of that field. And I'm trying to explore
with you what analysis you went through as a
scientist in order to reject all of this information.
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A Well, what I went through was all of
what I could go through, just the mathmatical
details of both approaches, the evolutionary ap-
proach and what would be the results.
Q Why do you call it the evolutionary
approach?
A Well, what would you like to call it,
the long-term approach?
Q Yeah.
A So let's call it the long-term approach.
What should we call the Creation approach?
MR. CHILDS: Short.
A (Continuing) Let's use long-term and
short-term. With the long-term approach, if you
got through the equation of what you should have
now after a long-term decay, you'd just get
standard certain equations which usually plot out
straight lines with a slope womewhere. And if you
assume that the species mixed up at some time, you'd
get a straight line with a slope somewhere. And a
person who gets a straight line with a slope some-
where, if he says, well, that was due to long-term
methods, the slope means the age and the Y inter-
cept means the original concentration.
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For a person who assumes the short-term
-- I've forgotten what the short-term is.
The short-term, the Y intercept, it is
the concentration in one of the species that mixed.
And I really forgot what the slope is. But you get
the same general equation in either case.
Q Did Dr. Arndts explain to your satis-
faction why we get youger ages from rocks that we
believe to be younger for other reasons than radio-
metric dating from older rocks?
A No. And as a matter of fact, if it will
make you feel any better, I wondered that myself.
There does seem to be some consistency there. So I
can't -- I just don't know that. It seems to be
that you've got consistency.
Q Well, how do you as a scientist feel
with that?
A Well, try to rethink it all. But, you've
got everything in the world to rethink at once and
it's kind of hard. If you overlook a small detail,
that might be the one thing that's necessary in all
this. You have to use super human capability.
You've got to.
Q Are you aware of any other dating
techniques that give several billion years' life
to the universe or the earth?
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A Well, you've got the magnetic dating
of the ocean floor, you've got -- the fossils are
supposed to give these long dates, especially the
microfossils, and we've talked about the radiometric
dating, we've talked about cratering. We should
have talked about the age of the sun and stars,
assuming they get their energy from fusion.
And there's all kinds of different
dates and ways to get it at a date.
Q Are there other ways?
A There's all kinds. You've got the
brightness and temperature of the stars that's used
to arrive at a date for the star, the amount of
non-hydrogen and nonheating material in the stars
that's supposed to indicate when that star was
formed.
There are all kinds of ways to arrive
at a date with more or less precision.
Q Are there any other ways?
A I guess there are. There are probably
thousands of ways.
Q And you reject the evidence of every
one of them?
A No, not reject the evidence of any of
them. What I reject is the fact that -- I'm going
to strike the word "fact". What I would like to
reject is that a person shouldn't be forced to buy
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somebody's interpretation of those data.
Q If the manner in which the magnetic
dating of the ocean floor that comes up with an
old age, is that related in any way to the micro-
fossils that come up with an old age?
A You know, I really don't know. I'm
not sure how they age microfossils. I would just
have to say I don't know.
Q Is it related in any way in how experts
in that field date the age of stars by fusion?
A Is what related to it?
Q How do you get the date a very long
period from magnetic dating of the ocean floor to
microfossils, is the analysis in any way the same
for getting for getting a long age by analyzing
the fusion reaction in the stars?
A In only a very general way, in that
they are usually assumed to start out in some pure
state which then changes or evolves as time goes by.
And it dates back to a more or less pure state for
the ocean floor. It was a time that hadn't spread
apart. And for the star, it was a time in which it
was collapsing and had not heated up enough to
cause fusion. So you have that kind of mental thing
in common.
Other than that, I don't believe so.
But I'm not an expert on this ocean floor dating,
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don't claim to be atall.
Q It's not relating to sort of analyzing
relative amounts of helium and hydrogen in the
stars?
A Don't think so. But I have no idea
how they date that ocean floor spreading or any
microfossils.
Q Do five or six different dating tech-
niques come up with approximately the same age?
A Well, no. They date different objects.
Q Well, do they come up with approximately
the same age, say, in terms of billions of years
instead of tens of thousands of years?
A Yes, they do.
Q And, if I understand that, you reject
the interpretation of each and every one of them?
A I must say this: I would prefer to
just rethink them and see how they come up. In
other words, see if that's a requirement if they
have to have that, as the only interpretation if
there are alternatives. That's a rather exciting
thing in education for me, what alternatives do
you have?
Q Is everybody's interpretation of the
same information equally valid?
A I don't know.
Q Well, isn't science in some way a
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discipline or expertise?
A Well, I think science is an application
rather than a scientific method.
Q But presumably, I mean, do you believe
that your opeinion about the flow of the potassium
argons is superior to my opinion about it?
A Gee, I don't know how I could judge if
the opinion is superior. We each have a right to
our own opinion.
Q I understand. You have a Doctorate
in Physics and have written many papers on discussion
of the flow potassium and other ions.
The last physics course I took was in
high school, where we in terms of an application
of the scientific method, if we were to both try
and convince Mr. Childs of the strength of our
opinion, do you think that your interpretation
will be entitled to more weight than mine?
A Not on the basis of reputation or cre-
dentials alone. I think each person deserves to
be heard and then decide, based on what you've
heard, what you think about it.
Q What about if it was you and a hundred
other people who studied potassium ions?
A Well, the human thing would take over,
and I think just personally that I would tend to try
to snub the other guys, just say, look, you're out-
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voted, sorry, fellows. But it would upset me. But
you've still got to think about alternatives. And
if somebody comes up with an alternative, we've got
to think it through. If you're interested, think
it through.
(Whereupon a lunch break was held.)
/ / /