Fingerprints of God

The Design of the Cosmos Part 9: The Late Heavy Bombardment - Preparing Earth for Life

2010-09-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Let's step back a bit from plate tectonic activity and the Earth's great oxygenation events to a time between 4.4 and 4.2 billion years ago, a time before the era dubbed The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) era.

During the LBH epoch which occurred around 3.9 to 3.8 bya, asteroids and comets continuously pummelled the Earth turning its surface into molten magma several hundred kilometers deep. This condition covered the entire surface of the Earth from shortly after its creation 4.5 bya (and therefore shortly after the impactor event which struck the Earth to create the moon) up until about 3.8 billion years ago.

New studies suggest that life on Earth may have appeared earlier than previously thought. Previously, science taught us that life first appeared on the scene shortly after the end of the LHB era, at about 3.8 bya, when the Earth began cooling from its molten state. New studies suggest through research done on ancient zircon crystals dating between 4.4 and 4.2 bya, that conditions on the Earth were not as hellish as previously thought, indicating that life may have existed at this time.

It's possible that life did exists prior to 3.8 bya and this has implications for RTB's creation model.

Here is what the Reasons To Believe (http://www.reasons.org/) creation model predicts concerning the origin of life (taken from an excellent article written by Dr. Fazale Rana PhD titled "Insight into the Late Heavy Bombardment and RTB's Creation Model":

1 Life appeared early in Earth's history.
2 Life appeared under harsh conditions.
3 Life miraculously persisted under harsh conditions.
4 Life arose quickly.
5 First life on Earth was complex.
6 Life in its minimal form is complex.

While Dr. Rana goes on to state that the life on Earth after the LHB era consisted of complex singled celled microbes such as archea and bacteria, it's now hard to determine if point 4 and point 5 in the above model can be proven due to the results from these zircon studies. The new research does not, however, remove the intractable problems remaining from a naturalistic origin of life scenario and the record of nature. It simply means that RTB has to refine points 4 and 5 of their model.

However, point 6 is a crushing blow to a Darwinian and/or naturalistic position on the origin of life, because it requires the intervention of a Designer. Here is Dr. Rana's perspective on life in its minimal form being complex, not simple:

"It is also important to keep in mind that work in genomics indicates that for life to exist independently in the environment it requires approximately 2,000 genes. And to exist as a minimal form, life needs about 400 genes. This intrinsic molecular complexity suggests that when life emerged on Earth, it had to appear in a biochemically complex form, which still satisfies our model's prediction that life in its minimal form is complex."

I just wanted you to be aware of RTB's efforts to remain faithful to the findings of science in the record of nature.

Amazingly, Genesis 1 still records the early Earth's conditions as being totally covered with water and unfit for life, and these zircon studies buttress what the Bible taught thousands of years ago:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶ And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

⁹ And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

I'll be finishing up this series on the Design of the Cosmos next time. I'm excited to begin a new series coming in December called "Darwin's Doubt".

Until then, may God bless you.

Cheers
Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 8: Plate Tectonics - God's Shake N Bake Recipe for Life

2010-04-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've been awol from my blog for a while, but I've got a few minutes tonight to finally get to my post on plate tectonics. I also wanted to tell you that I finally finished grad school and my MBA is mine! Awesome to be done but it was great to study and learn and interact with great professors at UGC.

I never knew this before, but did you know that the Earth would be a water world today were it not for fine tuned plate tectonic activity and vulcanism? If not for powerful and sustained (and finely tuned) plate tectonics, water would have covered the entire surface of the Earth removing a habital zone for we human beings. Advanced civilization would not therefore be possible without precise plate tectontic activity in the early Earth.

Remember on my last post on Earth's Oxygenation events how the cyanobacteria played a huge part in preparing the Earth for more advanced life later on by helping to oxygenate the Earth while helping to reduce the greenhouse gases forming in Earth's atmosphere as the Sun increased in luminosity? Well, these cryptogamic colonies of bacteria chemically conditioned the soil of the newly formed landmasses which appeared as plate tectonic activity increased (more about this later) on the early Earth. These early land masses were both hot and soil-deficient, but these colonies helped transform the soil into nutrient rich landmasses which the vascular plants needed to proliferate the Earth. These colonies also cooled the environment and oxygenated the atmosphere (see my previous blog entry on Earth's Great Oxygenation Events).

It took 2 to 3 billion years of this cryptogamic activity to condition the soil and oxygenate the atmoshphere to prepare the Earth for more advanced life. This tells of careful planning by a creator.

From Hugh Ross's book, "More than a Theory" here's why:

"Though cryptogamic colonies needed only a few small islands to survive, advanced life needed continents. A combination of both continents and large oceans were also necessary for regulating Earth's surface and atmosphere to compensate for the Sun's increasing brightness. However, continents were not a given. Continents formed out of light silicate rocks that 'floated' above the denser basaltic rocks comprising ocean floors. The separation of Earth's primordial crust into silicates and basalts occurred through the dynamics of crustal plate pressures and movements.

Stable, long standing plate tectonics required three things: (1) a powerful, long lasting source of radioactive decay in Earth's interior, (2) a stable efficient dynamo (electric generator) in Earth's core, and (3) an abundant supply of liquid water on Earth's surface. Each of these essentials had to exist at a precisely fine-tuned level.

For example, an abundance of long-lived radioactive elements requires (among other things) a concert of highly unlikely, perfectly timed and placed supernova events, as well as the amazingly fine-tuned collision that formed the Moon. (see my previous blog entry on the Moon) The stability and efficiency of Earth's dynamo depends on the exact regulation of at least seven major geophysical features." page 154.

Let me help unpack each of these three requirements for long standing plate tectonics for you:

1) A powerful, long lasting source of radioactive decay in Earth's interior: When certain elements undergo radioactive decay, energy is released providing heat. This heat was the catalyst that generated convective cells throughout Earth's mantle, and thus began the process of continent building. The cells are like large eddies that circulate in the Earth's mantle from just under the Earth's crust to just above it's core. Things get a bit technical here, so let me have Dr. Ross explain further:

"Different eddies associate with different crust regions. At the boundaries of these regions, subduction (the sliding of one crustal plate under another) can occur, but only if a huge amount of high density, low temperature liquid water was available to lubricate the sliding. Subduction is governed by the rate at which minerals in the area where two underwater plates come together (the subduction zone) chemically react with water to form hydrated minerals. The hydration process in the downward moving slabs leads to production of a talc layer that reduces and stabilizes the sliding friction between adjoining plates. A just right level of lubrication permits efficient movement of one tectonic plate under another. At these subduction zones, some basaltic slabs become hydrated. This lowers the newly hydrated minerals' melting point. Once enough of these silicates began to float above the nonhydrated basalts, Earth's mountains and continents began forming. Given their lower melting point, the silicates stayed liquid at depths closer to the surface, thereby facilitating the formation of volcanoes. The ongoing development of mountains and volcanoes resulted in landmasses poking up above the water's surface. With yet more time, these landmasses grew to become continents. However, they had to continue growing at the just right rates througout life's history for the Sun's increasing luminosity (see my previous blog entry on the Sun) to be properly compensated." page 155

If I may sum up, here's the kicker: As the Sun increases in luminosity, greenhouse gases build up in Earth's atmosphere, meaning that for there to be any hope of removing enough of these greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, continental landmasses must buildup through plate tectonic activity at such a rate as to exceed and later keep up with the reduction of continental land masses through the process of erosion. However, because radioactive decay energy release decreases over time, this would mean that erosion rates might exceed continental buildup rates, meaning that these greenhouse gases would stifle any advance life forms from filling the Earth.

Seems like a dilemma for advanced life, doesn't it? Not for the Creator. Remember from my previous blog on the moon that due to it's large size and position relative to the Earth, the Moon acts as a tidal brake on the rotation rate of the Earth. A slower rotation rate would mean less erosion, and thus the problem of the decline in the rate of continent buildup over time was accompanied by a decline in the rate of continent erosion. This timing is truly of the miraculous.

2) A stable, efficient, dynamo:

Dr. Ross goes on to describe these seven features of the Earth's dynamo. Let me briefly describe them for you:

1. Relative abundances of silicon, iron, and sulfur in Earth's solid inner core.

2. Viscosities at the boundaries between this solid inner core and the liquid outer core and between the liquid outer core and the mantle.

3. Ratio of Earth's inner core to outer core radii.

4. Ratio of the inner core to outer core magnetic diffusivity (measure of how well a magnetic field diffuses throughout a conducting medium)

5. Magnetic Reynolds number (a measure of viscous flow behavior) for the outer core.

6. Gravitational torques from the Sun and Moon

7. Earth's core precession frequency

3) An abundant supply of water covering the Earth (see my previous blogs - bible passages referring to water covering the early Earth)

Without plate tectonics, we'd have no place to live because there would only be water and because we'd be all boiled to death by the trapped greenhouse gases in our atmosphere which plate tectonic activity would have otherwise helped to dissipate. Read what Dr. Jeff Zweerink has to say to help sum things up in his article: Evidence of Early Plate Tectonics and also Fine Tuning Allows Essential Plate Tectonics to Take Off.

Also, without the decreasing energy release over time from radioactive decay rates, we'd also be experiencing far more frequent and devastating earthquakes than we do today, such that advanced life would not be possible.

Here's a great passage on the subject from the Bible in Psalm 104:

5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.

It truly is amazing to look at the mountains. Without them we would not be here.

Cheers until next time

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 7: Precision Timing of Earth's Great Oxygenation Event

2010-03-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it through my Capstone class - did very well actually. Now I have a few weeks off to catch up on my blog. I hope to spend a few weeks on the fine tuning design of the Earth - I'll probably spend the next 3 or 4 entries on Earth's fine tuning, then we'll move to the Milky Way Galaxy for our next series.

First, thanks to NASA for this amazing photo of the Earth.

Second, the fact that you can see through Earth's atmosphere in this photo is nothing but a miracle. We should have a thick atmosphere like Venus. In fact, the early Earth's atmosphere was very think, so thick that light could not penetrate to the surface from the Sun (along with much interplanetary debris in our solar system). Darkness was at its surface.

Interestingly, the Bible describes these conditions in precise detail. I have them here for you from Genesis 1 and Job 38:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Job 38:4-9 (New International Version)

⁴ "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶ On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-

⁷ while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸ "Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹ when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,

In the Genesis account, notice how the frame of reference changes from "outerspace" as it were in verse 1, to the surface of the Earth in verse two. This is key to correctly interpreting the passages that follow. Also in verse two, please notice that from the vantage point of a hypothetical observer on the surface of the Earth, that the Earth was dark, covered with water, and unfit for life. Next, in verse 3, God transforms the atmosphere such that for the first time, light was able to reach the surface (from the Hebrew Haya meaning "let the light be" rather than Asa meaning create light for the first time - we understand that the Sun and stars were created prior to the formation of the Earth) You may be doubting my hermenutics, but hang in there with me. Now, let's skip to Job 38 where we see God describing how He formed the Earth. Notice in verse 9 that the early Earth, which is described as bursting forth from the womb, was wrapped in thick darkness due to a very thick cloud layer. We know from modern science that this condition of the early Earth is correct. Thus, this Job 38 creation account actually gives us more data to better interpret the Genesis 1 text.

Obviously, somehow God transformed the early thick (opaque) atmosphere of Earth of mostly carbon to the present day transparent atmosphere containing 20.9% oxygen (see my previous entry regarding the formation of the Moon). This huge abundance of oxygen makes large land animals and advanced life possible. This oxygen abundance also sets Earth apart from the other rocky planets.

Hugh Ross, in his book More Than a Theory states: (page 160)

"Scientists know only one way for a planet or a moon to gain such a large amount of free oxygen - through the long-term activity of superabundant photosynthetic life."

It was the photosynthetic bacteria in Earth's oceans which played the major role in taking our Earth's atmosphere from 2 percent oxygen to over 20% oxygen roughly 2.5 billion years ago. Astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink writes about this event in an article titled "Oxygen Prepares Earth for Advanced Life." In the article Dr. Zweerink describes the early Earth (before 3 billion years ago) as having only trace amounts of free oxygen, and yet at about 2.5 billion years ago a great oxygenation event began to occur. The super abundance of marine bacteria began to fill the Earth's oxygen sinks, and once fully saturated, then began to fill the atmosphere with oxygen. This process continued for the next 2 billion years until it reached a level which could support advanced marine life. At this point, roughly 500 million years ago, the Cambrian Explosion occurred (see my previous blog entry on this topic) which produced 40 or so phyla of complex marine animals. Interestingly, since this time only five or six new phyla appeared while about fifteen have gone extinct, meaning that evolution has been going in the wrong direction all this time. Even more interestingly, the photosynthetic bacteria that we see in the fossil record within Stromatolites (which would be of the earliest of all life forms and from which we presumably all evolved) looks remarkably similar to present day photosynthetic bacteria. Why is this so interesting, you ask? Because if all life evolved from simple bacteria, why do we still see that bacteria today in living form? Shouldn't this life have evolved into other life forms?

The main point here is that a careful plan to oxygenate the Earth's atmosphere was prepared in order to bring about optimal conditions for more advanced life to appear on the scene. Without the Great Oxygenation Events in Earth's history, advanced life on Earth would not be possible.

Tune in next time as we explore the role of plate tectonics for the preparation of advance life (human life).

God bless (cheers)

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 6: Our Solar System Fine Tuning

2010-01-23T17:46:00.000-08:00

Have you ever thought about just how special and unique within the universe is our galaxy, solar system, Sun, and planets? I'll save our Milky Way galaxy for a future time, so for this blog I'd like to show you just a few features of the Sun within our solar system which makes life possible on Earth.

The Sun: Our Sun is a very uncommon star. It too has been fine tuned for the benefit of human life on Earth. How do I know this? Because astronomers have yet to find a star considered to be a solar twin. And they've been searching the Milky Way galaxy for over fifty years, a galaxy containing over two hundred billion stars. One would expect to find stars similar to our Sun within a galaxy with such a vast number of stars, right? Do you know how many stars they have found similar to our Sun? Three. However, they are all considered "quasi solar twins" to our Sun according to Jorge Melendez and Ivan Ramirez, astronomers who have spent most of their careers in search of a star similar to our Sun which could make intelligent life possible on a planet orbiting it.

The three stars that come close in likeness to our Sun are 18 Scorpii, HD 98618, and HIP 56948. Here is a table taken from Hugh Ross' book, More than a Theory (page 123) which describes certain characteristics of each star in terms of a fraction of our Sun's value:

Characteristics 18 Scorpii HD 98618 HIP 56948

Mass 1.02 1.02 1.00

Luminosity 1.03 1.06 1.15

Metallicity 1.05 1.12 1.02

Age 0.85 0.91 1.26

Rotation 0.90 0.96 ?

Temperature 1.01 1.01 1.00

18 Scorpii and HD 98618's characteristics seem somewhat similar. However, according to Hugh Ross;

"life requires a virtually identical twin. Because of obvious differences when compared to the

Sun, Melendez and Ramirez eventually dubbed the stars 'quasi solar twins.' Not only do

key features (luminosity, metallicity, and age) differ from the Sun, but both stars also

possess a lithium abundance that's a factor of about three times higher than the Sun's."

source: More than a Theory by Hugh Ross, page 123.

The lithium levels in these two stars would destroy all life on Earth if our Sun had these similar levels. The third star, HIP 56948, (I know, astronomer's naming conventions are a bit bizarre) has an identical mass, temperature, as well as lithium abundance. However, HIP 56948 is 1.2 billion years older than our Sun and 15% more luminous (bright). As a star ages, it continues to grow more and more luminous (the result of nuclear fusion turning hydrogen into helium) in the star's core. The helium in the star's core increases the density of the star's core, which then causes nuclear fusion to increase in efficiency, causing the star to become more luminous. An increase in our Sun's luminosity of 15% would also make life on Earth impossible. In fact, just a few percentages brighter (see my previous blog) would destroy life on Earth. This added age of HIP 56948 is consistent with it's added brightness. According to Dr. Ross:

"The greater age and increased luminosity of HIP 56948 interfere with its potential to

support an advanced life carrying planet. If Earth's Sun shone brighter by just 0.4 percent

(as it will when it's only 0.2 percent older), advanced life would become extinct."

source: More than a Theory by Hugh Ross, page 124

Dr. Ross goes on to state that it is amazing that while our Sun has been becoming brighter and brighter all throughout Earth's history (since life first appeared some 3.8 billion years ago), life has been sustained by God's compensation mechanisms. Dr. Ross writes:

"The carefully timed introduction of the just right amounts and kinds of life and the just

right removal of certain earlier life forms gradually brought down the quantity of

greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere to perfectly compensate for the Sun's increasing

luminosity. Yet that compensation cannot continue much longer...Astronomers calculate

that within the next 30 million years, either the Sun will heat Earth's surface beyond what

life can tolerate, or the quantity of carbon dioxide and water vapor in Earth's atmosphere

will dwindle to levels inadequate to support life capable of efficient photosynthesis."

source: More than a Theory by Hugh Ross, page 124

Dr. Ross goes on to point out that while finding a twin for our Sun has not been achieved, it's not because twins of stars are rare. On the contrary, many twins have been discovered for stars other than our Sun.

In summary then, those characteristics shown in the above table have to be "just right" for life to exist on Earth. Change those values ever so slightly, and there is no life on Earth. In addition, our Earth has many, many fine tuning characteristics which I'll speak about next time. But just to give you a taste, the Earth's magnetic field (the formation of which is itself a miracle) helps to shield the Earth from harmful radiation from our Sun.

We'll, it's late and I'm done for tonight. I'm almost finished with my Capstone class at UGC, the intensity of which has prevented me from writing to you sooner. My hope is to write next time on the fine tuning of the Earth, then some other solar system characteristics, then move on to the Milky Way galaxy's fine tuning properties.

When you take all of these together as a cumulative case, the evidence for God's supernatural interventions in the design of the universe, Milky Way galaxy, solar system, and Earth (and life on Earth) are overwhelming.

As American physicist Freeman Dyson states:

"The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more

evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming."

source: Disturbing the Universe by Freeman Dyson, page 250

Until next time (March), may God richly bless you as you open your minds to his creation.

Cheers

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 5: The Lunar Anthropic Principle / Intro to Our Solar System

2009-12-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

I used to ask my daughter around the age of 1 or so, "Who made the moon?" She would answer, "God!" (I taught her well) This was before I learned just how fined tuned the moon must be for human life to be possible here on Earth.

Did you know that without the precise size and location of the moon, life on Earth would not be possible? For instance, science has discovered that the moon serves many purposes to support life on Earth. One such example is that it serves to stabilize the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. Get this: If the moon's mass were only 2 percent larger (increase the radius of the moon by just 7 miles), then the tug of the enlarged moon's gravity would significantly pull the Earth's axial tilt out of balance (it's tilt is currently stable at a 23 degree angle) causing catastrophic climactic changes (decreases in rainfall and increases in life threatening temperature changes). (Al Gore eat your heart out)

However, if the mass of the moon were just 2 percent less (decrease the radius of the moon by just 7 miles) then the moon's gravity would be too weak to put brakes on the Earth's rotation rate, which in turn would mean that the Earth would rotate in just a few hours, instead of 24. The results of a faster rotation rate of the Earth would also be catastrophic for life, resulting in overwhelmingly frequent hurricanes and tornadoes, and with longer durations. While it's true that a slightly less massive moon would eventually slow the Earth's rotation rate, the time it would take would be considerably longer than the 4.5 billion year time window in which our Sun requires to enter into it's most stable burning phase, (which begins when the Sun is about 4.5 billion years old - which is right now in human existence) and this would mean that the Sun's burning phase would be unstable, also making life impossible on Earth.

So, what do you think? Do you think the moon's size and location as beneficial to life on Earth is just a lucky, random chance event or coincidence? Or, is it more plausible to think that an intelligent Agent (God) fine tuned it for our benefit? Before you answer, consider the way that scientists now believe how the moon was formed in the first place.

According to the latest scientific theory called the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the moon was formed from a just right mars sized object which struck the young Earth at just the right velocity and at just the right angle, crashing into the Earth and blowing away the thick early Earth atmosphere (see verse 9 of Job 38 which describes the very thick early Earth atmosphere, so thick that from the vantage point of an observer on the surface of the Earth, the observer would experience darkness) and replacing it with an atmosphere thin enough for light to pass through (see Genesis 1 verses 2 and 3 where the once thick atmosphere of the Earth is changed to allow for the first time light to reach the surface - note the frame of reference is of that of an observer on the Earth's surface). The resulting debris field from the impact coalesced to form the moon. Here's a section from Hugh Ross's book, "Creation As Science": (page 111)

"Most of the time, a major crash constitutes a catastrophe. But one gigantic collision proved just the opposite. When primordial Earth was only 30 to 50 million years old, a planet between 11 and 14 percent the mass of Earth (for comparison's sake, Mars = 0.107 Earth masses) smashed into Earth at a 45 degree angle. The speed of the planet upon impact was surprisingly slow (less than 4 kilometers per second). This astonishing crash:

Replaced Earth's thick, suffocating atmosphere with one thin enough (about 100 times thinner) for light to pass through. The new atmosphere had the just right chemical composition to foster life's existence.
Boosted the mass and density of the Earth just enough to allow Earth's gravity to retain a large, but not too large, quantity of water vapor for billions of years.
Raised the amount of iron in Earth's core closer to the level needed to provide Earth with a strong and enduring magnetic field. This magnetic field shield's life from deadly cosmic rays and solar X-rays.
Delivered to Earth's core and mantle quantities of iron and other associated elements in the just right ratios to produce sufficiently long lasting, continent building plate tectonics. (Earth began without any continents) Plate tectonics also play a crucial role in compensating for the Sun's increasing brightness so that life can be sustained on Earth for billions of years.
Increased the iron content of Earth's crust in a way that permits a huge abundance of ocean life that in turn supports advanced land life. (see Genesis 1:20)
Played a major role in salting Earth's interior with an abundance of long lasting radioisotopes, the heat from which drives most of the Earth's tectonic activity and volcanism.
Gradually slowed Earth's rotation rate so that a wide variety of lower life forms could survive long enough to provide the resources needed for the existence of advanced life forms. This slowing was also directly significant to advanced life, which cannot survive the high wind velocities of a more rapid rotation rate. (due to the creation of Earth's moon as a result of the impact)
Stabilized the tilt of Earth's rotation axis, protecting the planet from rapid and extreme climatic variations." (due to the creation of Earth's moon as a result of the impact)

He goes on to state that each of these beneficial results of the impact made conditions for the possibility of advanced life far more favorable.

Now, with all of that said, now I want you to ask yourself the same question as before. Was the formation and fine tuning of the moon to make life on Earth possible just a product of random chance, coincidence, or the result of carefully orchestrated engineering by an incredibly intelligent, powerful, Agent?

If you answered an intelligent Agent, what if I could show you that the Bible's various creation accounts match the most recent scientific accounts of the creation of the universe, Earth, moon and life on Earth? Wouldn't that mean that the Bible is true and trustworthy?

I love in Genesis 1 and Job 38, the exact conditions of the early Earth are described in detail and match what science has discovered some 3000 years later. See the references for yourself above.

Well, I'm out of time - I was going to introduce you to the Solar System today but I'll save that for next time.

Until then, have a great and Merry Christmas!

Cheers

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 4: The Anthropic Principle Inequality

2009-12-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

To plan the average wedding, it takes usually over one year of preparation to get ready for an event that lasts a very short length of time by comparison. Often, there is also a great amount of money spent for an event that lasts usually less than 5 hours. But no one would consider such an effort of planning, coordinating, and preparation and expense a waste. Why? It's because the wedding ceremony is of such a high purpose both for those getting married, and for the ones who love those who are getting married.

It's the same way with the universe and human life on planet Earth. Let me explain. Brandon Carter, a British mathematician, in 1983 introduced what he termed the "anthropic principle inequality" to the scientific community. His idea was that a minimum of several billion years or so is required to prepare a place for advanced life, yet that advanced life can only exist for a few million years, an obvious inequality. Here's what Hugh Ross has to say about this inequality from page 113 of his book, "Why the Universe is the Way it is?"

"Carter took note of the fact that several billion years is the minimum time required for the existence of the human race or a similarly advanced species. Yet, according to his calculations, the maximum time window in which the cosmos can possibly sustain such a species amounts to less than a few million years. In other words, it took a very long time to prepare the universe to sustain humans for a relatively short time."

Since Carter's discovery in 1983, Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler in 1986 showed that the amount of time that an advanced civilization can be sustained is much, much less. Dr. Ross writes;

"They estimated that global human civilization - something more than just a few low-population groups existing in one or two regions using Stone Age - type tools - could last no more than 41,000 years. According to their calculations, this limit would apply to any physical intelligent species with a sophisticated global civilization living anywhere in the universe."

Here are some of the characteristics of the universe which Barrow and Tipler noted in their work which all contribute to this short duration for the existence and survival of the human race or any advanced life:

The laws of physics (especially the 2nd law of thermodynamics-the running down of energy in the universe to an eventual state of unconsciousness in the entirety of the universe, which includes life on Earth)
The characteristics of the universe (especially the expansion rate or "dark energy" of the universe - which will increase at a faster and faster rate, with the cosmic expansion ultimately being so rapid that all intelligent life anywhere in the universe will lose the ability to draw adequate energy for work from the heat flow of the universe; thus all metabolic reactions will cease, and therefore all life will not exist anywhere in the universe.
The properties of life (temporal and not eternal)
The Earth's rotation rate slows (disturbing the delicate 24 hour period advanced life on Earth requires/increasing inhospitable environmental changes/atmospheric changes detrimental to life on Earth)
Fossil fuel supplies (will run out eventually)
Solar stability (solar flares and radiation will increase with respect to time as the Sun becomes less and less stable, making conditions on Earth inhospitable for life)
Solar luminosity (the sun will continuously brighten to a point where human life cannot survive under such luminosities)
Plate tectonics (plate tectonic activity will continuously decline, dramatically impacting environmental conditions on Earth)
Declining birthrates
Increasing genetic disorders
Environmental catastrophes (either from mankind or from a nearby supernova or other cosmic disasters)
Socio-political upheaval

Here is an incredible article you can read for yourself a more in depth survey of this topic. The article is called, "The Anthropic Principle: A Precise Plan for Humanity". What I find most fascinating is that in this article, Dr. Ross states that most probably, the maximum time left for the human race to exist in an advanced state is something less than 20,000 years. Since human beings have existed on this planet for approximately 50,000 years since they first "appeared" on Earth, and since science has measured the universe to be approximately 13.7 billion years old, that means that the maximum survival time for human beings is one millionth of the time it took to prepare the universe and Earth for we human beings to reach an advanced civilized state.

