From: rpjday@cuug.ab.ca (Robert P.J. Day 277-3175)
Subject: Re: Gentry/Kouzenetsov Info request.
Organization: Calgary UNIX Users' Group
Distribution:  world
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:35:39 GMT

In article <13SEP199200393450@utkvx3.utk.edu> maddox@utkvx3.utk.edu (Maddox, John Thortan) writes:
>
>    I am looking for information on two people.  
>
> 1) I recently came across Gentry's book "Creation's Tiny Mystery".
>Any info on responses from the scientific community (other than those
>he includes in the text) would be welcomed.  

  Gentry has been thoroughly pounded by a number of people, most notably
my colleague Richard Wakefield, who with me is a co-founder of OASIS,
the Ontario Assoc. for the Support of Integrity in Science Education.
Give Richard a call at 705-426-7179 (Beaverton, Ontario, CA), and I'm
sure he can load you down with lots of good stuff.  
  Basically, Gentry's premise is that radioactive haloes in granite are
proof of a sudden creation, and he labels this rock the "primordial"
granite, the stuff of creation.  Unfortunately, it is easy to show
that he ignores the fact that some of the places where he gets his
samples is actually INTRUSIVE rock, making it impossible for it to be
primordial.  Richard can give you more details.

> 2) I noticed in the local daily that a Dr. Dimitri A. Kouzenetsov
>will be speaking soon at a local church.  He will present a program
>supporting biblical creation.  Has anyone heard of him before?
>
>Any material on the above would be appreciated.  

  Regarding Kuznetzov, he is just another creationist whose work seems
to be woefully bad.  The last work I saw of his was in, of all places,
the Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1991, an article entitled,
"A Neurochemical Creationist Concept based on in vitro Studies of Brain
mRNAs of Three Lumber Vole Species."  The fact that he has a rather obvious
agenda is given by the author bio, which reads in part, "All requests
should be sent to: Dimitrij A. Kuznetzov, ..., Head for Creation Research
Unit, Protestant Christian Science Publishers, ..., Moscow."
  Some American lectures by Kuznetzov were reviewed in a fairly recent
issue of NCSE Reports.  They were not complimentary...  Ah, here it is,
the Summer 1991 issue of NCSE Reports.  The article is by Gaynor C. Wild,
and while I won't enter the entire article, here are some excerpts:

  "Dr. Kuznetzov made several specific, technical statements about his
own experiments and about biochemistry.  His biochemistry, on the whole,
was quite bad, being sometimes out of date, sometimes incorrect, and
sometimes misleading..."

  "Most telling were his statements demonstrating that he does not accept
science and the scientific method itself.  Dr. Kuznetzov stated that
he "carries out experiments for the purpose of supporting creationism."
He said he interprets experiments by "faith."

  "Kuznetzov may hold three doctorates, but on the evidence presented
at the University of New Mexico, his work and his interpretations of
the work of others would not earn my approval for a BS degree."

  I'm sure others will contribute to this discussion as well.  Enjoy.

>
>John
>
>maddox@utkvx.utk.edu

R. Day
Member, Alberta Skeptics
... the pit bull of skepticism ...
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism