Category: Science

The Heavens Declare the Glory

Several people who follow this blog have been complaining about the recent dearth of posts.  Mea culpa!  I repent!

Here is a fascinating special case of the fine-tuning of the universe.

There are 90 naturally-occurring elements in the periodic table – elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and many others.  Every physical thing in the universe is made up of these elements or of combinations of these elements.

Each element has distinctive properties, and the properties of all the elements, taken together, result in our physical world –the Earth, the Earth’s atmosphere, the iron that drives the Earth’s magnetic field, the water that makes life possible, the sun, the moon, the stars, our bodies.

It makes me weep to realize the wisdom and power displayed in the Creation.

Where do these elements come from?

I learned several years ago that there have been three or four generations of stars.  The first generation, formed at about 100 million years after the Creation event, consisted only of the lightest elements, hydrogen and helium.  During the lifetime of those stars, they produced heavier elements by a process of fusion – that is, by combining lighter elements to form heavier ones under extreme heat and pressure.  When these stars reached the end of their lifespans, they collapsed, and then they exploded, spreading those heavier elements throughout the cosmos.  Then under gravitation the debris from the explosion of those stars formed a second generation of stars, which likewise produced even heavier elements, collapsed, and exploded.  (They are still exploding; they are called “super-novas.”)  Our sun is an instance of at least a third-generation star, if not a fourth.

Recently it was learned that iron is the heaviest element formed in this manner – by fusion within the first generations of stars.  Now cosmologists have discovered how the heaviest elements were formed.

Most massive stars (say, 10 times the mass of our Sun) exist in binary systems with a twin.  When they die, they explode, but their cores remain, and they collapse to a diameter of only 10 to 12 kilometers, forming the densest objects in the universe other than black holes – so dense that the protons and electrons combine, forming neutrons; and hence they are called “neutron stars.”

The twin neutron stars then circle each other for eons until at last, under their mutual gravitational attraction, they fall into each other.  When they collide, they annihilate in the most spectacular events ever observed.  But after the collapse and before the explosion, they form the heavy elements by a process called “rapid neutron capture,” or the r-process.  Then the explosions again spread these heaviest elements throughout the universe.  Some of them ended up in Earth’s soil.  We ingested the plants that drew those elements out of that soil, and those elements keep us alive by performing vital life functions, from the regulation of brain development to the formation of strong bones.

You can read more from Scientific American at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-star-collisions-forge-the-universes-heaviest-elements/

Glory to God!

Water: Designed for Life

In April I published links to a wonderful 7-part essay by John Millam, Ken Klos, and Iain D. Sommerville, entitled, Water: Designed for Life (Reasons to Believe 2013).

I have to apologize to those who have tried to open Part 2, or anything after Part 1, by clicking on the links which the publisher provided at the bottom of Part 1.  They don’t work.  (They did work when I first posted the essay.)  Here’s what does work: Once you have opened Part 1, at the top of your browser window will be the URL for that web page, ending in “part-1-of-7.”  Place your cursor next to the 1 and replace it with a 2 and <press> enter.  The same for parts 3-7.  (Yes, I do have permission from RTB to tell you to do this.)

Feast on this thrilling exposition of the miraculous properties of a substance we all take for granted, water, in seven quick strokes by pasting the following URL into your browser:

reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2013/05/20/water-designed-for-life-part-1-(of-7)

Everything is fine-tuned.

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Virtually Conclusive

I cannot leave this argument alone.  Every time I sit down to write about the teleological argument for the existence of God (the argument from design), my thoughts turn to the cosmological argument instead.  Here is my latest effort to reduce the argument to its essence.

There are only four possible explanations for the existence of the universe:

  1. The universe is past-eternal;
  2. The universe had an uncaused beginning;
  3. The universe was caused by a caused cause; or
  4. The universe was caused by an uncaused cause.

We can eliminate the first three explanations.

If the universe is past-eternal, then it did not have a beginning.  If so, then it did not have a cause, but just is.  God may or may not exist, but an uncaused universe does not require it.

Empirical science has shown, however, that the universe did have a beginning.  This leads to two more possible explanations for its existence: either it had a caused beginning, or it had an uncaused beginning.  If the universe had an uncaused beginning, then God may or may not exist, but as noted above, an uncaused universe does not require it.

But an uncaused beginning is unlikely because it would violate the laws of cause and effect.  At the very least, it would seem to do so: there is no plausible basis for maintaining that the universe could have had an uncaused beginning. 

The universe, then, must have had a caused beginning.  If so, then again there are two possible explanations for its existence: either the cause itself had a beginning and hence a cause, or the cause itself did not have a cause and hence was past-eternal.

A caused cause is merely one element in an infinite series, unless the series itself has a beginning; and it can only begin with an uncaused cause.  An actual infinite series is impossible and absurd.  Therefore the series of causes must “end” (begin) with an uncaused cause, which uncaused cause must be past-eternal.

(Every caused universe is past-finite and every past-finite universe which can be actualized is caused.  Every uncaused universe which can be actualized is past-eternal and every past-eternal universe is uncaused.)

Thus three of the four possible explanations for the existence of the universe have been excluded: a past-eternal universe; an uncaused beginning; and a beginning brought about by an infinite series of caused causes.  The remaining explanation, that the universe was brought into being by an uncaused, past-infinite cause, must be true.

Human Origins Research is in Complete Disarray

I haven’t written much about evolution in these pages.  The principle reason is that I consider the debate on that question to be a distraction from the question which really ought to concern us, namely, did biological diversity arise by accident, or was it by design?  And we already know from other lines of reasoning that it was by design. 

God could have used an evolutionary process, but whether He did or not is of very little consequence to me.  What is of tremendous consequence is that living systems unmistakably reflect the activity of a mind.  They are distinctively characterized by information, and information, wherever it is found, always reflects intention.  Intentions are mental activities.  Always.

There is another reason I do not jump into the debate with both feet, and that is that I usually find that those who subscribe to evolutionary theory are entrenched in their view and are not amenable to persuasion.  Since the question is of little consequence, I prefer to spend my time in other ways.

You may ask, however, Isn’t the veracity of Genesis also at stake?  Isn’t that a matter of some consequence?

Yes, it is a matter of great consequence, but I really don’t think that evolutionary theory places the veracity of Genesis at issue.  That depends on one’s interpretation of Genesis, which is another topic I prefer to avoid, for three reasons: One, I already know from other lines of reasoning that Genesis is true (regardless of what it means); two, Genesis is very difficult to interpret; and three, many people are again entrenched.  The things that matter to me, namely, God’s existence and our redemption through the Cross of Jesus, are not in doubt.

That is why, whenever anyone tries to pull me in to a conversation about human origins, the first thing I say is, Yeah, we can talk about that, but first we need to understand what is NOT at stake: God’s existence and His love; for our knowledge of these things is established through independent lines of reasoning.  There is no reason to resist God’s free offer of forgiveness merely because you think the church has it wrong about evolution.  The interpretation of Genesis is not essential to salvation.  There is a diversity of opinion within the church about the meaning of Genesis.

Nevertheless!  Sometimes there is a development in science that has great bearing on the human origins debate, and that I think deserves to be more widely heard.

In the May 2021 issue of Evolution News and Science Today (a publication of the Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think tank), Gunter Bechley brings to our attention an important research article published May 7, 2021 in the journal Science, which is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world’s top academic journals.

Bechley’s essay is titled, “Scientists Conclude: Human Origins Research is a Big Mess,” and it may be found at https://evolutionnews.org/2021/05/scientists-conclude-human-origins-research-is-a-big-mess/.

The Science article is titled, “Fossil Apes and Human Evolution,” (Science Magazine, 07 May 2021: Vol. 372, Issue 6542, eabb4363 DOI: 10.1126/science.abb4363), and may be found at (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6542/eabb4363).

Here are some choice quotes from the Science article:

After 150 years of continuous discoveries, essential information about human origins remains elusive owing to debates surrounding the interpretation of fossil apes.

. . . .

The root of the conflict is the remarkable differences in subjective definition and scoring of complex morphologies.

The decades-long feud regarding arboreality [tree-dwelling] and bipedalism in A. afarensis exemplifies the complexity of inferring function from anatomy. . . .

Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey to explain essential aspects such as the origins of erect posture, the freeing of the hands, or brain enlargement. Intriguingly, such narratives have not drastically changed since Darwin. We must be aware of confirmation biases and ad hoc interpretations by researchers aiming to confer [upon] their new fossil the starring role within a preexisting narrative. Evolutionary scenarios are appealing because they provide plausible explanations based on current knowledge, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories”

Bechley says, “The press release from the American Museum of Natural History (2021) sums up the gist of this review article:”

Most human origins stories are not compatible with known fossils. . . .  [T]he number of species in the human family tree has exploded, but so has the level of dispute concerning early human evolution. . . .  However, many of these fossils show mosaic combinations of features that do not match expectations for ancient representatives of the modern ape and human lineages. As a consequence, there is no scientific consensus on the evolutionary role played by these fossil apes. . . .  Overall, the researchers found that most stories of human origins are not compatible with the fossils that we have today.

Bechley concludes:

That is a fair assessment indeed, which admittedly does not mean that these evolutionary speculations are all wrong or futile enterprises. However, it at least shows that those bold hardcore Darwinists, who think they can dismiss and rebuke Darwin critics and ID proponents with some grandiose claims of allegedly settled science, are not just vastly overstating their case but indeed are ignorant of the current state of the scientific debate. The question of human origins is far from being resolved, and non-mainstream options should be explored based exclusively on the available evidence, rather than being rejected due to world-view bias.

Review: Ben Stein documentary, “Expelled”

[The following essay was written in fulfillment of an assignment for a class I took at Reasons Institute in the spring of 2020.]

Critics of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution are systematically denied a fair opportunity to present their views in and through established science organizations.  That is the major premise of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a 2008 Ben Stein documentary.

Through a series of interviews with scientists on both sides of the creation-evolution divide, Stein establishes that Intelligent Design theory (ID) is suppressed in the science establishment.  The scientists whom Stein interviews are well-credentialed and articulate, but they are almost to a person taken from one or the other of two classes, namely, Discovery Institute fellows, or the victims of anti-ID persecution.

Stein’s authorities claim that in private, leading scientists will sometimes acknowledge concerns about the truth of neo-Darwinism.  There are numerous published writings which show that such admissions do not occur in private only, and it would have advanced Stein’s argument considerably had he mentioned them – or better yet, interviewed their authors.

It also would have been useful had Stein spent more time explaining ID and demonstrating its religious neutrality.  This is especially the case in view of the justification which evolutionists typically offer for suppressing ID, namely, that it is just religion in disguise.

Perhaps the most serious weakness of the film, however, is the extravagantly bad light in which mainstream science is presented.  It is true that ID advocates are censored and persecuted by the science establishment, and the western public needs to be aware of it.  It is also true that Darwinism was a significant contributor to Nazism abroad and euthanasia in this country, and that it helps to sustain the right-to-die and abortion movements.  These are all important circumstances.  They are even marginally relevant, but Stein makes far too much of them.

The premise that evolution is necessarily progressive and that it is driven forward by a process whereby only the fittest organisms survive to propagate – the “survival of the fittest” – has indeed led to a phenomenon known as “social Darwinism,” according to which the extermination of certain classes of humans by other classes of humans is regarded as a good thing.  But Stein does not here so much critique social Darwinism as use it to damn his opponents by association, which is a type of ad hominem fallacy.  Darwinism isn’t false merely because it has effects which most people deplore.  It is possible, moreover, to believe in Darwinism while energetically opposing the death cult in all its forms, and some leading scientists do exactly that.

What is probably worst of all is that almost all of this propaganda is not conveyed in the script, but as part of the visual accompaniment of the relatively innocuous verbal material.  Such a device reaches the audience at an emotional, not a rational level. 

Stein is justifiably upset about the establishment’s refusal to permit ID theory a fair hearing; but I think he has missed an opportunity to make a more winsome, and perhaps a more effective appeal.  Darwinists viewing this film are likely to see Stein’s choice of means of persuasion as outrageous and, as always, to dismiss his arguments summarily – if they finish watching at all.  So much for winning over one’s opponents!

I doubt that I would recommend this film to anyone.  It contains a lot of important information about discrimination against perfectly competent scientists who happen to recognize the scientific status of ID, and I would like to see that information disseminated as widely as possible.  But I am afraid that the less an individual knows about that already, the more likely he or she is to be influenced by the propagandistic features of the film, and to become incensed at mainstream scientists.  And that can only make the work of the more circumspect more difficult.

Fine-Tuning for High-Tech Civilization

Astronomer Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe (reasons.org), of whom much is heard in these pages, has long emphasized that all of natural history prior to mankind was fine-tuned to prepare the cosmos not for mankind simply, but for mankind and his development of high-tech civilization.  He even categorizes the features of the physical universe by their tendency to foster either simple, single-celled life, or large, air-breathing organisms, or human civilization, or – high-tech human civilization.

I have long wished for some elucidation from Ross as to the reasons he considers high-tech civilization in particular to be the goal in God’s creative activity.  An answer has occurred to me; and while I can’t say I actually heard this from Ross, it strikes me as something he would probably readily endorse.

