DANNY R. FAULKNER, Ph. D.
P. O. BOX 889
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA - LANCASTER
LANCASTER, SC 29720 USA
Presented at the Fourth
International Conference on Creationism
Pittsburgh, PA, August 3-8, 1998
Copyright 1998 by Creation Science Fellowship, Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA USA -
All Rights Reserved
KEYWORDS:
Astronomy, cosmology, big bang, design, age of universe
ABSTRACT:
The current state of creation astronomy is reviewed. Creationists have
usually followed three basic approaches in the field of astronomy: 1) criticism
of the big bang, 2) the argument of design, and 3) arguments for a recent
creation. Many arguments that recent creationists use are found to be rather
dated. Many of these arguments are still valid, but must be continually updated
to reflect new ideas and discoveries in the field. A new argument for a recent
lunar origin is presented. Suggestions for future research are made.
INTRODUCTION
Among creationists there is much disagreement about the age of the
earth and the age of the universe. Most opinions can be classified into one of
three groups. One group is the belief that both the earth and the universe were
created during the literal six-day creation week a few thousand years ago. That
is the position of the Institute for Creation Research and most members of the
Creation Research Society (CRS). A second opinion is that while the earth and
all that is on it were created a few thousand years ago, most of the universe
was created in the distant past of "in the beginning" of Genesis 1:1.
A careful reading of the statement of belief of the CRS reveals that this belief
is compatible with that statement. The third possibility is that both the earth
and the universe are quite old, in general agreement with what most of modern
science claims to be the ages. That position is difficult to reconcile with the
CRS statement. The many writings of Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb have
addressed this issue and have argued that the first opinion is the correct one.
This author is in agreement with that position, and for the purposes of this
paper, that is the definition of the creation model.
The creation was only the first of three major events that have
affected the world. The second event was the fall recorded in Genesis chapter 3.
The fall had very strong spiritual implications (the introduction of sin, the
need for salvation), but was also accompanied by physical consequences, such as
death, the cursing of the ground, and the groaning of the whole world as
recorded in Romans 8:22. There is some debate among creationists as to what the
full effects of this fall upon the world were. For instance, many suggest that
the second law of thermodynamics may not have been operating in its fullness
before the fall [57]. The third major event was the world wide flood of Noah
recorded in Genesis 6-8. Being one year in duration, the catastrophic flood must
have had a profound effect not only upon life, but the shape of the earth's
surface itself. There is also some discussion among creationists about how much
affect that the flood had upon the rest of the universe.
What modern science has to say about the origin and history of the
world has caused many to dismiss these three events. On the other hand creation
scientists take the Biblical account seriously, and so accept these events as
real and have attempted to reexamine the world for evidence for those events. In
the fields of biology and geology much progress has been made. The biological
creation model assumes that there was a sudden appearance of life, with
reproduction only occurring within "kinds." The term "baraminology"
has been coined to mean the study of what constitutes a kind. It seems that for
some organisms the kind is to be identified as the species, but for others it is
at the genus or higher levels. At one time most creationists argued that
speciation (as defined by reproductive viability) does not occur. However most
now accept that reproductive barriers, and hence speciation, are observed to
arise today, but our model allows this to occur within certain limits. This
process operating since the flood would have greatly reduced the number of
animals required on the ark.
The creation model of geology is basically a flood model, that is, the
antediluvian world was totally obliterated by the flood to the extent that
virtually all geological features that we see today were formed in the flood and
its aftermath. The wealth of geological data available to us has made it
possible for several competing flood models to be developed. The oldest and
perhaps the most familiar is the hydraulic model propounded by Price early in
this century and again by Morris in recent decades. This theory attempted to
explain the general fossil sequence found in the geologic column (GC) by the
tendency of objects to be sorted according to size, shape and density by
hydraulic action while suspended in a fluid. In recent years several other
models have been proposed to incorporate the apparent success of plate tectonics
over the past three decades. Two of these models popular in the United States
are the hydroplate theory (HPT) of Brown [12] and the catastrophic plate
tectonics (CPT) theory [58]. Some would like to place the flood boundary much
lower in the GC, making many strata post-flood, while others seem to doubt the
reality of the GC itself. This is contrary to the position of Morris, who
maintains that virtually no strata have been deposited in the post flood world.
Such disagreements are encouraging in that they are evidence of the maturing of
creation science. Creationists are often criticized for having rigid
preconceptions that do not permit reevaluation of our ideas. Anyone making this
point has obviously not considered the case of creationist geology.
Unfortunately the situation in astronomy is not as good. As with
biology and geology, astronomy has become permeated with evolutionary
assumptions and conclusions. Unlike those other disciplines, there is no overall
theory or, if you will, paradigm, of astronomy from a creationist perspective.
Part of the problem has been the lack of researchers in the field. Most people
see the obvious effect that evolution and long time scales have had on geology
and biology, and this has attracted Christian young people to pursue these
sciences. The result has been that while evolutionary thinking has come to
dominate much of astronomy, this has escaped the notice of most creationists.
A second cause for the lack of creationist astronomy is the lack of
Biblical specifics. Genesis 1:1 mentions the creation of the heavens, and many
understand that to refer to the creation of space. But space (astronomical
heaven) was not filled with what we understand to be astronomical bodies (the
sun, moon, and stars) until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19). What,
if anything, existed in space between these two events? Does the "whole
creation" of Romans 8:22 include the astronomical world? That is, did the
fall have an effect upon astronomical bodies? If so, what? Did the flood have an
effect upon the astronomical realm? Some have offered speculations on this, but
with the lack of Biblical specifics, these are not much more than conjecture.
It should be noted that some recent creationists have attempted to
avoid the light travel time difficulty (to be discussed later) by asserting that
the mention of the creation of the stars on the fourth day does not mean that
the stars were created on that day. Instead, it is argued that mention of the
stars in Genesis 1:16 refers to their purpose (for signs and time reckoning)
rather than their creation at that time. In this scenario the stars would have
been part of the primordial creation of Genesis 1:1 and are mentioned in verse
16 only in the context of purpose along with the sun and moon. It is true that
the Hebrew of Genesis 1:16 merely mentions "the stars also," leaving
in some peoples’ minds the possibility of ambiguity whether this refers to the
stars’ creation or function. Another related variation is that the sun, moon,
and stars existed all along and merely became visible from the surface of the
earth when the atmosphere cleared on the fourth day. While it is true that a
number of Biblical scholars have endorsed these interpretations of Genesis 1:16,
this has been done to accommodate the supposed great age of the astronomical
world. It is the opinion of this author that these are quite a stretch of the
passage and that it is quite doubtful one could reach such a conclusion from the
Bible alone. For this reason it is assumed here that Genesis 1:16 refers to the
creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day.
Paul Steidl made this basic assumption when he wrote what is perhaps
the best book to date on creation astronomy [50]. Because this book does not go
into great depth nor is a primary source in the sorts arguments that will be
described here, it will not be referenced often in this paper. Its great
strength is that it is a general treatment of astronomy that covers a broad
range of subjects with emphasis given to Biblical and creation interpretations.
While nearly 20 years old, the book has aged very well considering the rapid
advances in astronomy in the intervening period.
Given these restraints, creationists have proceeded with some ideas.
These ideas have generally fallen into three categories:
Each of these topics will be discussed here. The first review of
creation astronomy was the one of Mulfinger [38] 25 years ago, so the time seems
right for a second one.
CRITICISMS OF THE BIG BANG
Cosmology is the study of the structure of the universe, while
cosmogony is the study of the history of the universe. For three decades the big
bang has been the predominant theory of the origin of the universe, and so it is
sometimes referred to as the "standard model." While until recently no
creationists have done original research in cosmogony, many creationist writers
have attacked assumptions and alleged evidences of the big bang or otherwise
made use of the work of others that have revealed difficulties with the big
bang. There are several creationist discussions of the big bang [12, pp. 21-22],
[19], [35], [45].
Many supporters of the big bang model claim that three evidences
support the big bang:
Creationists sometimes note that the first two items are not
predictions of the standard model (for example, see [12, pp. 21,22]. The
expansion of the universe was discovered before the model was devised, and in
fact the big bang is an attempt to explain why the universe is expanding. This
is a fine point involving logic and philosophy of science, and so should be
further discussed here. Any model requires the input of facts or data to guide
the construction of the theory. In many cases a fact involved is the problem
that needs to be solved. In this case, the big bang was developed to explain the
observed expansion of the universe. Any number of theories could be devised to
explain why there is a cosmic expansion (e.g. the steady state theory). But can
the expansion then be used as evidence of these theories since they were devised
to explain the expansion? This appears to be circular reasoning. While a good
theory must be explanatory, it must also be predictive. The big bang explains
why there is a cosmic expansion, but it hardly predicts it. By necessity a
theory must be consistent with the input data. The real power of a model is its
predictive ability. What experiments or observations could be done that could
conceivably falsify the theory? Cosmic expansion is hardly a prediction, given
that it must patently agree with the big bang. This should not be construed as a
criticism of the big bang model. Rather, it is an attempt to clarify the
relationship between observed cosmic expansion and the big bang theory. Some
sources list the expansion of the universe as a prediction of the big bang
model. It is not; it is, however, something that is well explained by the model.
This topic urgently needs to be further developed by creationists.
There is a similar, yet less incestuous, relationship with the big
bang model and the abundances of the lighter elements. These abundances
generally were known when the standard cosmology was developed. While they have
been helpful in deciding which versions of the standard model are more tenable,
this does not appear to be a clean prediction either, but is rather more of an
input.
On the other hand the 3K cosmic background radiation (CBR) is an
impressive prediction of the big bang. The prediction was qualitatively made
nearly 20 years before the discovery of the microwave background in 1965. The
steady state theory, which was the competing evolutionary model at the time, did
not predict this radiation. A few cosmologists such as Fred Hoyle still believe
the steady state theory, but have had no success in explaining the background in
the intervening years. Akridge, et al. [4], has attempted at least one
creationist explanation for the 3K CBR. They suggested that the energy from
starlight that was absorbed and re-emitted by dust particles over a few thousand
years is the source of the 3K background. But given the very uneven distribution
of dust, this should result in a much more patchy emission than what is observed
in the CBR. In reality infrared emission from dust has long been observed, and
at much higher temperatures than 3K.
But at the same time, this apparent triumph of the big bang could be
its undoing. The universe today is arranged into stars and galaxies. Presumably
these resulted from slight unevenness, or perturbations, in the early universe
that caused gravity to vary from point to point and resulted in the clumping of
material into these objects. These perturbations would have resulted in slight
temperature differences in the cosmic background radiation. Cosmologists have
estimated how great the perturbations should have been, as well as the amount of
temperature fluctuations that should be observed today. The COBE (COsmic
Background Explorer) satellite launched a few years ago was designed to measure
these fluctuations. The first two years of observations revealed that the
background is completely smooth (for a brief creationist discussion of this, see
Matzko [35]). Only after a complex statistical analysis of the data were any
variations allegedly found [43]. Though supposedly confirmed by two additional
studies, there is much reason to be skeptical of the temperature fluctuations.
First, the alleged fluctuations are well below the sensitivity of the detector.
Second, no one can point to any spot in the sky and say, "this is a spot of
warmer or cooler temperature" [24].
Even if the temperature fluctuations turn out to be real, it has
generally been missed that these fluctuations are an order of magnitude too low
for the standard cosmology. COBE was designed to measure the fluctuations
predicted by the theory, but the fluctuations were not directly observed, hence
the statistical treatments. Attempts are being made to refine the big bang model
to fit the data. There are other problems with the big bang, such as the
flatness problem, dark matter, and the assumption that the universe would have
been in thermal equilibrium when it came into existence. Creationists have made
use of all of these arguments against the big bang.
Another problem with the big bang is discordant redshifts. Halton Arp
[6] has made a career producing data that calls into question whether the
redshifts are cosmological, that is, is redshift directly proportional to
distances? If Arp is correct, then at least some redshifts must be due to some
other effect other than cosmic expansion. Quite understandably, creationists
have made use of this [15].
There are several problems with the creationist approach to the big
bang however. First, it is obvious that in some papers creationists have
improperly stated the big bang model. For instance, some have assumed that the
geometry of the universe is Euclidean, while others picture the big bang as
having been an explosion of matter and energy into preexisting space and time
[1], [2]. The standard model actually assumes non-Euclidean geometry, and the
big bang is not so much an explosion of matter into space as it was an explosion
of space and time as well. In other words, there was no space or time before the
big bang. Others deride the standard cosmology by asking such questions as
"how can an explosion give rise to complexity?" What is missed in this
is that the name "big bang" is a bit of a misnomer, and that the
standard model has never actually been proposed as an explosion. A few years ago
a popular astronomy magazine held a contest to give a better name for the
standard cosmogony - no one won [8]. If a creationist misunderstands these
basics of the big bang model, then would any of his conclusions regarding the
big bang be valid?
Second, many creationists greatly overstate the case against the big
bang. In some presentations it has been stated that cosmologists are in despair
with the big bang and are nervous to debate the model (a statement that this
author heard during a lecture by a prominent creation speaker a few years ago).
A typical quote is that of DeYoung and Whitcomb [19, p. 11]:
"However, in spite of the current popularity of this theory, the
dramatic beginning of the universe which the ‘big bang’ assumes has proven
to be an embarrassment to many cosmologists."
While I share opposition to the big bang model with DeYoung and
Whitcomb, it has not been my experience that cosmologists are embarrassed by the
theory. While recognizing problems that the model has, most big bang scientists
are convinced of the fundamental correctness of the model and believe that with
time the model will be improved.
A third problem is our lack of an alternative. Even if we succeed in
destroying the big bang, do we have a model with which to replace it? There have
been several cosmological models that creationists have put forth (e.g. West’s
polytropic model [55]), but only one cosmogony model has been proposed. This is
the Humphreys white hole cosmogony [30], which will be discussed later.
THE DESIGN ARGUMENT
Much evidence of teleology (design in nature) exists in the universe.
For human, animal, and plant life this is very easy to see. If certain changes
are made in the physiology or the chemistry of organisms, then life becomes
impossible. The same could be said about the universe as a whole. If certain
constants of nature are changed, then the chemistry necessary for life becomes
impossible, and the universe begins to appear very suited, or designed, for life
[16]. The same is true for the earth: if we change its size, composition,
distance from the sun, tilt of its axis, or any number of characteristics, then
the earth becomes uninhabitable. Secular scientists have spent much thought on
these questions, and have dubbed this the "anthropic principle" [7].
The anthropic principle as usually formulated has at least two great
differences from the design argument used by creationists. First, the secular
scientists that developed the anthropic principle have done so from an atheistic
viewpoint. Their basic conclusion is that no matter how much the universe may
seem to have design, it really does not. This sets the design argument
completely upon its head, and it is time that creationists retake this argument.
A second problem is that much of anthropic principle has been developed in the
context of an old universe. Some creationists who are comfortable with an old
universe have made great use of this kind of argument [40], [41]. These two
objections have probably caused most creationists to ignore the anthropic
principle. One exception is Bergman [9], whose recent paper is an excellent
start on this subject. Creationists are encouraged to explore this topic.
Design is a very powerful argument, but can it be overstated? Have
some seen design where none exists? When examining the diversity among the moons
of the solar system revealed by the Voyager probes, some appeal to the design
argument. The case is stated something like this: the moons of any of the Jovian
planets exhibit varying orbital distances, compositions and surfaces, suggesting
a very complex origin and history. Because uniformitarian and evolutionary
theories have difficulty explaining all that we see, these must be the result of
design and creation. Similar arguments are made for ring systems, stellar
diversity, and galactic structure. But does something like the orbital distances
and ordering of planetary satellites reveal design? If there are ten moons
orbiting a planet, they must each assume their own orbits. Though the number of
possible combinations is virtually infinite and the probability of any
particular one slight, the moons must be in some configuration. In order for a
design argument to be valid, it must be demonstrated that any other
configuration would not work. The root of the problem here may be a lack of a
concise definition of design that can be objectively applied. Progress toward
this definition and its application is encouraged.
ARGUMENTS FOR A RECENT CREATION
A much more fruitful argument is the one for a young creation. The
universe is usually assumed to be between ten and twenty Gyr old, with the solar
system and the earth having formed about 4.6 Gyr ago. Of course this is based on
evolutionary and uniformitarian assumptions. Our model places an age of only a
few thousand years for the earth and everything else in the universe. Thus a
very clear distinction between the creation and evolution models exists. There
have been several arguments put forth for the young age of the earth, such as
the mineral content of the ocean [36] and the helium content of the atmosphere
[54]. Several arguments for recent cosmic creation have been given [44], [46],
[47]. We will discuss five arguments for the solar system and three for the
universe.
A Young Solar System: Comets
The existence of comets has been used as an argument for a young solar
system for a long time [47]. Comets have been known since ancient times. Bright
ones are rare, occurring every decade or two. Comets appear without warning,
erratically move across the sky, and then just as mysteriously disappear. The
seemingly unpredictable nature of comets stems from their orbits being very
different from the orbits of planets. One difference is that while planetary
orbits are nearly circular, comet orbits are very elliptical. This means that
the comets usually travel at great distances from the sun, but once each orbit
they come very close to the sun, often closer than any of the planets. The
orbits of the planets are nearly in the same plane, but comets can have any
inclination to that plane, with some of them orbiting nearly perpendicular to
the plane.
For about 40 years the model of a comet has been Whipple's dirty
iceberg theory, and much evidence has been amassed in its support. It states
that a comet consists of a nucleus only a few kilometers across made of various
ices and dust. At great distances from the sun, where comets spend most of the
time, the ices remain frozen. However as a comet is near closest approach to the
sun, the intense radiation from the sun evaporates the ices to produce a tenuous
cloud of gas around the nucleus called the coma. Solar wind and radiation sweep
gas molecules and dust particles outward to produce the tail. During the spring
of 1996 we were treated to Comet Hyakutake, followed by Comet Hale-Bopp in the
spring of 1997.
Each close passage to the sun results in a large amount of material
being removed from the nucleus. Obviously, given the small size of the nucleus,
a comet cannot survive many trips around the sun. Comets of short orbital period
that have been observed during many orbits have become noticeably fainter as a
result of material loss. It has been estimated that a bright comet could not
remain bright for more than 100 passes near the sun. With a period of about
10,000 years and being so bright, Comet Hyakutake could not have been orbiting
the sun in its current orbit for very long, certainly not 4.6 Gyr, the supposed
age of the solar system.
If comets date from the beginning of the solar system, and they can
only survive 100 trips around the sun, what is the maximum age of the solar
system? If comets travel too far from the sun, they will be lost to other stars.
Let us assume that a comet nucleus can travel 1/3 the distance to the nearest
star and still remain part of the solar system (the maximum distance is probably
less than that). Kepler’s third law shows that the maximum orbital period
would be about 10 million years. One hundred trips would give an age of one Gyr.
This is a maximum age: the actual would be less. This would result in no bright
comets - we do see bright comets, so they could not be that old. Therefore we
can conclude that the existence of comets gives us an age of the solar system
far less than 4.6 Gyr.
This has long been recognized as a problem for the long age of the
solar system, so in 1950 the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort suggested an explanation.
He proposed that 4.6 Gyr ago during the origin of the solar system, comet nuclei
either formed at great distances from the sun or formed in the inner solar
system and were ejected to the outer regions. At these great distances from the
sun the low temperature would allow the ices to remain frozen indefinitely.
Occasional gravitational perturbations of other stars or molecular clouds would
from time to time cause comet nuclei to change orbit so that they come toward
the inner solar system once each orbit. As comets die they would be replaced by
new incoming nuclei so that a steady state is achieved.
This Oort comet cloud is assumed to exist, even though there is
absolutely no evidence for it. Of particular interest is the quote of Sagan and
Druyan [42]:
"Many scientific papers are written each year about the Oort Cloud, its properties, its origin, its evolution. Yet there is not yet a shred of direct observational evidence for its existence."
About the time the Oort cloud was suggested, Kuiper proposed a belt of
comet nuclei just beyond the planetary region as the source of short period
comets. For a long time the Kuiper belt was largely ignored, because it was
thought that the Oort cloud could explain the existence of both long and short
period comets. Since 1980 simulation studies have shown that the Oort cloud is
incapable of producing short period comets in the number observed [20], [21], so
the Kuiper belt has been invoked to explain comets of shorter orbital periods.
In the view of some people today the Kuiper belt is considered to be an inner
portion of the Oort cloud. In recent years a few studies have searched for
Kuiper belt objects, with some apparent success. One search claimed to have
found about two dozen "candidate" members of the Kuiper belt. The word
"candidate" is used because none of the objects photographed can be
clearly identified as a Kuiper belt object. Furthermore, a follow up search
failed to reproduce the earlier result. The Oort cloud is something that has
been devised to salvage the great age of the solar system, but perhaps the
existence of comets is telling us that the solar system is young.
Slusher [47] and others, based upon studies done about a decade
earlier, discussed this argument for a recent creation. A more recent article
that includes original quantitative modeling is the one by Stillman [51]. Since
Slusher’s work, the Oort cloud hypothesis has been refined, and the Kuiper
belt hypothesis has been developed as well. Ejection from the solar system is
now recognized as an important loss mechanism for comets, perhaps exceeding
evaporation in the case of short period comets. With these recent developments,
this whole issue from a creationist perspective has been in need of revision,
which Faulkner [22] has done. His conclusion is that this is still a valid
argument for a recent creation of the solar system, but that any discussion
should include Oort cloud and Kuiper belt.
Lunar Dust
Back in the 1960's estimates of the depth of the dust on the moon were
made. This was important information to know during the Apollo program, because
if there were a thick layer, the lunar landers could have sunk and disappeared.
The dust on the moon results from meteors falling onto the surface. Each meteor
strike, no matter how small, knocks some debris from surface rocks, and this
gradually accumulates along with the incoming material. If we can measure the
rate at which meteors are falling today, then we can estimate how much should
accumulate over 4.6 Gyr. Actually, this would be an upper estimate since the
meteor flux would have been greater in the past. Measurements of the meteor flux
made nearly 40 years ago indicated that the lunar dust should be many meters
thick. The actual depth is only a few centimeters, consistent with a recent
creation but not an old one.
This remained a mystery until new meteor flux measurements in the
early 1970's were far lower, consistent with the measured depth of lunar dust
and an old age. Creationists apparently were ignorant of these newer
measurements that were consistent with an ancient moon, and were rightly
criticized [52, pp. 143-145], [53, pp. 67-82] for this lapse. Snelling and Rush
[49] have reevaluated this issue, and they recommended against using this
argument for recent creation.
Many creationists have abandoned this argument, but some continue to
use it. It seems that there are some questions about the more recent meteor flux
measurements, especially when one considers that the earlier measurements that
were supposedly too high have never been explained. About the time that the
paper by Snelling and Rush appeared, a new, more direct, and higher measurement
of meteoroid influx was published [34]. This has been one factor in the
rejection of some creationists to the warning by Snelling and Rush against this
argument. The newer measurements should not be taken as the final word in this
matter, and future measurements should be carefully monitored. Furthermore,
laboratory measurements show that the bulk of lunar dust is made of lunar
material rather than meteoritic material (the ratio could be as much as 67:1
[12, pp. 213-215]). If that is the case, then the depth of lunar dust would be
more consistent with a young moon rather than a 4.6 billion year old moon.
Planetary Magnetic Fields
Many of the planets possess magnetic fields, and it is generally
believed that a current in a metallic core of the planets causes these fields.
In the case of the earth the current is in the iron and nickel core, while the
Jovian planets have currents in a metallic hydrogen core or mantle. As with any
current that is not externally sustained, these currents should eventually
reduce and then vanish due to friction. Historic measurements of the earth's
magnetic field show that it is decreasing. Thomas Barnes has shown that at the
current rate of decay the earth's magnetic field would have been implausibly
large much more than 10,000 years ago. Magnetic field reversals have been
invoked to explain how the field can be decreasing today and yet be very old.
There is some fossil evidence of reversals, but the CPT model predicts rapid
reversals at the time of the flood, but with generally decreasing amplitude.
What is left unexplained by gradual reversals over millions or billions of years
is how the field is regenerated once it ceases to exist. It is assumed that some
dynamo mechanism regenerates the current and hence the field, but the mechanism
has not been identified. In all fairness it should be pointed out that the sun's
magnetic field reverses approximately every 11 years.
Prior to the Voyager measurements of the magnetic fields of Uranus and
Neptune Humphreys [28] used a recent creation model to correctly predict the
strength of those fields. This is some of the more original research done by a
creationist, and is an excellent counter example to critics who complain that
the creation model offers no predictions.
Interplanetary Dust
There is much microscopic dust orbiting in the plane of the solar
system. Presumably this material results from the break up of comets and
asteroid collisions. The problem is that solar radiation removes this material,
smaller particles being ejected from the solar system and larger ones spiraling
into the sun. Creationists have argued that the cleansing rate exceeds the dust
production rate [47]. That is, if the solar system is 4.6 Gyr old, then there is
far too much interplanetary dust currently present. An obvious solution could be
that the solar system is quite young. Evolutionists [52, p. 145], who argue that
interplanetary dust is in a steady state balanced between the creation and
destruction rates, have criticized this argument. This subject needs a new
analysis from a creation standpoint paying particular attention to the rate at
which new dust is introduced.
Tidal Evolution of the Earth-Moon System
Due to tidal interaction between the earth and moon, the moon should
slowly spiral outward from the earth, while the earth’s rotation slows. The
rate of lunar recession has been measured by reflecting laser beams off of
mirrors left on the moon’s surface during the Apollo program and timing the
transit times. The current rate is about 4 cm/year, which if extrapolated into
the past, would place the moon at about half its current distance 4.6 Gyr ago.
This distance would not have been a problem, but such a gross extrapolation into
the past is not warranted. It is generally understood that the rate of lunar
recession goes as the inverse sixth power of the moon’s distance [26], and so
the rate should have been greater in the distant past. DeYoung [17] has produced
a plot of this functional dependence to show that for the past 1 Gyr the lunar
distance has been a nearly linear function of time. At about 1 Gyr ago the slope
dramatically changes, so that the moon would have been in contact with the earth
less than 1.5 Gyr ago.
It is not only creationists who have drawn attention to this problem.
The title of one article by a non-creationist scientist [33] asked the question,
"Where Was the Moon Eons Ago?" One problem is that when the moon would
have been in close proximity of the earth there would have been immense ocean
tides that should have left clear records in the fossil record that are not
seen. Another problem is that tidal evolution places an upper limit on the age
of the earth-moon system that is scarcely 1/3 that of the usually assumed 4.6
Gyr age. It should be emphasized that this is not a clear indication that the
earth and moon are only a few thousand years old, but that in a very young solar
system tidal evolution is not a problem.
Evolutionists have countered that due to changes in the earth’s
surface due to plate tectonics, the distribution of ocean floor and continental
shelves has varied with time. Much of the tidal braking that causes lunar
recession occurs in relatively shallow water near coastlines, so it is
conceivable that the rate of lunar recession has an additional time dependence
[52, pp. 146-148]. This explanation requires that we live in a time of unusually
large lunar recession rate. However, several studies of varve and fossil coral
growth have suggested that the current rate of tidal evolution has been nearly
constant for several hundred Myr. These studies have generally been dismissed,
but a recent new study of varves spanning the past 900 Myr [48] present strong
evidence that the average rate of lunar recession over that interval closely
matches the current rate. Note that this agrees with DeYoung’s contention,
that the 1/r6 produces a nearly constant rate for the past 900 Myr.
One could argue that the unusually high rate has coincidentally prevailed for
nearly 1 Gyr, but with the shuffling of plates that should have occurred in that
time, this seems extremely unlikely.
It must be noted that recent creationists reject the age and perhaps
the interpretation of the varves in this recent study, but evolutionists are
generally not in a position to do so. The topic of lunar recession has not been
fully explored by creationists. A full discussion that goes beyond the
relatively simple ones thus far is badly needed.
Lunar Ghost Craters
A final argument for the youth of the solar system that we will
discuss is evidence that apparently has not been published in creation
literature as of yet. The term "ghost crater" is perhaps an obscure
one, and is not often heard in the post-Apollo era. Alter [5] defined a ghost as
"the bare hint which remains of a lunar feature that has been practically
destroyed by some later action." Alter also discussed a number of
photographs that included ghost craters.
The moon has two types of terrain: the maria and the highlands. The
maria are the relatively smooth, darker regions easily visible to the naked eye.
On the other hand the highlands are lighter in color, much more heavily
cratered, and as the name implies, are generally at higher elevations. The color
difference is due to a difference in composition: the highlands are primarily
composed of granite, a lighter colored, less dense rock, while the maria are
made of basalt, a darker, more dense material. The density differences accounts
for the different elevations between the two lunar terrains, but the difference
in cratering is a matter of conjecture.
The moon is assumed to have formed 4.6 Gyr ago with the rest of the
solar system. The leftover material at first was large in number and caused a
huge amount of impacts on the formed bodies of the solar system. With time the
amount of potential impacting bodies would have decreased exponentially, and
this would have caused the formation rate of new craters to decrease as well.
Under this scenario the highlands reveal a nearly primordial surface, while the
maria have a more recent surface. Probably volcanic eruptions overflowed the
maria, erasing most of the craters already there and preparing a smooth surface
to record any impacts since the time of the overflow.
Why did the lava overflow only occur where the maria are today? A clue
is provided by the roughly circular shape of the maria, which suggests that they
were the sites of the largest impacts. Here is the history of the moon as
generally believed [56]. The moon formed 4.5 - 4.6 Gyr ago. Many impacts
followed, but decreased exponentially with time. The outside cooled and hardened
first, while the interior slowly cooled. Sometime around 3.5 to 4.2 Gyr ago
several final large impacts occurred, forming very large craters called
"impact basins." The impacts facilitated the overflow of lava, either
by providing the heat from conversion of kinetic energy to melt material or by
providing deep fractures to allow molten material from the interior to reach the
surface. Either way one would expect the overflow to rapidly follow the
excavation of the impact basins. One would not expect that it would have taken
many millions of years for the second event to follow the first.
However, it is generally thought that as much as a half Gyr elapsed
between these two events [56]. The reason is the existence of many ghost
craters, craters that are faintly visible due to volcanic overflow after they
formed. Note that impact basin formation should have obliterated any craters
that previously existed on the site, so that there can be no craters visible
today that predate that event. But to be a ghost crater the crater must predate
the volcanic overflow. The amount of ghost craters on the moon indicates that
the amount of cratering between the two events (the formation of the impact
basins and the subsequent volcanic overflow) must have been substantial. With a
long time frame (4.6 Gyr) and the presumed cratering rate over time, one is
forced to hypothesize a long period of time between the two events.
Above it was argued that it is more reasonable to conclude that the
two events must have occurred in rapid succession. If that is the case, what
else must follow? The amount of ghost craters and the brief period of time in
which they could have formed forces the adoption of a past cratering rate
several orders of magnitude larger than usually thought. At the same time the
relative lack of fresh craters on the maria suggest that there was a much
steeper decline in the cratering rate than is usually thought. Both of these
concepts are unacceptable to uniformitarianism, but fit very nicely with a model
of recent creation and catastrophism.
The Age of the Universe: The Break Up of Galaxy Clusters
Let us now turn our attention to the age of the universe. A galaxy is
a vast collection of billions of stars orbiting about a common center of mass.
Galaxies are usually found in clusters, collections of tens to thousands of
galaxies. Several decades ago Fritz Zwicky noticed that the members of clusters
of galaxies were traveling too fast to be gravitationally bound to one another.
The result is that the cluster should evaporate over a time scale of about 1Gyr,
far shorter than the 10 to 20 Gyr year age of the universe. Thus the existence
of clusters of galaxies suggest that they must have been created more recently
than generally thought [46]. As with some of the other arguments of recent
creation presented, this one does not directly produce an age of a few thousand
years. Instead it indicates an upper limit for the age that may be better
reconciled with a recent creation rather than an old one.
The answer that evolutionists have devised is that the clusters are
held together by the gravitational force of unseen, or dark, matter.
