Critically, geologically, I found that in each of the mines which
had NO RADIOACTIVES, there were _no_halos_ of -any- type.

Radioactives:halos-in-the-mica::NO radioactives:NO
 halos-in-the-mica. >

Apart from all other "secondary source" arguments, if this
relationship holds across many mines and many locations, it would
be obvious that for halos to be present at all, there _must_be_
nearby radioactive substances in the minerals, the pegmatite, the
mine, or the local area, hence all halos must be sourced
ultimately in the presence of generative radioactives, and the
"secondary source" argument re:the local samples would become moot.

 Well, I suppose it is interesting to note that
 the Po halos only appear in proximity to U or Th lodes.  But what
 does that mean exactly?  I see you attempting to make a causal
 relationship between the two, and the correlation is indeed

I would consider the correlation to be philosophically damning of 
Gentry's fundamental position, IF such a relationship were to become 
established.  (We need not do the "all crows are black/no crows are 
white" philosophical thingie here )*grin*(.)

But as I noted, the only data existing on this so far, is mine, and it's 
not enough by a LONG shot.  For _me_, the relationship is established, 
and in this manner: I have enough direct experience with these mines 
that I can make the scientific prediction: "no point-source pleochroic 
halos (of _any_ sort) will ever be found apart from the 'close' presence 
of radioactive minerals."  For me, that's the "standing hypothesis," 
since that's what my own data show.  Another researcher, (or myself, if 
I go back to feldspar/mica mine-raiding), might find the example that 
breaks this proposed rule, and that would falsify this particular 
prediction of mine.  I don't think it's going to happen.

If not, that presents the _theological_ question as to why God would 
make it LOOK LIKE the halos were in all cases and everywhere descended 
from radioactives, and none at all were ever "made by FIAT" in 
completely unradioactive-bearing mica elsewhere, in an _unambiguous_ 
demonstration that "He Did It."

The creationists want to use this phenomenon to "prove," if possible, 
that God DID "do it," but the evidence does NOT allow ONLY that 
interpretation.  So long as for _every_ creationist explanation there's 
an "ordinary scientific" one, and for every ordinary scientific 
explanation there's a creationist one, and _no_way_to_mount_ a 
differentiating experiment, this argument cannot fall one way OR the 
other.

_I_, at least, have proposed ways of telling whether Gentry's and/or my 
"polonium" halos are 218Po-caused, or 222Rn-caused, and until these 
tests or ones equally definitive can be mounted (preferably upon 
_Gentry's_ own samples, since he's the one with the 'extraordinary 
claim'), there's going to be no resolution, no matter how convincing I, 
or any opposing creationist, can textually be
striking. What you're saying is that, because of this correlation,
the Po which formed the halos are secondarily derived from decaying
U-238, since U-238 is also always found nearby.
We can _assume_ this, for the sake of argument, 
but what I am actually saying is that NO halos--of ANY kind, polonium, 
uranium, thorium or otherwise, can be formed in biotite (or any other 
mineral) which came from mineral sources (pegmatites, granite, what-you- 
please) that are known by professionals clearly NOT to possess any 
radioactive substances.  The conclusion that parentless Po halos had to 
form secondarily is the _trivial_ aspect of this.  The _primary_ aspect 
is as noted.

 you what...I'll agree 100% that you are correct.  The Po isotopes
 which caused the halos are all products of the U-238 decay.
 But that still leaves you wondering how they got there.  I hope
 you've been reading my posts in which I detail how Gentry's studies
 have shown that, in the sample he studied at least, radon diffusion
 could not have been the source for the polonium.

I have been waiting for a page cite (to _C_T_M_ or one of his papers), 
so's I can find what-the-hey you're talking about....  I do know that, 
from my own readings of his papers and his book (_C_T_M_), there was NO 
effort on his part to refute my specific style of "diffusion" 
hypothesis.  I can recall not a single word about _one-at-a-time_ radon- 
atom diffusion along cracks and separations, or about the idea that over 
vast amounts of time these atoms can repeatedly get themselves 'stopped' 
and/or 'delayed in transit' by changes in the shapes and diameters of 
the aforementioned cracks and separations.  I have the _evidence_ of 
this, sir, in photos, notes and drawings of some of my carefully- 
labelled mineralogical samples.

Gentry had NO WAY to tell whether or not he was looking down through 
_separated_ crystal planes, or through still-tightly-bonded biotite 
'leaves.'  An unbroken _leaf_ does not show a crack; neither does a 
_separated_ leaf, far as I can tell.