This amount of preparation and fine tuning requirements within the universe to support advanced human life suggests very powerfully of the high purpose that we human beings must have been gifted from the Creator, for the amount of the inequality between the time necessary in preparation for conditions to be just right for us to the maximum time we can possibly exist is extreme.

Here are some excellent Bible verses which support these scientific discoveries of the fact that the universe, Earth, and human life on Earth will someday come to an end:

Psalm 102:25-26 (New International Version)

²⁵ In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.

²⁶ They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.

2 Peter 3:5-13 (New International Version)

⁵But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ⁷By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

⁸But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

¹¹Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹²as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.¹³But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

Please don't despair, for if you accept Christ's work on the cross and resurrection as payment for your sins, you have no need to despair. For God will create an entirely new "heavens and earth" as stated in Revelation 21:

Revelation 21

The New Jerusalem

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

⁵He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

⁶He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. ⁷He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

⁹One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." ¹⁰And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ¹¹It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. ¹²It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. ¹³There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. ¹⁴The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. ¹⁶The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. ¹⁷He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man's measurement, which the angel was using. ¹⁸The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. ¹⁹The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, ²⁰the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. ²¹The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.

²²I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.²³The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. ²⁵On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. ²⁷Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

So, most of the evidence for a personal Creator and Savior of the universe is in. Your job is to evaluate the evidence, repent of your sin, and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. If you do this, your salvation is certain, you have the gift of eternal life!

But don't take my word for it. Listen to the Apostle Paul:

Romans 3:23-30 (New International Version)

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— ²⁶he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. ²⁸For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.²⁹Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

And one more, listen here:

Romans 6:23 (New International Version)

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So Jesus stands at the door of your heart and knocks - but He is a gentleman, and will not force himself upon you. He's waiting for you to open your heart, and if you do, He promises to come in and save you!!

We'll so much for my sermon! Please write to me if you have made a confession of faith - I can give you some advice as your start your journey of faith. If you live in the Capital region, I have a great church where you can begin. It's called Grace Fellowship of Latham. Go to the website to see what it's like at www.gracefellowship.com

Next time I plan on talking to you about the Lunar Anthropic Principle and the fine tuning of our Solar System to support life on Earth (but I've got to figure out a way to shorten the title!)

Cheers

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 3: The Anthropic Principle

2009-10-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

I want to thank you for your patience with my blog. I haven't posted in a while because of my rather intense school work this semester. I'm done with the current semester in a few weeks, so I hope to post more regularly over the Christmas break.

Here's a great quote from American astronomer George Greenstein:

"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?¹¹ "

Isn't that a great quote! What a segue into my next topic: The Anthropic Principle.

The Anthropic Principle is an idea that the entire universe was programmed, or designed, for us in mind - that there are numerous instances of fine tuning of physical constants and conditions from the very beginning of the universe (at the Big Bang) so that advanced life would be able to build a high tech society (human beings of course).

Before I dig in to this topic, I want to back up a bit with a question for you. What do we mean by the "fine tuning design" of the universe?

Well, that's a good question. The answers vary depending on who you ask. For the evolutionary biologist, the answer may be given as "the appearance of design." For instance, check out this quote from Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA; "biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." (from his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit)

Taking it further, what I am referring to when I talk about the fine tuning of the universe is the engineering of physical constants and conditions of the universe (and our galaxy, solar system, and planet Earth) to make advanced life (human life) possible.

Another scientist, physicist Robert Dicke of Princeton University, developed something called the Anthropic Principle. According to Dr. Hugh Ross in his book, "More than a Theory", Dr. Dicke's discovery led to "the conclusion that the universe, Milky Way Galaxy, solar system, and Earth are all exquisitely fine-tuned so that human life can exist and flourish." pg 111.

Fine tuning is related to those properties of the universe which, if changed by even the slightest amount, would render the entire universe life prohibiting. In other words, if you change the values ever so slightly, no life would exist at any time and at any place within the entire universe.

Let me give you just one of many examples. We know that the universe has been expanding since it was created 13.73 billion years ago. If you could change the expansion rate of the universe by just 1 part in 10 to the 120th power, science has discovered that life would not be possible at any time or place in the history of the universe. Such stunning fine tuning is breathtaking. 1 in 10 to the 120th power is a number so small that it would be analogous to picking a red painted dime blindfolded in a stack of dimes the width of the united states stacked all the way up to the moon on the first try.

Why is the expansion rate so vital for life? Too rapid an expansion would mean that matter could not coalesce into galaxies, stars, and planets. Without galaxies, stars, and planets, life would have no place to live! Too slow an expansion and gravity would be strong in its capacity to put brakes on the expansion rate, and a recollapse of the universe would occur meaning that no solar type stars could settle into a stable burning phase, which is essential for life. How critical is the precise expansion rate? Change the value for the expansion rate of the universe by as little as 1 part in 10 to the 120th power, and you end up with a life prohibiting universe. Here is another excellent article by Hugh Ross, written 20 years ago but still valid, on the fine tuning characteristics of the universe titled: "Design and the Anthropic Principle." If you prefer, I also have for you an excellent audio clip from Dr. Ross on the Anthropic Principle from his book, "Why the Universe is the Way it is?"

Here is a list of fine tuning characteristics from the RTB website at http://www.reasons.org/fine-tuning-life-universe-aug-2006:

For physical life to be possible in the universe, several characteristics must take on specific values, and these are listed below.¹ In the case of several of these characteristics, and given the intricacy of their interrelationships, the indication of divine "fine tuning" seems incontrovertible.

Strong nuclear force constant
Weak nuclear force constant
Gravitational force constant
Electromagnetic force constant
Ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant
Ratio of proton to electron mass
Ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
Ratio of proton to electron charge
Expansion rate of the universe
Mass density of the universe
Baryon (proton and neutron) density of the universe
Space energy or dark energy density of the universe
Ratio of space energy density to mass density
Entropy level of the universe
Velocity of light
Age of the universe
Uniformity of radiation
Homogeneity of the universe
Average distance between galaxies
Average distance between galaxy clusters
Average distance between stars
Average size and distribution of galaxy clusters
Numbers, sizes, and locations of cosmic voids
Electromagnetic fine structure constant
Gravitational fine-structure constant
Decay rate of protons
Ground state energy level for helium-4
Carbon-12 to oxygen-16 nuclear energy level ratio
Decay rate for beryllium-8
Ratio of neutron mass to proton mass
Initial excess of nucleons over antinucleons
Polarity of the water molecule
Epoch for hypernova eruptions
Number and type of hypernova eruptions
Epoch for supernova eruptions
Number and types of supernova eruptions
Epoch for white dwarf binaries
Density of white dwarf binaries
Ratio of exotic matter to ordinary matter
Number of effective dimensions in the early universe
Number of effective dimensions in the present universe
Mass values for the active neutrinos
Number of different species of active neutrinos
Number of active neutrinos in the universe
Mass value for the sterile neutrino
Number of sterile neutrinos in the universe
Decay rates of exotic mass particles
Magnitude of the temperature ripples in cosmic background radiation
Size of the relativistic dilation factor
Magnitude of the Heisenberg uncertainty
Quantity of gas deposited into the deep intergalactic medium by the first supernovae
Positive nature of cosmic pressures
Positive nature of cosmic energy densities
Density of quasars
Decay rate of cold dark matter particles
Relative abundances of different exotic mass particles
Degree to which exotic matter self interacts
Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars) begin to form
Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars cease to form
Number density of metal-free pop III stars
Average mass of metal-free pop III stars
Epoch for the formation of the first galaxies
Epoch for the formation of the first quasars
Amount, rate, and epoch of decay of embedded defects
Ratio of warm exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density
Ratio of hot exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density
Level of quantization of the cosmic spacetime fabric
Flatness of universe's geometry
Average rate of increase in galaxy sizes
Change in average rate of increase in galaxy sizes throughout cosmic history
Constancy of dark energy factors
Epoch for star formation peak
Location of exotic matter relative to ordinary matter
Strength of primordial cosmic magnetic field
Level of primordial magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
Level of charge-parity violation
Number of galaxies in the observable universe
Polarization level of the cosmic background radiation
Date for completion of second reionization event of the universe
Date of subsidence of gamma-ray burst production
Relative density of intermediate mass stars in the early history of the universe
Water's temperature of maximum density
Water's heat of fusion
Water's heat of vaporization
Number density of clumpuscules (dense clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas) in the universe
Average mass of clumpuscules in the universe
Location of clumpuscules in the universe
Dioxygen's kinetic oxidation rate of organic molecules
Level of paramagnetic behavior in dioxygen
Density of ultra-dwarf galaxies (or supermassive globular clusters) in the middle-aged universe
Degree of space-time warping and twisting by general relativistic factors
Percentage of the initial mass function of the universe made up of intermediate mass stars
Strength of the cosmic primordial magnetic field

What we're referring to when we say the universe has been "fine tuned" is that it's properties have been configured or engineered in advance so that life could be possible. You see, it's far more probable that a life prohibiting universe should exist, on purely non theistic grounds, than a life permitting one.

Don't believe me? Just ask physicist Freeman Dyson who comments, "The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming." (from his work Disturbing the Universe page 250.) Or how about these comments from astrophysicist Paul Davies who states, "It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe...The impression of design is overwhelming." (from his article in Science Digest callede The Anthropic Principle, page 191.)

Remember I told you about Psalm 19? "The heavens declare the glory of God." God's glory can be seen from what He has made. Take a look at the night sky some evening on a clear night. Science now knows that all of those stars, even from the remotest parts of the universe, are necessary for our human life here on Earth. This is known as the mass-density of the universe. Change it by as much as 1 part in 10 to the 60th power, and you have a life prohibiting universe. This number is something akin to adding the mass of a dime to the universe causing it to be life prohibiting. Surely there must be a super intellect behind it all (God).

I'm going to pursue this topic further next time, with a topic titled "The Anthropic Principle Inequality." You'll be amazed at the amount of time the Creator took to prepare a fit habitat for humanity, and yet the maximum possible amount of time for humanity's existence in a civilized state is so small by comparison, that we get this Anthropic Principle Inequality.

Until then, may God bless you richly,

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 2: Special Guest Blogger Dr. William Lane Craig

2009-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

I am excited to introduce to you Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig accepted an invitation to post to Fingerprints of God, and will expose you to some excellent philosophy regarding the argument for the fine tuning of the universe: That the fact that the universe is fine tuned can only be explained by design.

Dr. Craig earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Birmingham, and his DTheol from the University of Munich, Germany. He is currently research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is also the founder of the Reasonable Faith website located at www.reasonablefaith.org. He has written numerous books and articles including Reasonable Faith, Hard Questions Real Answers, Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time, and Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar: Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind.

Dr. Craig also has debated many atheistic scholars at various prestigious universities throughout the world, and some of these debates can be heard at reasonablefaith.org. He also visited my hometown in 1993 and again in 2007 for debates and Q&A sessions at my local church, Grace Fellowship (www.gracefellowship.com) Here is one of my favorite debates featuring Dr. Craig on the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus.

It is my pleasure to turn the mic over to my special friend, Dr. William Lane Craig!

CHANCE AND THE ARGUMENT FROM FINE-TUNING

Here’s a very simple argument from fine-tuning for a Cosmic Designer:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity,

chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

This is a logically valid argument, whose conclusion follows necessarily from the two premises. So the only question is whether those premises are more plausibly true than false.

The first premise is unobjectionable because it just lists the three alternatives available for explaining the fine-tuning.

As for the second premise, the alternative of physical necessity seems fantastically implausible. It would require us to say that a life-prohibiting universe is a physical impossibility. Few are prepared to swallow that claim. So the debate has focused on the second alternative: could the fine-tuning be due simply to chance? According to this alternative, it’s just an accident that all of nature’s fundamental constants and quantities fell into the life-permitting range. We basically just lucked out!

The fundamental problem here is that the chances of a life-permitting universe’s existing are so remote that this alternative becomes unreasonable.

Sometimes people object that it’s meaningless to speak of the probability of a fine-tuned universe’s existing because there is, after all, only one universe. So you can’t say that 1 out of every 10 universes, for example, is life-permitting.

But the following illustration from the physicist John Barrow clarifies the sense in which a life-permitting universe is improbable. Take a sheet of paper and place upon it a red dot. That dot represents our universe. Now alter slightly one or more of the finely-tuned constants and physical quantities. As a result we have a description of another universe, which we can represent as a new dot in the neighborhood of the first. If that new set of constants and quantities describes a life-permitting universe, make it a red dot; if it describes a universe which is life-prohibiting, make it a blue dot. Now repeat the procedure over and over again until the sheet is filled with dots. What you wind up with is a sea of blue with only a few pin-points of red. That’s the sense in which it is overwhelmingly improbable that the universe should be life-permitting. There are simply vastly more life-prohibiting universes in our local area of possible universes than there are life-permitting universes.

Sometimes people will appeal to the example of a lottery in order to justify the chance alternative. In a lottery where all the tickets are sold, it’s fantastically improbable that any one person should win, yet somebody has to win! It would be unjustified for the winner, whoever he may be, to say, “The odds against my winning were 20 million to one. And yet I won! The lottery must have been rigged!”

In the same way, they say, some universe out of the range of possible universes has to exist. The winner of the universe lottery would also be unjustified to think that because his universe exists, this must have been the result of design, not chance. All the universes are equally improbable, but one of them, by chance, has to win.

