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APPENDIX C
PHYSICAL AND
CHEMICAL NATURAL HISTORY: IS THE UNIVERSE
THOUSANDS OR
BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD?
Natural history is man’s attempt at telling the story of
natural development over time. It is one of the tasks dominion man seeks to do.
As a dominion work it depends upon the limitations of man’s reason and
experience--subjects discussed in Chapter Three. I pointed out there that
reason is a limited tool. It can supply logical rigor to our thinking, but such
rigor can show us reality only if our categories and logical rules fit reality.
I also pointed out in Chapter Three that our
experience as finite creatures is very limited. We
cannot extend our experience backwards in time beyond human observations except
by speculation and conjecture.
All attempts, therefore, at writing natural histories
must cope with man’s limited reason and experience in space and time. Either
God’s revelation of the origin and destiny of nature is accepted as reasonable
and as empirically-observed data, or it is not. Presuppositionally, a decision
has to be made: which will be the final reference point--the Word of God or the
thoughts of man?
In the realm of the physical sciences the battle
between biblical faith and paganism is wrapped up in the short biblical
chronology versus the vast ages of the universe allegedly “measured” by
terrestrial and astronomical clocks. This appendix discusses the deep
methodological differences between the biblical approach to dating the universe
and the pagan approach. With these profound methodological differences in mind,
I then survey some techniques of age-measurement using materials directly available
on earth.
Next, I consider some of the oft-cited astronomical
indicators of a vast age of the universe. Finally, this appendix concludes with
recent progress in general theory-construction by Bible-believing
mathematicians and scientists. These proposals are the result of several
decades’ work and offer exciting insights into the very heart of the physical
sciences.
The method you use to measure past historical time shows
the way you think about physical constants and their basis of stability.
Insistence upon a vast age for the world has always been a hallmark of paganism
as I pointed out in Chapters 1-2. “They lived many days, adding years (to
days). . .” says Enuma Elish. Commentators on the history of science have
often.115 remarked that ancient Hinduism foreshadowed modern
scientific cosmology in its concept of an essentially eternal universe. This
pagan insistence upon vast ages is not surprising to any Bible-believing
student of paganism. Vast ages push back any creative work of God far beyond
the human horizon and sense of ethical responsibility to Him. A long chronology
offers spiritual “relief” to the rebellious heart. If any conceivable creation
is too distant in the past to contemplate, then any judgment would probably
also be too distant in the future to worry about. Thus both ancient and modern
paganisms agree in conjecturing that the universe (the creature) has divine
attributes (of the Creator).
On the presupposition of paganism modern science has
developed a doctrine of “natural law”. Hiding behind this legal metaphor,
modern paganism seeks to establish an autonomous base for knowledge independent
of God and His Word. An illusion is thus created that seems to provide the
necessary constants for mathematical calculations. Such constants or “laws” are
then universalized throughout space and time far beyond mankind’s local
experience and data-sets (cf. II Pet. 3:4). All measurement of past historical
time builds upon such constants that are hypothesized for the speed of light
(“c”) and radioactive decay.
On the presupposition of the Creator-creature
distinction given in the Bible, however, man’s knowledge is anchored in God’s
(Q)uality of immutability as we learned in Chapters 2-3. In Chapter 6 we
learned how God extended the stability of His immutability through the specific
promises of His Word to all of nature in the new world covenant. Since Noah’s
day, the universe has existed in a geophysical/biochemical steady-state bounded
by God’s verbal promises. Natural constants, therefore, which are the
center-piece of all time measurement derive from the Word of God.
Methodologies of time measurement are bound up with
the presuppositions chosen. Let’s do a thought experiment about the creation of
Adam given in Genesis 2:7. Imagine three observers to this event: A, B, and C.
Observer A has a videocam with a clock recorder in the viewer. He records the
entire event of Genesis 2:7 on video with the time recorded. Let’s say it
happened between 10:00am and 10:05am on the sixth day.