That is: _show_me_ where Gentry refutes, deals with, dismisses, or even 
_mentions_ MY PARTICULAR VERSION of this radon diffusion idea, please?

Please note, though, while we pass this above, that the 222 Rn hypothesis 
has yet another uniquely satifying aspect: this process is _self- 
driven_.  The radon atoms do not _require_ themselves to be pushed 
around by gross outside forces, other than the thermodynamically random 
jiggling and vibrating of the walls of the crack or the "ceiling" and 
"floor" of a biotite crystal plane-separation.  The process would 
logically work as easily in _air_ within the rock mass, as in water 
flowing or standing therein.  "Hydro" is irrelevant to the workability 
of my hypothesis.  (*grin*)

Additionally, review your Gas Laws, and decide for yourself if the 
forces that provide the statistical character of the Gas Laws have 
aspects derived from the _atoms_ of the gas, and thus, whether or not 
there's such a thing as "gas pressure" in a closed tube with only, say, 
a few to half-a-dozen atoms in it.

Where the _radon_ goes, in my 222 Rn-migration hypothesis, is NOT 
dependent on where the air or water goes in the rock mass (pegmatite).  
It is dependent only on three things: 1) the presence of itself, being 
constantly renewed at a more-or-less constant rate, 2) the _shape_ of 
the space(s) that it finds itself in, and 3) the temperature of the 
enclosing mineral (how much "vibrating" the walls of the space(s) 
is(are) doing, at local ground temperature).

I have seen _no_mention_, in any of Gentry's writings on the Po halos, 
of this mostly "self-driving" mechanism.

 However, I have said that I agree that the Po that made the halos
 was a product of the U-238 decay.  How would I explain it? 

 This didn't happen until the third day.
 So at the end of this first day, we have an earth, but it is without
 form.  One could say that even before the first day, when God
 created the earth, there was U-238 present.
 Between the creation of the earth before the first day, and the
 creation of land on the third day, the U-238 would have had ample
 opportunity to decay, such that when God did create "dry land",

You will obviously have to decide that God did not make the "Laws of 
Physics" until _after_ this time, since 238U has an extremely LONG
half- life, and hence, there would _definitely_ not have been enough time (in 
only three or so _days_) for decays from it to have passed through the 
first four decays-per-atom, let alone to have made any
500-million-alpha-hits visible halos--'polonium' or otherwise.

IN fact, Gentry makes this creatiuonist-necessary artificial assumption- 
-several times.  Wherever he needs a temporally-uncertain or temporally- 
anomalous period, he has God make one, which Gentry calls a 
"singularity."  (Zero scientific _reason_, nor any _evidence_, exists 
for such a thing, but that does not appear to bother Gentry that
there could have been ample amounts of polonium around which became
 fixed in the rocks that were so created.

Even you would have to agree that this assumptive kind of blue-skying is 
scientifically _very_ NON-parsimonious. You begin with an utterly
nonfalsifiable assumption, and draw partial conclusions therefrom.  We 
are not going to get anywhere, scientifically or mineralogically 
speaking, doing that sort of impossible-to-investigate reasoning.

IF you want to do a "God did it" thingie, please by all means indulge 
yourself.  None of us can _prove_ your metaphysical assumptiveness is 
illegitimate.  We can, however, clearly point out that it is quite 
_scientifically_ illegitimate. And _I_ am interested in what makes, 
made, can make, or _did_ make, those anomalous point-source pleochroic 
halos in biotite mica, not in utterly scientifically unproductive 
speculations derived from attempts to remain adherent to one religion's 
ancient tribal (Hebrew) writings....

 There is the so called Gap Theory, in which the creation of the
 heavens and the earth in Gen 1:1 could have been millennia before
 the actual first day.  This would have provided ample opportunity
 for U-238 decay into Po-218/214/210.

It would.  Unfortunuately, it is utterly, completely, hopelessly 
NON-scientific, and we cannot get any scientific _answer_ to what can 
have made these halos, from that kind of religious distortionism.


 However, even if absolutely no time elapsed between this creation
 event and the first day, that would mean that 3 days elapsed in
 which U-238 would have had a chance to start decaying.  Even in a
 moderately sized U-238 lode, there will be significant amounts of
 decay in 3 days.

In a _lode_, sure!  In a three-micron _particle_?  No way.