The last 70 years has seen an explosion of scientific discovery, fueled, to a large extent, by the development of science technology that has enabled us to study the cosmos in ways that were not possible until now.  That science technology – the space telescopes, the super-colliders, the computers – would never have been developed by itself, apart from the advance of technology generally.  Modern science is indeed the invention of a broadly high-tech civilization.

And what have we discovered with our sophisticated and very expensive new kit?  Everywhere we look, we find the unequivocal signs of active intelligence.

So I think Ross would say that God prepared a planet for advanced civilization so that we would find him.

It gives a fuller understanding, it seems to me, of Romans 1:20:

[God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Those invisible divine attributes – God’s existence, his divinity, and his power – were evident even to primitive man.  Our study of Creation continues to make God’s power, genius, wisdom, and love more and more obvious; yet somehow men still deny him.  Can judgment be far off?

Climate Change Notes

Here are the notes I took while listening to Dan Britt’s lecture.

21:00 When India collided with China, the uplift of the Himalayas resulted in greatly-increased rock weathering, which pulled 80% of the CO2 out of the atmosphere, rending the climate very sensitive to the changes in solar input that result from the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit around the sun.

Climate results from oscillations in:

Eccentricity of the earth’s orbit around the sun, a cycle of 100,000 years;

The tilt of the earth between 21 and 24 degrees, a cycle of 41,000 years; and

Precession, which is the movement around the earth’s orbit of the time of year when the earth is closest to the sun, a cycle of 23,000 years.

Presently we are closer to the sun in the winter, producing cooler summers and warmer winters.  Cooler summers allows snow to accumulate, producing glaciation – an ice age.  Also, warmer winters tend to be snowier.

But our glaciers are nevertheless melting.  Greenhouse gases are delaying the next ice age.

It’s the interplay of these factors which, by causing variations in the amount of solar radiation which reaches the surface of the earth, causes ice ages and periods of warming.

If you put global average temperatures on a graph, you can see all of these cycles.  The net effect is known as the Milankovich cycle after the Bulgarian scientist who discovered it in the 1920s.

For the last million years, our climate has been characterized by long glacial periods and short warming periods.

Global temperature followed the path predicted by these factors until about 8,000 years ago, when agriculture was introduced.  We cleared the forests and planted crops.

And 5,000 years ago we invented rice cultivation and terracing and domesticated livestock.  Cows are a major source of methane.

In the preindustrial period we put all the carbon in 10% of the global biomass into the atmosphere, which increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere from 260 parts per million (ppm) to 280 ppm.

Despite all of this, solar radiation was still declining, so that in the middle ages the climate was actually getting colder.

Starting in about 1850 we began tapping fossil fuels – first coal, then oil, then natural gas.

The pre-industrial atmosphere had about 600 billion metric tons of carbon.  (A metric ton is 2205 lb.)  By burning fossil fuels, we are presently adding about 8 billion metric tons per year.  (He doesn’t say whether that’s in addition to the agriculture and livestock contributions.)

Volcanoes are the largest natural input, at about 0.2 gigatons/year, 1/45th of the contribution of fossil fuels.

39:30 In the short term we are heading into a period of increasing sunspot activity, and he predicts that for the next 4 or 5 years we are going to have extremely hot summers.

There has been strong warming in the last 150 years.

In 1950 we were putting out about 1.3 gigatons of carbon per year and atmospheric carbon was 310 ppm.  Now we are putting out about 9 gigatons, and it is 390 ppm.

China’s GDP has exploded.  They want the same things we do.  They are producing a gigawatt-sized coal-fired power plant every two weeks.

We are in an ice age.  Continental glaciation is very unusual.  Human action has increased atmospheric CO2 by 25% and has stopped the currant Milankovich cycle in its tracks.  We should be seeing glacial advance, and what we are seeing is glacial retreat.

“If you don’t have continental glaciation, you don’t have Miami.”

2.5 to 6.5’ rise in the ocean by 2100.

The Greenland ice sheet will melt.  We don’t know how fast.

 

Climate Change

Much is being said about climate change: is it real?  Are we causing it?  What can be done?  I have recently come across three fascinating discussions of how human-caused increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide may relate to various natural cycles, and how, too, it provides an amazing object lesson in the fine-tuning of the Earth and solar system.   Essential reading/listening.

How Ice Ages Happen: https://youtu.be/iA788usYNWA.

The Hiawatha Asteroid: https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2018/12/17/did-a-giant-collider-help-give-us-extreme-climate-stability

Geologist Dan Britt, Orbits and Ice Ages: the History of Climate (2012): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yze1YAz_LYM&feature=youtu.be