At 10:10am observer B (who knows nothing about the
recent miraculous creation event) enters the garden and sees Adam. Observer B
has data from his experience about how men normally grow up from natural birth,
but he has no access to the videocam record. Thus observer B projects backward
in time on the basis of his experience of human growth rate in order to figure
out how.116 old Adam is. Observer B is very confident that human
growth-rate is a stable constant and estimates Adam’s age at, say, 25 years. At
the same time observer B enters the garden, observer C enters the garden by
another route and also sees Adam. Observer C, unlike observer B however, has
access to the videocam record of observer A. Observer C, therefore, has a
choice in
methodology of deriving Adam’s age. He can either
accept the eye-witness record of observer A’s videocam or the human growth-rate
calculation of observer B. If he accepts the videocam record, he finds that Adam
is only 5 minutes old and that the human growth-rate constant has been
unexpectedly changed. On the other hand, if he can’t accept unexpected changes
in the human growth-rate constant, he will reject the videocam record and
figure Adam’s age at 25 years.
Faced with two discordant ages, observer C now has to
decide which methodology to follow in measuring the past historical duration of
Adam’s life. How can he decide? He has to weigh the reliability of alleged
observational data (videocam record) against the strength of a hypothetical
constant (human growth-rate). But this choice involves what he believes about
the world and its overall structure--in short, his presupposition or worldview.
His choice is not a scientific one; it is a philosophic one! Methodologies,
therefore, are interwoven with presuppositions; they are not “theory-neutral”
and objective as most people think.
TERRESTRIAL “CLOCKS” AND THE BIBLE
Let’s apply the two methodologies to physical
evidences available on planet earth. What is the age of the earth according to
the two methods? The evidences are directly available to mankind so I refer to
them as “local” to distinguish them from extra-terrestrial evidences discussed
in the next section.
The Biblical Age of the Earth. From the biblical view, the earth was created five
days before Adam and three days before the rest of the universe (cf. Gen.
1:14-19). Adam fathered the human race that geneologically produced Abraham,
Moses, David, and Jesus. Records of the Adam-Jesus genealogy exist through
Scripture and are summarized in Luke 3:23-38. Obviously, these records limit
the age between Adam and Jesus to thousands of years, not millions or billions
of years.[1] The Bible also observes that whatever processes God used to create
the earth and its life, those processes stopped on the seventh day and do not
continue today (Gen. 2:1-3).
All calculations, therefore, involving so-called
constants such as radioactive decay constants must model the observational.117 data of Genesis 1. Moreover, they must model the
further observational data of Genesis 6-9 that report a cosmic discontinuity
affecting the entire universe. The present-day steady-state condition of the
earth cannot be extrapolated backward naively beyond the flood of Noah’s day.
The Pagan Age of the Earth. In the pagan view, present-day
observations fix the value of all timing constants.
Any supposed “discontinuities” such as a creation and a flood are ignored.
These constants are then compared; their differences reconciled; and a picture
of past history is built up. A value of several billion years is generally
accepted as the age of the earth. It must be kept in mind, however, that the
underlying method here always depends upon carefully selected constants being
extrapolated backward millions of times beyond direct human records.
What is not usually mentioned is that even with this
method there are widely varying ages that result. Here are a few examples: (1)
human population growth rates yield an age for the human race of less than 9000
years; (2) Carbon 14 has not yet reached equilibrium which requires that the
build-up to present levels could not have taken more than 10,000 years; (3)
Helium is continuing to build up in the atmosphere and gives an average
atmospheric age of less than 100,000 years; and (4) the earth rotation rate is
slowing down which implies that it could not be more than 325,000 years old, or
it would have been spinning so fast that the continents would have lined up
along the equator.[2] Clearly, these examples show that the pagan methodology
gives ages from a few thousand to a few billion years! A method that is this
uncertain should not be considered a serious threat to biblical faith.
I have shown how the two dating methods approach
terrestrial evidences that are “local” to mankind. Now I turn to
extra-terrestrial evidences that are “remote” from mankind. Some of these
so-called astronomical clocks are used to determine the age of the universe
which such confidence that news media regularly report their ages as hard facts
instead of modeled estimates. The Biblical Age of the Universe. From the
biblical view, the universe was indistinguishable from the earth in the
original watery chaos of Genesis 1:1. Out from the earth, God created the
expanse we call outer space on the fourth day. Just as He populated the earth
with plants and animals, He “populated” the heavens with the stars and planets
two days before creating Adam (cf. Gen. 1:14-19). The universe, therefore, has
the same young age as the earth.