This analogy is actually very helpful because it enables us to see clearly where the advocate of chance has misunderstood the fine-tuning argument and to offer a better, more accurate analogy in its place. Contrary to popular impression, the argument from fine-tuning is not trying to explain why this particular universe exists. Rather it’s trying to explain why a life-permitting universe exists. The lottery analogy was misconceived because it focused on why a particular person won.

The correct analogy would be a lottery in which billions and billions and billions of white ping pong balls were mixed together with just one black ping pong ball, and you were told that one ball will be randomly selected out of the horde. If it’s black, you’ll be allowed to live; if it’s white, you’ll be shot.

Now notice that any particular ball which is randomly selected is equally improbable: no matter which ball rolls down the chute, the odds against that particular ball are fantastically improbable. But some ball must roll down the chute. This is the point illustrated by the first lottery analogy. That point, however, is irrelevant because we’re not trying to explain why this particular ball was picked.

The relevant point is that whichever ball rolls down the chute, it is overwhelmingly more probable that it will be white rather than black. Getting the black ball is no more improbable than getting any particular white ball. But it is incomprehensibly more probable that you will get a white ball instead of a black one. So if the black ball rolls down the chute, you certainly should suspect that the lottery was rigged to let you live.

If you still don’t see the point of this analogy, then imagine that in order to be allowed to live, the black ball had to be randomly picked five times in a row. (If the odds against getting a black ball even once are great enough, happening five times rather than once won’t really affect the probabilities significantly.) If such a thing actually happened, everyone would recognize that it did not happen by chance.

So in the correct analogy, we’re not interested in why you got the particular ball you did. Rather we’re puzzled by why, against overwhelming odds, you got a life-permitting ball rather than a life-prohibiting ball. That question is just not addressed by saying, “Well, some ball had to be picked!”

In the same way, some universe has to exist, but whichever universe exists, it is incomprehensibly more probable that it will be life-prohibiting rather than life-permitting. So we still need some explanation why a life-permitting universe exists.

Some people have argued that no explanation is needed for why we observe a life-permitting universe because that’s the only kind of universe we can observe! If the universe were not life-permitting, then we wouldn’t be here to ask about it. (This is the so-called Anthropic Principle, which says that we can observe only properties of the universe which are compatible with our existence.)

This reasoning is fallacious. The fact that we can observe only life-permitting universes does nothing to eliminate the need of an explanation for why a life-permitting universe exists.

Again, an illustration can help. Imagine you’re traveling abroad and arrested on trumped-up drug charges. You’re dragged in front of a firing squad of one hundred trained marksmen standing at point blank range. You hear the command given, “Ready! Aim! Fire!”, and you hear the deafening sound of the guns. And then you observe that you’re still alive! That all of the one hundred marksmen missed! Now what would you conclude?

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they all missed! After all, if they hadn’t all missed, I wouldn’t be here to be surprised about it! Nothing more to be explained here!”

Of course not! It’s true that you shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t observe that you’re dead, since if you were dead; you wouldn’t be able to observe it. But you should still be surprised that you do observe that you are alive, in light of the enormous improbability of the marksmen’s all missing. Indeed, you’d probably conclude that they all missed on purpose, that the whole thing was a set-up, engineered for some purpose by someone.

Theorists have therefore come to recognize that the Anthropic Principle cannot eliminate the need of an explanation of the fine-tuning unless it’s conjoined with a Many Worlds Hypothesis. According to that hypothesis, our universe is but one member of a World Ensemble or “multiverse” of randomly ordered universes, preferably infinite in number. If all of these other universes really exist, then by chance alone life-permitting worlds will appear somewhere in the World Ensemble. Since only finely-tuned universes have observers in them, any observers existing in the World Ensemble will naturally observe their worlds to be finely-tuned. So no appeal to design is necessary to explain fine-tuning. It’s pure chance.

One way to respond to the Many Worlds Hypothesis would be to show that the multiverse itself also involves fine-tuning. For in order to be scientifically credible, some plausible mechanism must be suggested for generating the many worlds. But if the Many Worlds Hypothesis is to be successful in attributing fine-tuning to chance alone, then the mechanism that generates the many worlds had better not be fine-tuned itself! For if it is, then the problem arises all over again.

But the proposed mechanisms for generating a World Ensemble are so vague that it’s far from evident that the physics governing the multiverse will be free of any fine-tuning. For example, if super-string theory, or M-Theory, is the physics of the multiverse, then it remains unexplained why exactly 11 dimensions exist, as the theory requires. And the mechanism that actualizes all the possible universes in the cosmic landscape may involve fine-tuning. So the postulate of a World Ensemble is by itself not enough to justify the alternative of chance.

Moreover, many theorists are sceptical of the Many Worlds Hypothesis itself. Why think that a World Ensemble actually exists? There’s no independent evidence that the sort of World Ensemble required by the Many Worlds Hypothesis actually exists. By contrast, we have good independent reasons for believing in a Designer of the cosmos, in the form of various versions of the cosmological argument.

Finally, the Many Worlds Hypothesis faces what may be a devastating objection. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has pressed this objection forcefully. He points out that the odds of our universe’s initial low entropy condition’s existing by chance alone are one chance out of 10^{10 (123)}. By contrast the odds of our solar system’s suddenly forming by the random collision of particles is one chance out of 10^{10 (60)}. This number, says Penrose, is “utter chicken feed” in comparison with 10^{10 (123)}. What that means is that it is far more likely that we should be observing an orderly universe no larger than our solar system, since a world of that size is so unfathomably more probable than a fine-tuned universe like ours.

In fact, a sort of illusionism results from the Many Worlds Hypothesis. A small world with the illusion of a wider cosmos is more probable than a real, finely-tuned universe. Carried to its logical extreme, this has led to what theorists have called “the invasion of the Boltzmann brains.” For the most probable observable universe is one which consists of a single brain which pops into existence by a random fluctuation with illusory perceptions of the external world! So if you accept the Many Worlds Hypothesis, you’re obligated to believe that you are all that exists and that your body, the earth, and everything you perceive in the world are just illusions.

No sane person believes that he is a Boltzmann brain. On atheism, therefore, it is highly improbable that there exists a randomly ordered World Ensemble. Ironically, the best hope for partisans of the multiverse is to maintain that God created it and ordered its worlds, so that they are not randomly ordered. God could give preference to observable worlds which are cosmically fine-tuned. To be rationally acceptable, the Many Worlds Hypothesis needs God.

With the failure of the Many Worlds Hypothesis, the last ring of defense for the alternative of chance collapses. Neither physical necessity nor chance provides a good explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe.

Thanks Dr. Craig! Keep up the great work! For another excellent talk on the origin of the universe, please click here to see Dr. Craig speak at Saddleback Church in California!

Next week I will talk about the Anthropic Principle and the Anthropic Principle Inequality.

Till then, enjoy.

Tom

The Design of the Cosmos Part 1: The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

2009-09-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

What caused the universe? Or, do you believe that the universe just is, and has always existed? Which question fits your worldview? If the atheist is to be consistent, then he/she should believe that the universe is all there is and all that ever was; in other words, an honest atheist should believe in the eternality of matter and energy, time and space.

But is such a belief credible? The answer is a resounding no. Modern science has come to the conclusion that the universe began to exist a finite time ago (about 13.7 billion years ago) and that it was not created out of any existing materials; rather, it was created, "out of nothing", in an event known from science as the Big Bang. This happens to match perfectly the record of scripture as stated so many times in the bible - here are a few verses for you:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Hebrew translation for "heavens and earth", "shamayim" and "erets" is referring to the universe. whenever shamayim is used with the erets(earth), as in 1:1, the combination refers to the entire physical universe.

Here's another verse - Hebrews 11:3

Hebrews 11:3 (New International Version)

³By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

The fact that the Bible teaches that the universe was created out of nothing or creation ex nihilo, can be explained in greater detail in a work by Ken Samples, "Creation Ex Nihilo."

Such a belief that the universe has always existed surely cannot be credible for both philosophical and scientific reasons. I'm going to spend much of this week's and next week's topic on the philosophical reasons why the universe cannot be eternal, including an article written especially for this blog from a special friend of mine, Dr. William Lane Craig. Later on, I will write for you the scientific reasons why the universe must have begun to exist about 13.7 billion years ago.

Before I can show you evidence for design of the universe, I'd like to show you from philosophy that God exists and that He created the universe. For if He exists, then it would make sense that He is the sufficient causal agent of the Universe. Furthermore, if He exists and is the causal agent of the universe, then He must be non physical (immaterial or spiritual), He must transcend this universe that He created (ruling out the pantheistic world religions as true), and that He must be a personal being. We would then expect to find fine tuned design in the universe; the product of an intelligent mind.

Here's an excellent argument from the field of Philosophy: The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God. It was developed by the Medieval Islamic Persian scholar Al-Ghazali. It goes something like this:

Premise 1: What ever begins to exist must have a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Premise 3: Therefore the universe has a cause.

Let's unpack each of the premises briefly.

Premise 1: What ever begins to exist must have a cause. I believe this is self explanatory and rather uncontroversial. In order to refute it, one must believe that it is normal for things to pop into existence uncaused. But surely this is implausible, simply from the vantage point of individual experience. For instance, we don't experience things "appearing" into existence out of nothing; As Dr. William Lane Craig likes to often state: "No one fears that suddenly, at this moment, though you might be away from home, a horse might appear suddenly from nowhere in your living room of your house and will soon begin defiling the carpet!" No, rather, out of nothing, nothing comes. Therefore, whatever begins to exist that didn't exist before, must have a cause for its coming into existence.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist. Here's where the real agitation may arise, although it can clearly be shown from philosophy and from science that Premise 2 is true. I will tackle the scientific evidence in a future blog, so for today, let's take a look at Premise 2 philosophically. If the universe did not begin to exist, then Premise 2 would be false, and the entire Kalam argument would go down in flames. But if that were to be true, that the universe has always existed, then that would mean that the universe is infinite - that is to say, that there would have been an actual infinite number of past events. But any mathematician will tell you that, from set theory, there is no such thing as an actual infinite number of things, but rather, only potential infinites exist. In other words, the infinite can only be described in terms of the potential (ex. adding one more thing) and not the actual, because infinity continues on forever, otherwise, it would not be infinite, but finite. But if it were true that the universe never began to exist, then that would mean that there have been an actual infinite number of past events, such that we would have had to traverse this actually infinite number of past events to get to this current event. But surely this is absurd, because we should have already reached this current event by now if we had indeed traversed an infinite number of past events. Indeed, if you go back billions of years, we still should have already reached this and any event in the past, which is also absurd. Even if you go back an infinite number of events, you'd have already reached the current event, which is also absurd. Therefore, the universe had to begin at some point in time in the past.

Science agrees with what is called, "the Big Bang Theory" which I will develop for you later. Not only must the universe have begun to exist a finite time ago, but time itself must have begun to exist at the big bang, at the beginning of the universe. Science also agrees with this, thanks to Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity (which at first Einstein himself didn't agree with, so he added a "cosmological constant" to his theory to avoid the unavoidable conclusion that the universe had a beginning, since this would mean that the universe required a designer and a Creator, a concept he didn't like very much.)

Premise 3 follows logically and inescapably: "Therefore, the universe must have a cause." If the first 2 premises are true, it is inescapable that the universe had a cause for its coming into existence. Furthermore, this cause must be immaterial, or non physical, for if the cause were physical and came before the beginning, then it would not make any sense to speak of the beginning of the universe - the cause would be prior yet physical, which is absurd. In addition, the cause must be personal, because for the cause to be non personal and inanimate, such as abstract numbers like the number 7 for example, would be to say that non personal inanimate entities such as logic or numbers can be involved in causal relations, which is also absurd. No, only an infinite, uncaused, personal being with a will or mind can create or cause the universe to exist. Many atheists follow this argument with an argument of their own at this juncture, which goes something like this: "Then what or who caused God to exist." But look carefully at the first premise once more. It does not state that everything has a cause, but rather, only that anything that begins to exist has a cause, and since God is eternal and uncaused (and therefore never began to exist), God does not fit into this category. Therefore, the universe must have a cause, and this cause is the God of the Bible.

Here is an excellent video from Dr. Craig's website, www.reasonablefaith.org, on this very topic at a recent event at Saddleback Church, in California.

I hope you enjoy this series. Tune in next time as Dr. William Lane Craig graciously guest hosts on my blog! He will give more philosophical arguments for the fine tuning of the universe - after this, we will get into the scientific support for the design of the cosmos by Jesus Christ, Creator of the universe - as it so states throughout scripture:

The Supremacy of Christ

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

May God bless you richly - and please get out and enjoy this incredible weather!

Cheers

Tom

Guest Blogger: Dr. Matthew Mirabile, PhD

2009-09-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

I promised you a few weeks back, that I'd have a friend of mine take over the microphone for a week on the topic of Creation vs. Evolution. Here's his latest work called "They Shot Themselves in the Foot", by Dr. Matthew Mirabile, PhD.

They Shot Themselves in the Foot. An Ongoing Critique of Current Trends in Darwinian Evolution.