Mr. Blosser, please review the decay chain for 238U.  IN order to get 
even to _radon_, we need roughly:  4.5x10^9 years to get to 234Thorium 
and back to 234U, _after_which_ we need another 2.47x10^5 years to get 
to Thorium again (230Th this time), then 8x10^4 years to get to 226Ra, 
and then another 1600 years to get to 222Radon.  ....And that's just for 
_one_atom_ to go through all its necessary decays to get merely to the 
Radon stage.  "Even if" we make that "3 days" into a rather permissively 
long time, there's just no way the _average_ decays will generate enough 
alpha particles to make even _one_ visible halo from a three-micron 
particle with about 10^15 atoms in it....


 At any rate, I hope this demonstrates that the correlation of Po
 halos to nearby U sources can be seen as quite acceptable in a
 creation model and is not a valid argument against it.

Mr. Blosser, it has been my experience over a number of years, 
daily writing to creationists on various subjects, that _nothing_ that 
has ever been said has been a "valid argument against" the 'creation 
model' --_to_the_creationists_.  It's a rare creationist indeed, who 
eventually collapses under the weight of the number of distortions and 
lacks of parsimony that are necessary to keep his antiscientific
belief- system alive in the face of the hard sciences.  I've seen a few, and 
have contributed to the extraction of at least two, but that number is 
woefully inadequate--disappointing, really--considering the apparent 
power of the findings gained through use of the Scientific Method.

The only theologically important thing that my finding does, is 
establish that in at least every case that I have seen (and I _predict_, 
in any case that anyone's _going_to_ see), 'precursor' radioactives of 
some kind are _vitally_necessary_ to the formation of 'polonium'-type 
pleochroic halos, hence God either could not, or _did_ not, make any 
"polonium" halos as flat-out unambiguous evidence of His sudden-FIAT 
creation, by placing them in places where it would be _impossible_ for 
them to have formed any other way.

IOW, God did _not_ give the creationists the "one irrefutable proof" of 
Genesis-type sudden FIAT creation that they would so dearly love to 
find.  If He had made even _one_ findable halo with _NO_ other possible 
explanation for its existence, that'd be different, but instead, He 
fixed it (I see and predict) so that no point-source pleochroic halo so 
far known can be _unambiguously_ said to have been formed by the Genetic 
method--that all of them _can_have_ (hence "ambiguous") formed by 
natural processes.

_MY_ work is partial and limited, but is enough for me to make this 
particular anti-creationist, anti-Gentry prediction, that NO halos will 
ever be found far, far, far away from some plausible source of 
radioactive elements.

 Furthermore, the burden of proof still remains on geology to
 provide a natural explanation for how the Po halos got there.  You
 seem to be mistaken in thinking that a correlation such as we have
 in this case is all that is necessary, but that may only get you
 halfway to an answer.

You have known about my hypothesis for some time now, and have ignored 
some of it while agreeing with other parts of it.  I _certainly_ don't 
rest my argument on the above-discussed correlation.  In fact, it was 
actually an afterthought, something that occurred to me long after I'd 
gotten back home and turned my kitchen table into a small, B&L 
professional microscope-equipped mineralogy lab.

 Unless you can come up with something better than radon diffusion,

I am still waiting for someone to _refute_ my version of radon 
diffusion, sir, so I think your above might be labelled either 
"somewhat," or perhaps even "grossly," _premature_....

 or hydrothermal sources (even worse), then the correlation can only

...And I've noted here and in my paper, that "hydrothermal" activity is 
utterly _unnecessary_ to my particular radon-migration hypothesis.

 be deemed coincidental since no formal causation is evident.

hence the value of my prediction, eh?  I predict that NO 
ONE will ever find "polonium" halos --or _any_other_ point-source 
pleochroic halos--in places where there is no possibility of other 
radioactive elements having been, or currently being, present.  Now, if 
this correlation holds true, student by student, investigation after 
investigation, and year after year, it's going to eventually get 
extremely difficult to go on maintaining that this is a _"coincidence"_ 
instead of a _rule_....

 One should also bear in mind that causal relationships must be
 thoroughly examined.  While we could speculate that because they are

I am the first to agree: MY sampling was/is cursory.  A dozen mines in 
two states just does not provide enough of a sampling to draw definitive 
conclusions.  However, I note that since the relationship _does_hold_ in 
my limited sampling, I can "go out on a limb" and make the prediction 
that I do make.  An _independent_ field study or fifty (*g*), would be a 
very nice thing for me to watch unfolding....

 always found together, that U-238 nearby is the cause of the
 polonium. Sounds good.  We do know that U-238 will eventually decay

It is simpler than that.  There could be other things responsible for 
those halos, but there could NOT be any other thing that was not 
radioactive, and was not _local_to_the_mineral_ (say, within tens of 
feet or yards at least) that the halos are found in, that was 
responsible for them.  IOW, I do NOT have to use this correlation 
between radioactives and halos (inv.: no radioactives and no halos), in 
order to argue 'polonium' halo formation issues.  I need only establish 
the relationship itself, to suggest with extreme likelihood, that the 
radioactives are the ultimate source(s) of _any_and_all_ types of point- 
source pleochroic halo phenomena.  (This correlation is general, non- 
specific.)