The Pagan Age of the Universe. For the pagan method to work in estimating the age
of the universe, it has to cope with an additional problem that it avoids when
estimating the earth’s age. The method can only utilize remote evidences, many
of which are located in far-off outer space and not subject to direct
measurement techniques. For an astronomical clock to work, constants have to be
extrapolated in space as well as time. Layer upon layer of speculative thought
is required to date the universe. Great reliance is placed upon the
relativistic theories of Einstein in order to model light travel and spatial
geometry in spite of the fact that alternate theories (which are far less
imaginative) exist that explain key experimental data. The so-called “red
shift” in incoming light toward the earth is explained exclusively in terms of
Doppler effects which implies an expanding universe. Distances to nearby stars
are calculated using trigonometry similar to ordinary surveying, but distances
to far away stars are inferred using multiple assumptions. Such computations
extrapolate constants billions of times beyond the nearby “surveyed” stars.
Once an expanding universe model (with its multiple
layers of conjecture) exists and the rate of expansion is thought to be known,
then the age from a starting “big bang” can be computed. What is often
overlooked, however, is that the starting big bang is neither a
creation-from-nothing nor an extrapolated physical process. It is not an
ex-nihilo creation because before the big bang there was something, if only a
tightly condensed object. Nor is it an extrapolated process because its
explanation requires a different set of “natural laws”; the big bang amounts to
a sort of pagan “miracle”. Thus the big bang theory involves an internal
contradiction with the central pagan principle that “all things continue as
they were from creation”.
The modern pagan method claims an age for the universe
that varies from about 10 billion to about 20 billion years (with the stars
apparently older than the universe!). This age is the age from the big bang
state to the present day. It does not include the duration of any universe that
pre-existed the big bang. Nevertheless, such figures are confidentially
trumpeted in the mass media as assured scientific “facts”. The term “fact” is
deceptively used as though highly speculative model results are just as certain
as directly observed phenomenon. Just as with the terrestrial clocks, however,
the astronomical clocks do not all give consistent answers. Here are some
examples: (1) comets have very short lifetimes before they break up, and there
is no clear source of resupply so that the age of the solar system seems no
longer than 6000 years; (2) spiral galaxies are observed with straight “bars”
but angular momentum calculations show that such bars can’t exist more than.119 12.5 million years; and (3) since very massive stars
burn up their energy much faster than less massive stars, they must be young in
order to have such mass--probably less than 100,000 years.
What about any historical observations that might
touch on this matter of astronomical clocks? There are some historical
observations that challenge the modern theory of evolution of stars. Stars are
supposed to take hundreds of thousands of years to evolve from protostar to
main sequence star to red giant to white dwarf. Obviously, there are no direct
observations of such a slow process. There is, however, a set of historical
observations of the star Sirius. These observations show that Sirius went
“backwards” from a red giant to a main sequence star and did so in only 1000
years![3]
You should realize by now that dating methods for the
earth or the universe are largely determined by one’s chosen presuppositions
about the nature of reality. Such dating is not rigorous, experimental science;
it is conjecture and speculation of scientists who hold to a fundamentally
pagan view of reality.
Developing any cosmological theory involves tremendous
labor in theoretical physics, astronomy, and mathematics. For Bible-believing
scientists no grant money or federal subsidies are permitted. Thus there have
been few scientifically qualified believers who have had the resources to
research cosmological explanations from a non-pagan viewpoint.
The few believers that have done serious work in this
area begin their cosmological theory-making in way that radically differs from
the prevailing approach. They obviously are proponents of the counterattack
strategy discussed in Chapter 1. The pagan scientific community creates
“exclusionary ground rules” that disqualify all biblical observations of terrestrial
and extra-terrestrial events as genuine empirical data. These Bible-believing
scientists, however, not only begin by accepting such biblical observations as
admissible empirical data, they also interpret the data within a distinctively
biblical philosophy of logic, categories, and knowledge (see previous
chapters).
Let’s look at two examples of recent cosmological
theory-making from a biblical viewpoint. In each case I will briefly survey the
model propounded and then comment on what it shows about the popular pagan
models presented in the press as “fact”. Humphreys’ Cosmological “Water Model”.
A Christian physicist, Dr. Russell Humphreys, has recently promoted a.120 cosmology that builds upon Einstein’s General Theory
of Relativity just as the pagan big bang cosmology does. What Humphreys does
that radically differs, however, is to change the starting point or “initial
conditions” for the relativistic calculations.
The big bang cosmology assumes as an initial condition
that the universe has no edges or boundaries. It is like the two dimensional
surface of an expanding balloon: there are no “edges” to it. This condition,
say big bang proponents, fits the observation that we see from earth
approximately the same density of stars in all directions. If there were an
“edge” to the universe, we ought to see less stars in one direction than the
others.
There is a hidden assumption in this interpretation:
it dismisses the possibility that the earth could be at the center of the
universe! If it is, then the universe could well have an outer boundary and the
star density would be the same in all directions from the earth. In fact,
Humphreys points out that the entire big bang initial condition is loaded with
pagan theology that refuses to accept the idea of the earth being at the center
of the universe:
“[The idea of the earth being at the center of the
universe]. . .strongly smacks of purpose and is thus unpalatable to most
theorists today, who prefer to believe in a universe run by randomness. So it
is simply assumed there is no center, and no boundary. . . .
It may not be unfair to suggest another possible
reason for the near-universal acceptance of this assumption. To allow the
possibility of anything “outside” the universe (perhaps God) makes it harder to
hold to the position that the universe is ‘all there is’ (the popular position
of philosophical materialism).”[4]
In other words, in the big bang initial condition the
universe is given the divine attribute of endlessness (a weak form of
omnipresence). Paganism, whether ancient or modern, is always idolatrous.
Replacing this initial condition with the narrative of
Genesis 1, Humphreys starts with a bounded universe compressed in a sphere of water
two light-years in diameter which contains all the mass believed to be in the
universe today. During creation week God expands the universe outward (Gen.
1:6-8), makes all the elements from hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and by the
fourth day He forms the stars (Gen. 1:14-19).
The stunning finding of Humphreys is this: such an
expansion of the universe, according to the General Theory of Relativity, would
cause all the matter expanded away from the earth to age by billions of years
while time on earth advanced.121 only six 24-hour days! What
we observe, then, in extra-terrestrial space is not evidence of an expanding
universe, but an expanded one (cf. Gen. 2:1-3).
To cause such a radical shift in the age of the
universe by changing the initial conditions of the calculations simply reveals
how dependent the pagan big bang model is on its philosophical starting point.
You should observe that this dramatic turn of events shows you the truth of the
diagram in Chapter 3 on the limits of man’s experience and how a story of
history prior to all human observation rests completely upon conjecture. When
it comes to history reconstruction prior to human observations, there are no
“facts” in the commonly accepted meaning of the term--only speculation and
conjecture--whether the popular media recognize it or not.
The Humphreys Water Model is not the only explanation
of the apparent great age of the universe. Another model has also been proposed
that not only changes the initial condition of the universe but also changes
the calculation process of the General Theory of Relativity.
Herrmann’s Metamorphic-Anamorphic (MA) Model. For over
a decade a Christian mathematician, Dr. Robert Herrmann, has developed a very
extensive critique of mathematical modeling used in all scientific theory,
especially at the sub-particle level of nuclear physics and at the very large
scale of cosmological theory-making.[5]
Dr. Herrmann has deeply engaged two fundamental
dilemmas of 20th century math and science. First, mathematicians have become
aware of the “incompleteness” of the their key tool: formal logic. The term
“incompleteness” refers to the discovery that human ingenuity and intuition
which are used to create proofs cannot themselves be formalized by a fixed set
of rules. No computer can be made that will reproduce the ingenuity and
intuition involved in human thought.
That means one of two things. It could mean that human
thought and its formal logic activity is only a superficial electro-chemical
phenomenon of accidentally-formed neuron networks in an evolved animal brain.
If so, then away goes the vision that reality should be logical, and also
disappearing with it is the basis for scientific knowledge.