Dr.Matthew Mirabile

9/5/09

The Christian Apologist G.K Chesterton once wrote that “falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true”. This statement accurately reflects most of the concepts and ideas that flow from the oral and written pronouncements of modern Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary apologists. They continuously edit and reinterpret the latest scientific findings to fit their secular worldview, and expect the public to accept them without question. In fact, those who dare to challenge them, whether utilizing science and/or biblical principles and findings, are deviously labeled as practitioners of “pseudo-science” and outdated religious mythology. Fortunately they continue to “shoot themselves in the foot”, since most of their “science” is based upon selective, misleading, and misinterpreted analysis of the actual data, be it geological, paleontological, genetic, or morphological convergence of similar physical characteristics. Consequently, a large percentage of their evidence presented as “proof” or strongly suggestive of evolution, is in reality, upon closer scientific and logical scrutiny, evidence against their basic hypothesis and is usually more suggestive of Intelligent Design.

Given the above-mentioned deceptive practices, it is imperative that the Intelligent Design/Creation audience be prepared to intelligently debate the accuracy of the interpretation of those major “scientific” findings, which purport to “prove” the veracity of Darwinian evolution as an established fact. In this series of articles, I will attempt to present careful critiques of their analyses, based on ACTUAL Readings and quotations from the original research articles and not upon the “Interpretive Spin” of those with an evolutionary and secular agenda. One word of warning however, I will be playing solely in their sandbox, and will not use biblical arguments for our Christian beliefs, only conclusions based upon their own “scientific” findings and interpretations. My attempt will be to provide evidence suggesting that their own research and arguments for evolution actually are better arguments for Intelligent Design. Since I will be playing by their rules, I will be presenting information in the context of the scientific beliefs in long geological time periods, an old earth ( 4.5 billion years), and a 15 billion year old universe.

Today’s Topic: The Beak of the Finch

Long accepted as a primary icon of Darwinian evolution, the finches of the Galapagos islands were never mentioned in Darwin’s Origin of Species, but have continuously appeared in biology textbooks since the 1950’s due to their canonization by David Lack in the 1947 book:” Darwin’s Finches”. In addition, in a 1994 Pulitzer prize winning book entitled “ The Beak of the Finch”, reporter Jonathon Weiner immortalized the Galapagos finches as the “ best and most detailed example to date of the power of Darwin’s blind process of random mutation and natural selection “. Pontificating on the modern research on finches by Peter and Rosemary Grant, beginning in 1973 and extending into the early 1990’s, Weiner massages their data to fit his natural worldview, concluding that the observed variations in finch beak size were the result of random mutations in beak size genes, acted upon by natural selection survival criteria, interacting with changes in climatic conditions on the island. In fact as the climate changed from a rainy, humid environment, to a drought, it was observed that a larger number of finches would be born with bigger beaks, shaped so as to better enable them to extract the harder and larger seeds buried in firmer and less pliable ground.

In this environment, finches with smaller and less shapely beaks tend to lose the competition for scarce seeds and eventually suffer major decreases in their population. Birds with big, shapely beaks are then classified as a different species, compared to birds with smaller beaks, due to the supposition that females with larger beaks will tend to reject males with small beaks and mate primarily with males with larger beaks, thus satisfying the major biological criteria for species differentiation. Extrapolating from this process, evolutionary biologists then suggest that, over a long period of time, the accumulation of micro-changes, such as beak size differences, will result in large macro-changes, eventually leading to the appearance of a new genus such as a Galapagos Pelican or maybe even a new class such as a Galapagos Dog. As logical as this may sound to evolutionists, the facts, as observed and measured by the Grants, do not support this Darwinian scenario.

What in fact was observed by the Grants was a process lacking any real net change over the 20 years of their investigations. Since the climate on the islands varied periodically between heavy rainy seasons followed by equivalent periods of drought, the Grants observed an oscillatory process, with smaller finch beaks more prevalent during the rainy seasons, becoming gradually dominated by birds with larger beaks during the dry seasons. By itself, oscillating selection cannot produce any net change in Darwin’s finch species, no matter how long it continues. Some sort of long term trend in average beak size would have to be superimposed on the back and forth oscillations, to produce real long term change---and that is NOT what the Grants and their colleagues ever observed. In fact, a closer examination of the Grants actual published papers, reveals the observation of phenomena diametrically opposed to expectations that would derive from the Darwinian paradigm.

According to modern evolutionary biology, one population of Finches should eventually diverge into two species, then to four species, then to six species, in an ever exploding trend of more and more diverse and complex species, eventually resulting in the development of new phyla. Unfortunately for the evolutionists, the opposite has been observed for the Galapagos Finches. At least half of the Finch species were observed to hybridize, a process during which differing morphological or physical characteristics in several finch species tend to collect and merge into a few or even just one species. The Grant’s discovered that several bird species on one island were producing hybrids that thrived and reproduced successfully, gradually forcing the parent finch population into retreat and eventual extinction. Extrapolating from the observed frequency of observation, the Grants estimated that within one to two hundred years, all 14 observed species of Galapagos Finches would merge completely into one species, a result totally contradictory to the results expected if Darwinian evolution were the dominant species change mechanism. The finches’ success at hybridization raises serious doubt that the 14 observed species (1990) were separate species at all, even when applying the strict species classification criteria based upon inability to interbreed.

In articles published in 1996 and 1998, the Grants unbelievably declared that the Darwinian theory of species origin “fits the facts of Darwin finch evolution on the Galapagos islands,” and that the “driving force” is natural selection. This, in spite of the contradictory results reported by them in THEIR OWN previously published RESEARCH ARTICLES. This claim was echoed by Mark Ridley in his 1996 College Textbook, “Evolution”. In this text, Ridley extrapolated the increase in beak size, after the 1977 drought, into the future, to estimate the time it would take to produce a NEW SPECIES, completely ignoring the trendless, oscillatory pattern actually observed.

Ridley’s attempts to explain these apparent contradictions were classical Darwinist double talk. More time was needed to view trends that must occur, or the data contains sources of error that biased the conclusions away from the expected trends in average beak size, and the amazing revelation that “arguments of this kind are common in the theory of evolution.” May we infer that Ridley and the Grants are now appealing to the “ evolutionary chance god of the gaps? ”

Enter the National Academy of Sciences endorsement in a 1999 booklet that stated that Darwin’s Finches are a “particularly compelling example of the origin of species”. The booklet goes on to discuss how the Grants and their colleagues showed “that a single year of drought on the islands can drive evolutionary changes in the finches,” and that “if droughts occur once every 10 years on the islands, a new species of finch may arise every 200 years.”

Thus rather than CONFUSE the reader by mentioning that selection was reversed after the drought, producing NO LONG TERM evolutionary changes, the booklet simply omits this rather AWKWARD FACT. This is not TRUTH SEEKING in any definition of the term. It is also NOT REAL SCIENCE, but represents the type of reasoning expected from methodological naturalists, masquerading as true scientists. Thus, according to the Darwinists, evolution can be proven to be true, based on observations on increases in average finch beak size, and on the other hand, finch beaks must eventually show an average size increase since evolution must indeed be true. Convoluted, circular reasoning like this must be exposed for what it truly is, government supported MENDACITY.

Consequently, when Darwinists obtain data contrary to their pet theories, they simply ignore these facts, and report falsehoods, confidant that a gullible, news snippet educated public, will bow before their scientific masters and accept their pronouncements, without any further investigation of their claims. As we discussed, however, careful scientific scrutiny of their claims usually reveals the existence of an alternative set of conclusions in direct opposition to the evolutionary paradigms. The fact that the Grant’s careful research did not demonstrate any net change in average beak size or any other significant finch characteristics, under diverse environmental conditions, argues more for stasis of species rather than for evolutionary advancement. The temporary changes observed for beak size appear more the result of environmental selection operating on characteristics already existing in the finch population (both small and large beaked animals coexisted during various environmentally diverse periods, albeit in different proportions), rather than due to random, purposeless mutations in beak size, carefully pruned by natural selection. In actuality, the Grant’s research does not suggest the validity of randomly generated long term change, but the observance of natural variations inherent in any species due to genetic diversity already, purposely programmed into that particular species. Thus the failure to demonstrate any significant long term, irreversible changes, coupled with the overall observations of finch population stasis and tendency to pre-planned hybridization to one isolated non-interactive species, suggests the existence of PURPOSE. Purpose then suggests the interference of intelligence behind the purpose, i.e., an Intelligent Designer. Consequently arguments based on research supposedly demonstrating the validity of random, purposeless evolution, actually suggests the existence of a supervising Intelligence, a Transcendent Creator.

Once more, after careful analysis of specific claims by evolutionary scientists, we have shown that “THEY HAVE SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT…AGAIN.

Thanks Doc!

Well, I start school tomorrow, so I wont be posting each week, but I am very excited about my next topic - "The Design of the Cosmos". I'm especially thrilled to be showing you my subtopics on the Anthropic Principle, the Fine Tuning of the Universe, Our Rare Sun, the Big Bang Theory, Are We Really Alone (was Carl Sagan wrong), and others.

Tune in next time.

Cheers

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 10: The Hominids

2009-08-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

What would you say best characterizes human beings as distinct from all other created beings? I think that is a great question. The Bible states in Genesis 1:26-27 and Genesis 5:1-2 that male and female humans were made in the image of God. Here are the verses for your reference:

Genesis 1:26-27

²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Footnotes:

Genesis 1:26 Hebrew; Syriac all the wild animals

Genesis 5:1-2 (New International Version)

Genesis 5

From Adam to Noah

¹ This is the written account of Adam's line.
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. ² He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man."

Footnotes:

Genesis 5:2 Hebrew adam

These verses imply that we human beings in some ways bear a likeness or similarity to God, and uniquely in that respect. In other words, there ought to be a distinction somehow between we human beings and the animals or other created beings. Nowhere does scripture teach that the animals were also created in God's image, but rather only human beings were. Nor does scripture really tell us exactly what this "image of God" really is, so we are stuck with centuries of debate from theologians. A consensus of this concept by the theologians identifies these main characteristics:

(from "Who Was Adam", by Dr. Fazale Rana, Page 79)

1. Human beings possess a moral component. They inherently understand right and wrong and have a strong innate sense of justice.

2. Humans are spiritual beings who recognize a reality beyond this universe and physical life. Mankind intuitively acknowledges the existence of God and has a propensity toward worship and prayer.

3. Human beings relate to God, to themselves, to other people, and to other creatures. There is a relational aspect to God's image.

4. Humanity's mental capacity reflects God's image. Human beings possess the ability to reason and think logically. They can engage in symbolic thought. People express themselves with complex, abstract language. The are aware of the past, present, and future. Human beings display intense creativity through art, music, literature, science, and technological inventions.

For a more in depth description of the Imago Dei,

Kenneth Samples talks about "the Imago Dei" and describes how humans differ from the animals.

Interestingly, the fossil record displays a sudden burst of this "image of God" activity, including a sudden appearance of art, jewelry, music and musical instruments including the flute, the use of clothing, sophisticated tools and tool use, and religious artifacts involving worship. This cultural big bang occurs a few thousand years after the origin of humanity, which the RTB model dates to about 50,000 years ago. Prior to this, there are fossils of other quadrupedal and bipedal primates known as the hominids, but these "image of God" artifacts are conspicuously missing in all the fossils involving these primates, who date from millions of years ago to about 100,000 years ago (the Neanderthals). Just like the sudden appearance of complex first life on Earth, humans appear on the scene in the fossil record suddenly and without ancestral predecessors. The hominids that preceded the humans have far too many biological and cultural differences to have made any naturalistic evolutionary contributions to the origin of humanity.

Here is an excellent audio clip from Reasons To Believe's Biochemist, Dr. Fazale Rana on the vast differences between the hominids and human beings. As you listen, I'll just add a few points on the lack of time available for the vast anatomical and biological changes which must take place to go from a hominid to a human being (speaking from the point of view of the natural/Darwinian model). Bipedalism (the ability to walk upright on 2 limbs), and brain size, are considered to be humanity's two most significant anatomical features by evolutionary biologists. Significant discoveries in paleoanthropology and paleoecology push the date for bipedalism back to the very first hominids, between 5 and 6 million years ago. This shows that bipedalism did not emerge gradually in a step by step fashion, as would be expected in an evolutionary framework, but suddenly with the hominids' first appearance. Not only this, but bipedalism went through 2 stages over long periods of time without change. From "Who Was Adam?" page 162, Dr. Rana writes:

"Instead of gradually changing over time, bipedalism endured through two long periods without change. The first period lasted roughly 5 million years - the second, 2 million. The fossil record indicates that transition from one form of locomotion to another took place rapidly.

Australopithecines manifested facultative (optional) bipedalism. The Homo genus has always possessed obligatory bipedalism. Though australopithecines existed for nearly 3 million years, their facultative bipedalism did not gradually change into an obligatory form. Rather, it remained static throughout the duration of the australopithecines' existence. With the appearance of the Homo genus, a distinct new form of bipedalism (obligatory) suddenly showed up in the fossil record."

But this is antithetical to a gradual, step by step transitional process known as Darwinian Evolution, and the sudden appearance of obligatory bipedalism from facultative (optional) bipedalism can only be understood as a fingerprint of God, removing the older animals (australopithecines) with the newer homo hominids, as conditions in the environment changed.

What I'm saying is that if a naturalistic evolutionary model were true for the origin of humanity, wouldn't one expect bipedalism to transform from a crude and inefficient form to a more sophisticated, efficient form? Yet we see exactly the opposite in the fossil record, that bipedalism appears early and suddenly and does not experience any gradual changes over long periods of time, but only shows sudden changes as one species goes extinct and gives rise to another.