 However, there are isotopes in nature that are not only the product
 of a decay, but are also naturally occurring.  Ar-40 for instance.
 Isn't it just possible that Po-218, for instance, is not only the
 daughter product of U-238, but is also naturally occurring?  And

Define "naturally occurring."  NOT derived from a parent atom?  
Originally appearing in either the condensing planetary dust-disk, or in 
the first few days of God's FIAT-POOF! creation?  No, Mr. Blosser, one 
should stick to the scientific data supporting one's arguments, and 
218Po does not have a long enough half-life for ANY "original" or 
"primordial" 218Po to still be hanging around here, even if it was "made 
out of nowhere" only 7,000 years ago.

 that for whatever reason, coincidence maybe, natural Po-218
 appeared nearby to U-238.

Heck of an unreasonable (and horribly nonparsimonious) amount of 
"coincidence," I'd say....

 Surely, a coincidence of that magnitude is no more impossible than,
 say, abiogenesis, or the odds of beneficial mutation.  Afer all,

(Bad choice of example, beneficial mutation, since we SEE that one 
happening in the labs and especially in the modern hospitals, where the 
descendants of earlier Staphylococcus aureii are laughing at the whole 
range of inventive, new, non-naturally-derived antibiotics that once 
could kill them easily....)

 evolution is a case study in how to defy impossible odds.

Evolution is a study of what changes life goes through, and by backward- 
into-time extrapolation, what changes life went through, to produce what 
life we see around us now.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with 
abiogenesis (the creation of life itself).  Evolution is about life's 
_changes_, not about its _origination_.

But that aside, the "probability" argument of the creationists suffers 
from one supercritical, glaring flaw: there is nothing at all in 
probability theory that says that a nearly-impossible event MUST ONLY 
occur at the END of an experimental run of which the low-probability 
event is a part.

That is, if you shuffle a deck of cards, the probability that the Ace of 
Spades winds up on top is 1:52.  If you shuffle them again, the 
probability remains the same.  probabilistically speaking, then, you 
would have to shuffle the deck fifty-two times before the Ace of Spades 
has a 1:1 chance of being on top somewhere within that whole 52-shuffles 
run.

BUT: probability theory does NOT say that the Ace of Spades can ONLY be 
on top _after_ fifty-two shufflings.  It could just as easily have been 
on top after the _first_ shuffle.

What the creationists want you to believe is that the likelihood of life 
forming "by itself" is SO tiny that only AFTER several billion-trillion 
TRIES could it have finally happened....  ....But probability doesn't 
work like that.  The near-impossible event _could_have_ happened right 
away up front, on the first or second or third TRY, with not the 
slightest objecting peep emitted by probability theory, to indicate 
otherwise.

The creationists' "probability" argument is good for convincing "the 
choir," certain science-ignorant idiots, religious wanna-believes, and 
mathematically challenged people; it has no effect on those of us who 
know enough about probability theory to be aware of this above critical 
flaw in their argument.

So long as the creationists do not say the odds of life-from-non-life 
are, probabilistically speaking, _precisely_ZERO_, their argument lacks 
the teeth they think it has (and can convince, by Sophistry, their 
audiences that it has).

(Please, by the way, do not let this side-trip into probability --to 
which you may wish to respond-- take us off of Polonium halos.  I'm in 
here again _solely_ for that purpose, not to engage in arguing the 
entire range of creationist claims.  I've 'been there' and _done-that_ 
for years, and I'm tired of it, and the T-shirt I got already has holes 
from overwear and overwashing (*grin*).  These point-source pleochroic 
halos in biotite mica, however, continue to fascinate me.  Entirely 
apart from the Cre/Evo aspects, the little beauties themselves are quite 
enjoyable to study; one never knows when --around the next corner, along 
the next crack, circumscribed about the next bignasty black damaged 
area-- one is going to see something that no one else has ever seen.  
That's rare, these days.  It's rare also that one such as I --amateur 
scientist with Zip for 'academic credentials'-- can actually find 
something "new" or unexplained in a field as old and filled-in as 
mineralogy.  Please don't try to take me elsewhere; I've been there 
already.)

Peace.

jbrawley@creation.org

Imagination is more important than knowledge."--Einstein
END**************************************************************************