Dr. Herrmann argues for a second option. Human logic
is incomplete, but logic itself is not. There exists a “metalanguage” behind
the natural world of human observation and logical proof-making, what Herrmann
calls the “D-world” with “ultralogic” and “ultralinguistic” processes beyond
human comprehension. The parallel to Hebrews 1:3 and 11:3 is obvious. While
others have suggested similar ideas, Herrmann’s.122 contribution
is the rigorous mathematical development he has produced to support it. No one
who utilizes the mathematical modeling techniques of modern science, he shows,
can deny this D-world without destroying his own modeling efforts.
The second fundamental dilemma of modern 20th-century
thought is a similar “incompleteness” problem found in physics. To obtain any
grand unification of science, any “theory of everything”, there must be a
reconciliation between the idea that the universe is a continuum in space and
time (i.e., describable in terms of real numbers) and the idea that it has
discontinuous, discrete features such as photon emissions that occur suddenly
with no “in-between” values (i.e., describable in terms of rational numbers but
not in terms of real numbers). Ample evidence for both views now exists.
Herrmann meets this second dilemma with his results
from dealing with the first one. He applies his “D-world” concept to the
modeling the history of any natural process imaginable--radioactive decay,
evolution of the stars--whether that process is continuous or discontinuous.
After much rigorous analysis and proof, he derives what he calls his
“metamorphic-anamorphic” or MA model. The MA model is one of the most powerful
concepts ever introduced into the creationist controversy.
<-----------------------------[t’]----------------------------->
In the MA model the universe is not uniform within the
normal sense of human language and logic, but it is “ultrauniform” in the sense
that there exists a complete set of rules to predict the natural history of any
process for all space and all cosmic time. In Herrmann’s model there can be
periodic discontinuities in any natural process just as there are with normal
photon emissions in the atom. While such events appear to us in this world as
“sudden”, they do not so appear in the D-world that surrounds us.
Herrmann’s extensive logical development produces many
insights along the way. Here are a few of them:
(1) there is no way to scientifically verify the
uniformity of nature outside of our “local” knowledge in space and time; (2)
most major theories such as Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity are flawed
in how they handle fundamental properties of space and time;.123 (3) sub-atomic particles such as neutrinos and
antineutrinos need not exist; they are only required by an incorrect
understanding of mathematical modeling; (4) due to MA effects, there exist a
potentially infinite set of cosmological models all of which can produce the
same empirically sensed data so no such model can ever be verified on a
scientific basis; such models are chosen philosophically only; (5) a cosmology
based upon a literal understanding of the Genesis narrative in light of the MA
model explains sudden appearances, prematurely aging of the universe, red-shift
effects, and all other possible evidences.
As with the Humphreys Water Model, so with Herrmann’s MA
Model: they underscore the speculative structure of history construction for
physical and chemical systems. In fact, they show that at the end of the 20th
century man seems to have reached the limits of the scientific method. What was
once a method based upon careful laboratory experimentation has become a method
compromised by spiritually-motivated conjecture. Like the ancient pagan
astrologers of Babylon who were at once brilliant mathematicians and celestial
observers but also wildly speculative priests, modern cosmologists combine
stunning brilliance with unbelievable pagan speculation. Also like the ancient
Babylon priesthood, they are richly subsidized with public taxes!
1. Henry Morris noted years ago that to expand these
genealogies by inserting gaps to get enough time between Abraham (ca. 2000 BC)
and the allegedly “first” true man would require gaps of 50,000 years each--an
absurd denial of the entire concept of a genealogy. See his Biblical Cosmology
and Modern Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1970), pp. 66-68.
2. See materials available from the Institute for
Creation Research. A convenient summary with a PhD’s evaluation of each method
is Theodore W. Rybka, Geophysical and Astronomical Clocks, privately published
manual available from the author at 2050 Longley Lane, Reno, NV, 89502 for
about $15 plus postage.
3. See Rybka’s discussion with references, pp. 123-4.
4. D. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time (Colorado
Springs, CO: Master Books), p 19. Excellent paperback introduction to his Water
Model.
5. See Creation Research Society Quarterly issues
between 1984 and 1994 available at P.O. Box 969, Ashland, OH 44605 or
publications from R. A. Herrmann Press, P.O. Box 3268, Annapolis, MD 21403.