What about brain size? A similar pattern exists in the fossil record. The brain sizes do not gradually change in size over time, but remain constant for the time each hominid existed. In other words, the jumps in brain size are discontinuous, not gradual. Here's Dr. Rana again in "Who Was Adam?" from page 164: "The discontinuous jumps in brain size occur as new hominid species successively appear in the fossil record. For example, the brain size of the australopithecines, which existed from about 5.0 to 1.5 million years ago, was about 400 cm3. Brain size for those specimens assigned to Homo habilis, existing between 2.5 and 1.8 million years ago, jumped to between 650 and 800 cm3 in volume. Homo erectus/ergaster (about 1.8 million to 500,000 years ago) had a brain size that was larger still, ranging between 850 and 1000 cm3. Neanderthal's brain size was 1100 to 1400 cm3. By comparison, modern human brains range in size between about 1,000 and 1,500 cm3. These numbers show the general pattern of discontinuous leaps in brain size, not gradual increases."

Again, this is inexplicable from a strictly naturalistic evolutionary perspective. No known evolutionary processes can explain or produce such a cadence of change. The hominids were not the ancestors of humans, as most people on Earth today seem to mistakenly believe. Even the children's cartoons and movies, such as "Ice Age" make reference to the hominids as being human. Yet the evidence doesn't support this conclusion.

What about the argument that we share a common ancestor with the Chimpanzees? You may have heard that we share a 99% similarity in our DNA. This is totally bogus. There is more dissimilarities in the genetic makeup than similarities. Read this article on the latest on human-chimp genetic comparisons.

The fingerprint of God is unmistakable. God created the various hominids as distinct creatures. The fossil records portrays a lawn rather than a branching tree, where these animals are created, live unchanged for a period of time, then go extinct and are replaced with newer animals.

So what have we discovered these past 10 periods in our blog history? I think the evidence overwhelmingly refutes a Darwinian explanation for the origin of life on Earth and the origin of humanity. There's insufficient time, and there's no prebiotic soup. There seems to be evolution repeating itself, eventhough a blind, random mechanism such as natural selection should very rarely repeat itself. More accurately, it is a Creator who chooses to reuse archtypes or templates which work well in different unrelated organisms, much as an engineer designs parts to be used in different engines. We also saw how the Sun's luminosity has not been constant since Earth began, begging the question of just how could a blind process as naturalistic evolution could possibly forsee the future changes to the environment to know when to remove the old animals/organisms and to also know which kind of properties the new animals should possess, such that we human beings could benefit from their existence in the past? Also, how could Darwinism explain the sudden appearances of life, such as those appearing suddenly during the Cambrian Explosion, or those appearing just after the Permean Mass Extintion event? Or, how can a blind random process produce molecular machines which resemble those that human engineers produce? In my opinion, these can all be described as God's fingerprints. Let's take a quick look at Romans 1:

²⁰For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this series on What Darwin Didn't Know, although I believe that if Darwin could have lived today, he would become a believer in the God of all creation, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is "before all things" as stated so perfectly in Colossions 1:

The Supremacy of Christ

Well stated.

Stay tuned - next we turn to the cosmos to discover just how fined tuned it is for life to even be possible anywhere in the universe. But for something to be fine tuned, you need someone to fine tune it. I'll show you who the fine tuner is and you'll learn some cool stuff about the universe, in my next topic called "The Design of the Cosmos"

Cheers

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 9: Directed Panspermia

2009-08-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

So far I haven't even scratched the surface of the complexity of the problem of a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life.

Nobel Prize winning biochemist Francis Crick, in his recent book, Life Itself, states: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." (page 88)

Another Nobel Prize winner (physiology) , Jacques Monod, stated the following in his work, Chance and Necessity: "Life appeared on earth: what, before the event, were the chances that this would occur? The present structure of the biosphere certainly does not exclude the possibility that...its a priori probability was virtually zero." (page 136)

The probability for life self assembling is a virtual zero. Dr. Crick speculated that, since abiogenesis appears to be impossible, life perhaps could have evolved elsewhere in outer space, and transferred to Earth via space travel. Dr. Crick termed his theory, Directed Panspermia. The extraterrestrials after transporting prebiotics to Earth then "seeded" the Earth with the new life forms, and the process of evolution began.

Now, even without knowing anything at all about directed panspermia, just ask yourself this question: Which requires a greater amount of faith, that God created life multiple times on Earth to prepare the planet for the advent of humanity, or that aliens from outer space created life and seeded the Earth upon visiting it some 3.9 billion years ago? Or how about this question: Which should not be allowed to be discussed at the scientific table of debate: That a Creator introduced new life forms at various stages of Earth's history to compensate for changing conditions, all with the appropriate life forms in the just right abundances in the just right places with the just right biodiversity, all to prepare the planet so that Homo Sapiens Sapiens could one day inhabit the planet; or that space aliens created life elsewhere in the universe, transported it via space travel, planted it on the Earth, and then let it evolve over eons of time until humankind evolved? Which one has less explanatory power and scope than the other? I think you know what I think, so I'll leave it for you to contemplate.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with directed panspermia being allowed at the high table of scientific debate - just so long as it can be put to the scientific test. The same should be true for Reasons To Believe's Testable Creation Model. It too should be allowed to the table, provided it too can be put to the test.

Here's the RTB Testable Creation Model summary for your reference.

Interestingly, the world of science is turning to outer space for explanations for the origin of life on Earth. At the very least, it shows the intractable problems with a Darwinian explanation. Here's a quote from Michael Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, page 271: "Moreover, the seemingly intractable difficulty of explaining how a living system could have gradually arisen as a result of known chemical and physical processes raises the obvious possibility that factors as yet undefined by science may have played some role. Such a concession is, of course, the thin end of a very dangerous wedge for once it is conceded that one evolutionary event has involved novel and unknown processes and has been more than a matter of chance and selection then the whole framework of Darwinian evolution is threatened. An obvious extrapolation is suggested - may not these unidentified processes have been involved in other problematical areas of evolution?"

Here's an excellent article on just why life could not possibly have been transferred to Earth from outer space:

http://www.reasons.org/extra-terrestrials-ufos/space-travel/only-movies-harsh-realities-deep-space-travel

You don't need to look to outer space to find the Creator of life on Earth. He's easy to find. He's the God of the Bible, and here's what He says on the subject from Isaiah 45:

¹¹ "This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?

¹² It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.

Well, just one more topic to go for this series. Tune in next time as we dispel the myth that man evolved from the apes when we study the hominids.

Cheers

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 8: The Late Heavy Bombardment

2009-08-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

I left off last time telling you that not only was a naturalistic explanantion for the origin of life without prebiotics, it was also without adequate time.

The Late Heavy Bombardment is the reason why. Also known as the Hadean Era (where we get our word Hades - descriptive of a hellish environment), the late heavy bombardment occurred between 3.8 and 3.9 billion years ago. This was an era of intense asteroidal and cometary bombardment to the planets of the inner solar system (Mars, Earth, the Moon, Venus, and Mercury). Earth was pummeled by these large objects, striking it with enough energy to melt the Earth's surface - no solid rocks, liquid water, conceivable life forms, or even basic prebiotic molecules could have survived the molten state of the Earth during this period. Here's a quote from Dr. Fazale Rana's book, "Origins of Life", from page 81.

"The conditions of this era explain why no Earth rocks or marine deposits older than about 3.85 billion years have ever been located. Violent conditions lasted until 3.5 billion years ago, explaining why no earlier fossils (and few older rocks) have been found."

Here's an excellent audio clip from chapter 9 of Dr. Ross' book, More than a Theory.

If life existed prior to the Hadean, then presumably the late heavy bombardment would have terminated it, which means that life would have had to have "restarted". On the other hand, if life didn't exist prior to the Hadean period, then how did it get its start so quickly after the late heavy bombardment? For instance, if the late heavy bombardment ended at 3.9 billion years ago, how is it that complex microbial life "appears" instantly thereafter, if only a naturalistic explanation is considered? Certainly any prebiotics would have been vaporized by the hellish conditions resulting from this period, and all naturalistic orign of life models contain prebiotics. In fact, 4 conditions must all be met for a naturalistic origin of life model to be considered, as written in an article by Hugh Ross titled, "Late Heavy Bombardment Intensity and the Origin of Life"

All naturalistic models for the emergence of life possess four essential requirements:

1. a large, concentrated prebiotic soup;

2. prebiotic sugars that are 100 percent right-handed;

3. prebiotic amino acids that are 100 percent left-handed;

4. adequate time for the sugars and nucleotides to naturally assemble into the necessary RNA and DNA molecules and for the amino acids to naturally assemble into needed proteins.

But the late heavy bombardment period leaves a gap of time in only 50 million years for all four of these conditions to be realized. While life may be able to survive under extreme temperatures and conditions such as the LHB, life cannot originate under such conditions. Hugh Ross goes on to state in the article that Ribose, a vital component in RNA and important life building block, will break down under extreme temperatures:

"High temperatures are especially catastrophic for evolutionary models. The higher the temperature climbs, the shorter the half-life for all the crucial building block molecules. For example, at an ideal neutral pH, neither acidic nor alkaline, a sample of ribose (a five-carbon sugar and crucial component in every nucleotide in RNA) will break down, losing half of its molecules in 44 years at 32° F (0° C). At 212° F (100° C–the boiling point of water) ribose's half-life drops to just 73 minutes.⁹ Such a drastically low half-life guarantees that the concentration of ribose will remain too low to sustain any hope of a naturalistic pathway for RNA assembly. (The same could be said even for the longer half-life of 44 years)."

At the end of the late heavy bombardment, as soon as the Earth's crust cools and solidifies from its motlen state, life appears in the fossil record of those rocks dating from the end of this era. I believe God was "brooding" over His first life as depicted in Genesis 1:1

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Please take notice of the word "hovering", or rahap in the original Hebrew. The only other time this word is used in the entire Bible is in Deuteronomy 32:10-11 where the Spirit of God is protecting the wandering nation of Israel. Here it is for your reference:

Deuteronomy 32:10-12 (New King James Version)

¹⁰ “He found him in a desert land
And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;
He encircled him, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.

¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,
Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up,
Carrying them on its wings,

¹² So the LORD alone led him,
And there was no foreign god with him.

So we can infer that in the Genesis passage above, "hovering" depicts a loving God protecting His first life creation on the early Earth. Prior to it describing God "hovering" (rahap) over the waters, the Genesis passage also describes the Earth as a desolate wasteland, void of life (Hebrew tohu) just as the Israelites were wandering in a desolate land (also from the Hebrew tohu) further linking these two verses of scripture.

My belief is that the Bible accurately portrays the early Earth as formless and void due to the effects of the late heavy bombardment. (Science also has discovered that the early Earth was covered with water entirely before any continental land masses appeared.) Here's another article from Dr. Rana: Origin of Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation which puts my thoughts together for you.

The late heavy bombardment is yet another fingerprint of the God of the Bible in His ability to prepare the planet for first life. This yields no natural explanations for just how life could appear so quickly and in such complexity of design after such an extraordinary event.

So what's the bottom line? A naturalistic explanation for the origin of life on Earth can't happen without a prebiotic soup and without sufficient time. So where do naturalists look today for answers? They turn to outerspace.

Tune in next time as I talk about panspermia. Could life have been planted on Earth from space aliens from outer space? I think not.

God Bless,

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 7: No Soup for You!

2009-08-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

One of the most bizarre Seinfeld episodes was the one involving the "Soup Nazi", the owner of this soup kitchen who, if he didn't like you for whatever reason, would not serve you soup. It was a hilarious episode, as were most Seinfeld episodes. He would say, "No Soup for you!" to George Costanza and George would feel humiliated. Here's the video of the episode.

I wonder what Darwin would have thought, or better yet, would he have changed his theory if he could have been shown that, despite all the years of rock exploration since Darwin's theory, absolutely no evidence of a primordial soup has been found in the chemical signatures (residues) of the oldest rocks on Earth. Here's a quote from a great book by Michael Denton, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" from pages 260 and 261:

"The basic outline of the traditional evolutionary scenario is well known. It has been expounded over and over again during the past twenty years on television, in the press, in popular scientific journals. The first stage on the road to life is presumed to have been the build up, by purely chemical synthetic processes occurring on the surface of the early Earth, of all the basic organic compounds necessary for the formation of a living cell. These are supposed to have accumulated in the primeval oceans, creating a nutrient broth, the so called "pre-biotic soup". In certain specialized environments these organic compounds were assembled into large macro molecules, proteins, and nucleic acids. Eventually, over millions of years, combinations of these macromolecules occurred which were endowed with the property of self-reproduction. Then driven by natural selection ever more efficient and complex self-reproducing molecular systems evolved until finally the first simple cell system emerged."

Denton goes on to state; "The existence of a pre-biotic soup is crucial to the whole scheme. Without an abiotic accumulation of the building blocks of the cell no life could ever evolve. If the traditional story is true, therefore, there must have existed for many millions of years a rich mixture of organic compounds in the ancient oceans and some of this material would very likely have been trapped in the sedimentary rocks lain down in the seas of those remote times." He continues to state that from the oldest rocks on Earth dating to close to 3.9 billion years ago, "in none of them has any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds been found." So Paleontology "has again failed to substantiate evolutionary presumptions." Here's the rub, as Michael Denton sums it up: "Considering the way the pre-biotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence."

It's also apparent that even if a pre-biotic soup did indeed exist, any compounds resulting from it would be rapidly oxidized and degraded in the presence of any oxygen in the early Earth's atmosphere, and there is no evidence which conclusively rules out the possibility that oxygen did exist in the early atmosphere. But even if the oxygen was absent, this would mean that there would be no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere to protect the organic compounds from lethal doses of ultraviolet radiation, which would destroy them.

Here's a great audio discussion on the topic of the problems that result to the natural process evolutionary models in the absence of a pre-biotic soup.

Here's an excellent article from Reasons To Believe on the Pre-Biotic Soup problem:

What I have talked about so far is what we don't see in the geologic record (rocks), namely, the chemical residues of pre-biotic compounds. So what do we see? Instead, we see fossils, or what can be called "post-biotic" life. Life is intrinsic to the Earth. From the oldest rocks, we see evidence for complex life with no evidence of any transitional or ancestral forms coming before them.

What we see in the rocks are yet more evidences for the existence of the God of the Bible. The remnants of life that we see are more fingerprints of God preparing the planet for the advent of humanity.

Not only is the no pre-biotic soup a serious problem for a naturalistic approach to the origin of life, but there is also the problem of a lack of sufficient time. I'll explain next time.

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer. God is truly great!

Yours

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 6: The Permian Mass Extinction - Introduction

2009-07-17T18:29:00.001-07:00

I want to introduce you to our guest blogger for next week (or maybe next month depending on his schedule), Dr. Matthew Mirabile, who will be discussing the subject of The Permian Mass Extinction.

Dr. Mirabile will delve into this amazing event of Earth's history. I'll just give you a brief introduction.

After the Cambrian Explosion but before the advent of the Dinosaurs, 95% of all life on Earth was wiped out in an event named the Permian Mass Extinction. This event happened about 240 million years ago. Scientists are not sure what caused this mass extinction event, but have speculated that an asteroid the size of Manhattan struck the Earth. This impact event also set off a chain reaction of volcanic activity which in turn emitted enormous amounts of green house gases. These gases warmed the planet by 10 degrees, enough to wipe out all life.

What I find fascinating about this cataclysmic event is not only the magnitude of the destruction of life on Earth, but just how quickly God replenished this life. Within a span of only 100,000 years after the end of the Permian Mass Extinction, new life forms are introduced more suitable to the new environment, the Dinosaurs.

My friends, there is no way that a Darwinian mechanism can explain this. Sorry, that's just too short a period of time to jump from the types of animals that existed on the Earth before the Permian, to the types of animals that were introduced just after. The types of animals are so dramatically different in morphology that, may I say this politely, it takes more faith to believe that natural processes produced the Dinosaurs than it does to believe that God did it.

Remember the Psalm I showed you a few months ago where the Psalmist speaks of God replenishing the Earth with new life, then wiping it out only to replenish it once again with new life? Here it is again for you in Psalm 104, which is one of about 20 creation accounts in the Bible. For more creation accounts, please read Genesis 1, Job 38, Psalm 104, and Proverbs 8 among others.

Psalm 104

²⁷ These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time.

²⁸ When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.

²⁹ When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.

³⁰ When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.

³¹ May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works-

That is awesome. God is the One who is introducing new life forms at just the right time in Earth's history to prepare the planet for the advent of humanity. This is yet another fingerprint of God.

Here is an excellent video clip I found called "The Day the Earth Nearly Died."

The Day the Earth Nearly Died: Part 3 of 5

So, that's my introduction for you. Dr. Mirabile will get into more details about this incredible event next time. Until then, have a great week.

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 5: The Cambrian Explosion

2009-07-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

What if science were to discover that life appeared almost all at once rather than through a gradual step by step process? Would that change your perceptions of the veracity of the Darwinian account which claims that life arose by natural means through a process called Natural Selection over long periods of time?

The Cambrian Explosion is a term defining biology's big bang event whereby 70 or so new animal Phyla suddenly appear in the fossil record without a trace of any ancestral predecessors. Today, something like 30 Phyla exist due to extinction rates. So, we went from 70 Phylum around 530 million years ago to only about 30 today. This is opposite of what Darwin's theory teaches, that life branches up. This is life branching downward, from 70 to 30, or de-evolving = this is evolution occurring in the wrong direction! Yet according to Darwin's theory, each animal evolves with random variations and mutations acted upon by natural selection over long periods of time. Therefore the Cambrian Explosion, an creation event of marine animals "appearing" on the scene roughly 530 million years ago, defies any naturalistic or for that matter Darwinian explanations.

I must admit that the title for this week's study is a bit misleading. You see, Darwin did know about the Cambrian Explosion. Here is a quote from Darwin's work On the Origin of Species:

"There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks… To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer."

Darwin here is referring to the fact that prior to the Cambrian era, no complex animal life forms appear in the rock strata of Darwin's time (19th century). It's this absence of any animal fossils leading up to the explosion event which poses a huge problem for the Darwinian model. A later model, called Punctuated Equilibrium, produced by Eldridge and Gould, further exposed the gaps in the fossil record. On November 26th 1978, an article entitled "Missing Believed Nonexistent" appeared in the British newspaper The Guardian Weekly exposing the problems of the gaps in the fossil record.

"If life had evolved into its wondrous profusion of creatures little by little, Dr. Eldridge argues, then one would expect to find fossils of transitional creatures which were a bit like what went before them and a bit like what came after. But no one has yet found any evidence of such transitional creatures. This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them."

I found an excellent video clip for you which helps better explain the Cambrian Explosion. I highly recommend that you get a copy of the entire DVD = it is called, Icons of Evolution, and

can be purchased at Amazon.com or from www.reasons.org.

Here is the link to the video called Icons of Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion

Here's an excellent article on the subject for further reading:

On the other hand, if life is the result of a creative act of God, one would expect life to appear at proper times suddenly and completely, and with intact, complete ecosystems. Did you know that the Bible speaks of God's creative activity, perhaps even the Cambrian Explosion itself, in Day 5 of the Genesis 1 creation account? Here, I have it for you:

²⁰ And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.²²God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

(by the way, the term "day" as used as the "fifth day" here which is the word "Yom" in hebrew, can be translated a long but finite period of time, certainly longer than a 24 hour period)

I have a question for you at this point. Which takes more faith in your opinion? That evolutionary processes suddenly went into hyperspace and produced all the animal phyla in a relative geological instant, or that the God of the Bible created the marine animals at the appropriate time?

The Cambrian Explosion isn't Darwinian processes in hyper drive. Rather, the Cambrian Explosion is yet another fingerprint of the God of the Bible, preparing the planet for the advent of humanity.

Tune in next week as I talk about the Permian Catastrophe.

Write me if you have any questions and I'll try to answer them for you. Wait, here is another creation account from Psalm 104;

²⁴ How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.

Cheers

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 4: Biological Information

2009-06-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Here's what I have for you this week - some philosophy and some science.

Here's the philosophy:

Premise 1: All information is the product of an intelligent mind.
Premise 2: Biological cells contain and utilize information.
Premise 3: Therefore, biological cells are the product of an intelligent mind.

Premise 1: All information is the product of an intelligent mind.
To prove Premise 1, I appeal to William Dembski's work The Design Inference, which introduces and proves Premise 1 due to Dembski's idea of information being defined as comprising something called "Specified Complexity." Let's break this term down together. For information to be complex is for it to be highly improbable. For information to be specified, it must conform to a pattern. Do you remember the movie Contact starring Jodi Foster? She played the part of a radio astronomer for the SETI program. SETI stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. She was searching and searching and eventually came across a message of specified complexity in outer space, a highly improbable message sent from an alien intelligent source of a pattern of prime numbers. It was determined that the message came from an intelligent source (mind) because the message displayed specified complexity (a highly improbably pattern of prime numbers sent from outer space). Anything that displays specified complexity is information, so therefore Premise 1 is true: All information is the product of an intelligent mind.

I realize this may be a highly controversial topic, so here is a debate for you so you can
decide on your own.
Listen to William Dembski debate Lee Silver: Intelligent Design, is it Science?

Premise 2: Biological cells contain and utilize information.
You have probably already heard of the genetic code. Informational instructions exist inside of the DNA structure. These instructions are taken down and copied by messenger RNA in a process called transcription, which in turn takes these copies inside the Ribosomes where translation takes place. After transcription and translation, another molecular machine folds the resulting proteins into the proper shape for use inside the cell. Yet another molecular machine transports the completed protein structure to its designated place inside the cell.

Here is a short video clip taken from "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" on information processes inside the cell:

I highly recommend this video = you can purchase a DVD at Amazon.com or

through www.reasons.org

Premise 3: Therefore, biological cells are the product of an intelligent mind.

This conclusion follows logically and inescapably. William Dembski, mathematician and philosopher, explains that Darwin's mechanism, Natural Selection, cannot possibly create biological information in his paper titled: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information. He goes on to state: "The conclusion we are after is that natural selection, even if it is the mechanism by which organisms evolved, achieves its successes by incorporating and using existing information. Mechanisms are never self-explanatory."

For the pdf of the entire paper, click here

So where does information come from? It does not come from the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. It comes before natural selection. Natural selection only can utilize existing information, but it cannot create information.

Information inside the cell is a hallmark of an intelligent designer and is another fingerprint of the God of the Bible.

Next week, I'm going to talk a bit about another problem for Darwinian Evolution: the Cambrian Explosion.

Have a great week.

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 3: Molecular Machines

2009-06-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

This week I'm going to offer you a glimpse inside the cell where another unmistakable fingerprint of God can be discovered. I'm going to show you the amazing structures known as molecular machines. The machines operate with amazing efficiency and serve the cell as rotary motors, power sources, transportation and delivery systems, and as information systems, plus a host of other functions.

I love my 40 horsepower Mercury outboard motor. It's sleek, quiet, powerful, efficient, and reliable. It is a well designed machine whose function it is to power my 13 foot 1971 Boston Whaler. It has enough power to pull my son on a wake board or my daughter on a slalom ski. We have a blast, which is why I bought the motor in the first place.

I would never think that this motor evolved by chance. Someone had to come up with the idea for the outboard motor in the first place, design it, produce it, test it, and put it to use (in this case, bring it to market) Yet, as far life is concerned, that is what students are taught in high school biology textbooks, that life evolved from simple to complex in a gradual, step by step fashion over vast periods of time from non living matter (abiogenesis). All of this was directed by chance by a blind mechanism known as Natural Selection. Natural Selection's job is to take an existing system and to select for function.

In biology today, we know of many molecular "machines" which are quite similar to man made machines. Here's a picture of the bacterial flagellum motor:

What is most interesting is that, with regard to natural selection, the components of this motor must be assembled in proper sequence, and that if one of the parts is missing, there is no function and therefore no motor. All of the parts have to be there "all at once." Dr. Michael Behe coined this system as being "irreducibly complex." He states in his book, Darwin's Black Box, that it is implausible for natural selection to explain the existence of these molecular machines, since without any of the parts, natural selection would be attempting to select for function for a machine that has no function, which is to say that it would not select for function and you'd end up without a flagellum motor. Here is a video I found which explains Irreducible Complexity more clearly:

Here's an excellent article on the subject for further reading:

http://www.reasons.org/IncreasingtheTorqueonIntelligentDesign

I believe Darwin would have marveled if he could have discovered these irreducibly complex machines. They are remarkable in how much they resemble humanly engineered machines so it's easy to think that surely someone had to design them. My wish is that more people would come to know the problems with the Darwinian model, as 21st century science has opened up and exposed Darwin's black box, the cell. They are also remarkable because they cannot be explained by natural selection. These machines cannot be produced by random chance variations. If they could, then my 40 horsepower outboard motor could have been produced by a tornado which swept through the Bolton Landing, NY landfill and by chance assembled random parts into a functioning motor. No, there must be a designer, and these molecular machines are yet another fingerprint of the God of the Bible.

Join me next week as we look into another problem for the Darwinian model: the existence of information inside the cell.

Until then, may God bless your socks off.

Tom

- P.S. Here is an addendum from my fellow RTB apologist Kurt on the issue of Irreducible Complexity (IC) as the subject of being refuted by scientists in the Science Daily article as mentioned by one of the commentators of this posting:

My two main concerns are:

1.. Defining Behe's position too narrowly --- not representing Behe's
position fairly: Behe is actually much more open ended about "how" and
pretty public about it. He just doesn't leave God out somewhere in the
process of creating and directing Life, but he admits he doesn't have a
complete how/when picture. He admits we don't know specifically how; e.g.
his "we don't know", and so on.

2.. The over application of reductionism to Life: when we strip Life of
bio-info we no longer are talking about life. Without a bio-info change
mechanism we can't explain "step-by-step" for-or-against materialism, or
for-or-against ID. I develop this a bit more below because I think it is
strategically critical for RTB and this Forum.

Of the design processes I'm familiar with all exhibit the characteristic
"Step by Step"; e.g. design processes usually start with a goal, define
framework and limits, and so on. "Step by step", leading to a useful
function, is certainly as much evidence for design as it is for the
neo-Darwinian presumption. Using Dembski's arguments, which seem rigorous
and compelling, step-by-step to useful function [his "specified complexity"]
is stronger evidence for design than random accidents ["happy accidents"
;~)]. In the case of IC systems all the parts ["parts is parts"] have to be
there, and all the assembly information has to be there, so two incredible
"happy accidents" have to happen at the same time and then be "selected
for." As Robert Reid* argues: innovations are adaptive before selection so
selection doesn't explain where the information comes from. His logic is
compelling. And so on and on.

Since Life and IC systems are information systems I don't treat them as
[reduce them to] something else; i.e. they're chicken AND egg, parts AND
assembly instructions. An IC system, such as the rotating flagellum, can't
exist without information [again back to Well's point, but also to Dean
Kenyon]. In the case of the rotating flagellum the instructions include
[but are not limited to] instructions for creating the proteins, creating
the fixtures to assemble the device, and controlling the sequence of
assembly.

Per Shapiro, Reid, and many others, we don't have an adequate
understanding as to how Life changes bio-info that can explain innovations.

My general conclusion is that we can't [artificially or presumptively]
separate/reduce information from Life. Without information Life simply
"falls apart" to a material non-life level. [By "information" I'm referring
to bio-info in the robust sense used by Kuppers, Gitt, Yockey, and so on.]

It seems to me that separating info from life doesn't lead to explaining
Life. Even atheists/agnostics sense this. From Johnjoe McFadden, in
"Quantum Evolution" pg.11:

"Our failure to put the ingredients of life together and obtain anything
living suggests something must be missing from our list. Perhaps we should
start by examining why the mechanistic/reductionist approach has failed to
tackle life's fundamental questions: there is a paradox that lies at the
heart of the reductionist approach to biology. As one dissects the working
of any living creature, examining the detail of smaller and smaller
components, life itself seems to vanish before our eyes. Whilst we have no
difficulty in recognizing life in a whole animal, or indeed in one of its
cells; when we come to looking at the cell's insides, the question seems to
evaporate. Is a chromosome alive? What about a gene or DNA? Is a ribosome
alive, or a protein or an enzyme? The question seems to lose its relevance
when applied to these bits of life. The components of living cells,
stripped of contest, seem fundamentally no different to inanimate chemical
systems. Life seems to emerge only at higher levels. It is, to use modern
jargon, an 'emergent' phenomenon: one that cannot be entirely understood in
terms of its parts. As a means to explaining life, the unrelenting
reductionist approach is doomed to failure." [emphasis added]

I don't know if we'll ever see bio-info jump up from materialism as an
emergent phenomenon, but I'm siding with all the listed sources and
currently doubting it. Without that bio-info-changing mechanism, we can't
be definitive about "step-by-step" being evidence for a rational design
process our just happy accidents. I side with Design.

[please forgive typos --- it's just email ;~)]

Regards, Kurt

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 2: Biological Convergence

2009-06-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

I often think back on my life and what I could have done differently etc - what my life would have been like if I had done x instead of y. Sometimes I think if I had been totally obedient to God all of my life, how much better my life would be now in terms of God's blessings. But you know what, I think God loves me just as much as if I had been totally obedient all of my life. And you know what else, even if I could rewind the tape, I'd still be me. I'd still need a savior. I'd mess up somewhere else - there's no way I can keep the law of God, which is why I love Jesus so much. He is my rock and my advocate. Jesus is someone I can trust and who will always be for me and not against me, and understand what I'm going through. He's someone who can pick me back up after I've fallen, dust me off, cloak me in His righteousness, fill me with His spirit, and weave all the disparate threads of my life into a perfect whole. That's Jesus. The God of eternity, who was, and is, and is to come. He makes sense of my life. He makes sense of the origin of the universe. He has conquered the grave. He will one day return again this time to judge the deeds of all men in perfect righteousness.

Speaking of rewinding the tape of my life and doing it all over again, did you know that if you were to rewind all of life's history, and do it all over again, that according to naturalistic evolution all life forms would be completely different? Don't believe me? Here's the late biologist Stephen J. Gould in his work Wonderful Life:

“…No finale can be specified at the start, none would ever occur a second time in the same way, because any pathway proceeds through thousands of improbable stages. Alter any early event, ever so slightly, and without apparent importance at the time, and evolution cascades into a radically different channel.” Stephen J. Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989), 51.

Or how about Charles Darwin in a later edition of On the Origin of Species:

"It is incredible that the descendants of two organisms, which had originally differed in a marked manner, should ever afterwards converge so closely as to lead to a near approach to identity throughout their whole organisation. If this had occurred, we should meet with the same form, independently of genetic connection, recurring in widely separated geological formations; and the balance of evidence is opposed to any such an admission."

Did you get that last line? "and the balance of evidence is opposed to any such an admission." Why do you suppose Charles Darwin is saying this? What Darwin couldn't believe, and rightly so, is how fundamentally different life forms could evolve toward the same biological morphology. Morphology is a $74 word for form. In other words, he didn't believe evolutionary processes could replicate or could produce duplicate outcomes. This is referred to in biological terms as convergence.

The late Stephen J. Gould argued in his book Wonderful Life that chance is the governing principle of biological evolution at its most rudimentary level. All evolutionary pathways, he argues, are the result of an historical sequence of chance genetic changes/mutations acted upon by natural selection. Therefore, if evolutionary events in the past could be repeated, you'd get a completely different outcome every time. So, evolution's inability to retrace the same path means that it's very unlikely that the same biological and biochemical designs would repeatedly appear in nature, especially in unrelated organisms.

So shouldn't convergence be extremely rare in nature if naturalistic evolution is true? You'd think so. However, convergence is a very common characteristic of life. Amazingly, we see convergence abundantly in nature, and especially in unrelated life forms. Let me give you an example.

I have hated bats since I was a kid. They are scary, and they fly right at you and at the last minute they turn away from you or any object in its path. So when I was a kid walking up the road from my parent's cottage at Lake George at around dusk, I would see these bats flying seemingly all around me so I would duck or pull my hood over my head to "protect" myself. If I just understood how bats navigate, I would have realized that I had nothing to fear. Bats navigate via something called "echolocation", a sort of really cool natural sound/vibration/sonar/radar mechanism. (Don't ask me how it works - I really don't have a clue) What's very cool is that a bat DNA sequence analysis confirms that, from a biological evolutionary perspective, echolocation in bats must have evolved independently (repeated evolution or convergence) in two separate groups of bats: microchiroptera and megachiroptera.

I wasn't sure what the difference was, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. For the most part, microchiroptera (or micro bats) eat insects and have other morphological differences than megachiroptera bats (or mega bats), who mostly eat fruit. All micro bats use echolocation, but most mega bats do not. One mega bat, however, does. Here, let me show you what Wikepedia says about it:

"All microbats use echolocation. The only megabat which is known to echo locate is the genus Rousettus, which uses a different method of echolocation than that used by microbats. The echolocation system of bats is often called bio sonar." (just look up microchiroptera from Wikipedia)

So what are we to make of this? How can evolution repeat itself if it's based upon random chance events? How about this quote from an article by Dr. Fazale Rana, PhD, in which Dr. Rana is explaining the origin of voice replication in hummingbirds, parrots, and songbirds:

"Another recent study, employing behavioral differences in gene expression in brain tissue, has demonstrated that the brain structure of hummingbirds, songbirds, and parrots responsible for vocal learning (the ability to “learn” vocalizations by imitation rather than by instinct) is essentially identical. This is surprising, since these three birds are unrelated to one another. That is, the seven distinct structures in the fore brain of these three groups of birds that are responsible for vocal learning are convergent. From an evolutionary perspective, these structures must have evolved independently of one another on three separate occasions." From Facts for Faith, Issue 4. Here

is the link to his entire article in case you are interested:

http://www.reasons.org/resources/publications/facts-faith/2000issue04#repeatable_evolution_or_repeated_creation

It doesn't stop here folks. Nature is replete with instances of convergence.

From a creationist perspective, it would make perfect sense for an intelligent designer to want to use optimal templates that function well among a vast array of varying life forms. It is analogous to an engineer reusing previously designed templates in different structures, since the design is so elegant and functional = why reinvent the wheel?

No, rather than evolution repeating itself, what you are seeing throughout nature is the use of arch types, of templates of body structures or cell structures which work well in various organisms, developed by a super engineer and artist, the God of the Bible. This is another fingerprint of the Creator who, like an artist, very much must enjoy His work.

Here's another section from my favorite creation account in the Bible: Psalm 104:24-28

²⁴ How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.

²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

²⁷ These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.

²⁸ When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.

I'm glad I can't rewind the tape. I wouldn't be much different than I am already. Nature wouldn't be much different either, I would imagine, as nature is the result of a Divine creator, who was and is and is to come, the everlasting One. There's no need to rewind the tape, as it wouldn't matter much anyway.

Please tune in next week as we look at another fingerprint of God which Darwin didn't know much about: molecular machines.

Cya,

Tom

What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 1: The Faint Sun Paradox

2009-06-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

The fossil record presents an enormous problem for the theory of naturalistic evolution, which is the theory that the origin of the universe and first life is the result of random chance spontaneous generation rather than the result of a Designer or Creator, who is God. The "problem" with the fossil record is that rather than a species displaying a gradual transition, they appear suddenly in the fossil record, remain unchanged for usually a long period of time, then disappear from the later fossils. This pattern of speciation (appearance in the fossil record), stasis (the organism's traits and distinct features that categorize it within a certain species do not change for the length of time the organism appears in the fossil record), and then extinction, is found all throughout the fossil record. It's as if a Creator is introducing appropriate life forms during Earth's history to fit the changing environment on the Earth. If naturalistic evolution is true, surely we should have found at least one example of a primitive life form gradually appearing in the fossil record, then experiencing a gradual change over time, yet we do not.

Did you know that the Bible teaches a creation pattern that corresponds with what we observe in the fossil record? Speciation - Stasis - Extinction, Speciation - Stasis - Extinction. See for yourself in Psalm 104. I've got it here for you:

²⁷ These all look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

²⁸ When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.

²⁹ When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.

³⁰ When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.

Have you ever heard of the faint Sun paradox? Don't feel bad. Darwin didn't either. Only recently have astronomers come to understand that because of changes to the Sun's luminosity (over the past several billion years since the Sun formed) the fossil record looks as it does. Let me explain. Evolutionary models presume that the Sun has provided a stable temperature range on Earth throughout the past 3 to 4 billion years, but astronomers now conclude that the Sun's luminosity has varied by as much as 15 percent over this time period, by initially dropping 15% over the first billion or so years of the Sun's formation, to increasing 15% over the past 3 billion or so years. First it became initially brighter, then more faint, and since then the Sun has been ever increasing in luminosity. This change in luminosity should have destroyed life on Earth, as life cannot tolerate even a 2% change in luminosity. Well, remember the verse from Psalm 104 that I showed you before? Since God introduced new life forms and removed old ones, these changes to life compensated perfectly for these changes occurring to the Sun's brightness, which changed the environment on the Earth. Those life forms that created the heat trapping green house gases during the era of the Sun's decreasing brightness and luminosity had to be removed, to be replaced by new life forms that could remove green house gases through photosynthesis and regulation of land mass erosion as the Sun's luminosity began to increase. So this leads me to ask you an important question. How could natural process evolution anticipate the changes in the Sun's luminosity to perfectly introduce the correct organisms to compensate for the resulting changes to the conditions on the Earth?

Here is an excellent audio clip on the Faint Sun Paradox by Dr. Hugh Ross, Astronomer and phd.

Also, this is a very good article written on the Faint Sun Paradox by Dr. Ross.

It seems like it takes more faith to believe that life originated without God's intervention. Rather, the patterns of mass extinction events followed shortly afterwards by mass speciation (creation) events sure looks to me like one of the Fingerprints of a God who was carefully preparing the planet for the advent of humankind.

Tune in next time as I present you with another challenge for naturalistic evolution: the problem of Biological Convergence.

Dual Revelation

2009-05-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

We read in Psalm 19:

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

³ There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

⁴ Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Have you ever thought that we can rely on the record of nature to be a consistent, faithful revelation of the Creator, the God of the Bible? Look closely at each verse. In verse one, the heavens declare His glory, and the skies proclaim that His work is perfect, trustworthy, reliable, and consistent. In verse two, this realm pours forth speech, though inaudible, of the attributes, character, power, and majesty of our God. In verse three, all who study the heavens (through science) can come to the conclusion that a Creator is responsible for the orderliness and uniformity of our universe, and for the fixed laws of physics (see Jeremiah 33:25) and initial conditions at the beginning of the universe until today. In verse four, it says that "their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world" which means that this revelation of God can be understood as if you are looking at the fingerprints of God Himself, and that the study of the record of nature will yield trustworthy, reliable data consistent and not contradictory with the main revelation from God, the Holy Bible. In other words, the record of nature and the words of the Bible, having their origins in the only one and true and living God, should never contradict one another, and that we should feel confident that what we observe and study is trustworthy and consistent.

I love to read from time to time Article 2 from the Belgic Confession of faith. In case you've never read it before, let me show it to. It is the doctrinal standard set during the seventeenth century for the reformation.

It reads: Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God

We know him by two means:
First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse.

Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own.

The study of the record of nature (God's world) should reveal God to us in several ways: His power and omnipotence; His omniscience through discoveries of the uniformity and orderliness of the universe; His righteousness when we discover through cosmology (of the universe) and astronomy that the entire observable universe, with the mass of over one hundred billion trillion stars, was carefully prepared by God so that we could have a place to live on Earth (among other reasons); His glory when you see how vast and beautiful this universe is, and His love for humankind, in that He went to such great expense in the vastness of the universe to prepare this one location for us, and to one day send His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come and to take upon himself all of our iniquities, so that we could put on the righteousness of God through Christ and receive His gift of salvation and eternal life.

In the coming weeks, I look forward to showing you in detail some fingerprints of God and I look forward to your questions and comments.