Calculations reveal that the amount of matter required to do this is many times
the mass of the visible matter. In many estimates only about 10% if the total
matter of the universe is visible. If the apparent break up of galaxy clusters
were the only reason for hypothesized dark matter, then one could easily doubt
its existence. Binney and Tremaine devote an entire chapter of their book [10,
pp. 589-641] to the discussion of dark matter. They give several lines of
evidence for dark matter that are independent of galaxy cluster dynamics. These
include the motions of stars in the solar neighborhood, the motions of galactic
Population II tracers, and mass-to-light ratios of the central regions of
elliptical galaxies. Perhaps the best probes of dark matter are rotation curves
of spiral galaxies. According to Binney and Tremaine [10, p. 599], nearly all of
more than 70 spiral galaxies for which there are suitable rotation curves
strongly indicate large amounts of dark matter. Rotation curves of galaxies
suggest that dark matter may really exist, but the identity of the dark matter
remains a mystery, despite many attempts to identify it. Only time will
tell if this is a good argument for a recent creation. Given this additional
data, it is doubtful that the alleged break up of galaxy clusters is a good
argument for recent creation. Unfortunately, when discussing this topic, many
creationists fail to mention that there is other evidence for missing mass, or
even acknowledge that missing mass is a proposed explanation for the observed
velocities.
Spiral Structure of Galaxies
Another possible clue to a recent origin of the universe is the
existence of spiral galaxies. Spiral galaxies are called such because of the
very beautiful spiral or pinwheel shape that they have. The inner portions of
the galaxy should orbit more quickly than the outer portions, and so any
patterns such as this should be smeared out in just a few revolutions. This
smearing should require no more than 2 Gyr, much less time than the supposed
10-15 Gyr that the galaxies have existed. For a discussion of this from a recent
creation perspective, see [46].
This was recognized as a problem for many years, but most thought that
the problem was solved by "spiral density wave" (SDW) theory suggested
more than 30 years ago. Briefly stated, this theory suggests that the spiral
arms of a galaxy are a density enhancements, or shock waves, that continually
move around in a galaxy's gravitational field. This shock wave would form the
dense clouds and bright stars that we see in spiral arms. Humphreys [31] says
that SDW theory requires that a number of parameters be fine tuned to make the
theory work. If this is true, then the SDW is not such a straightforward answer
to the problem of spiral structure in old galaxies as is usually thought. This
entire subject is in serious need of a creationist reevaluation. Creationists
are urged to discuss the possibility of SDW when using this problem as an
indicator for recent creation.
The Lack of Supernova Remnants
A final young universe indicator that we will discuss is the age of
supernova remnants (SNR). Supernovae are large explosions that destroy massive
stars and can rival an entire galaxy in brightness for a short time. In a given
galaxy three or four supernovae are believed to occur each century, a number
confirmed from the many supernovae that are observed in other galaxies each
year. While a supernova is only visible for a few months, the SNR consisting of
expanding gas should be observable for millions of years. Our location in the
galaxy does not permit us to observe most supernovae in the visible part of the
spectrum (in the 400 years since the invention of the telescope a supernova in
our galaxy has not been observed), but many SNR's are detectable in our galaxy
with radio telescopes. In fact, observations in the radio portion of the
spectrum are the most common means in which SNR’s are studied.
The visibility of a SNR is a function of distance, size and expansion
rate, and the age can be inferred from the observations. As a SNR ages, it
becomes more extended and rarefied so that eventually it is no longer
observable. Surveys of all of the observed SNR's in our galaxy reveal many young
ones, generally thousands of years old. In fact, only a few older than a few
thousand years are observed at all. Theoretical considerations show that many
older SNR’s should be observable, but observations seem to show that most of
them are missing. This appears to be a very powerful argument for a recent
creation, and has been discussed by Davies [14].
CONCLUSION
Let us now turn to some problems that creation astronomers face today
and examine where work should progress. We have talked about the solar system
and the universe as a whole, but we have talked very little about the
"middle ground" of stellar astronomy. Stellar astronomers have
developed very compelling evolutionary theories to explain the origin and
diversity of stars as well as the elements. In the only creationist critique of
stellar evolution, Mulfinger [37] argued for the rejection of all of stellar
evolution theory. A possible problem with this approach is that the theory has a
very strong basis in physics, a situation very different from biological
evolution. Faulkner and DeYoung [23], who cautioned that creationists must be
prepared to give strong physical arguments for rejecting stellar evolution,
noted this.
There are many who reject biological evolution but accept stellar
evolution. Indeed, there is some question of the word evolution meaning the same
thing in these two fields. Many creationists view stellar and biological
evolution in the same light. Morris has argued for the fixity of stars, that one
type does not evolve into another. He has also argued that the birth of new
stars would be tantamount to the appearance of a new kind of animal, something
that the creation model does not allow. But is the birth of new stars more like
the creation of new creatures, or is it more like the replacement of dead ones?
We know that animals die and so must be replaced, so perhaps this is the proper
analog to stellar birth. Some creationists seem to be in the inconsistent
position of insisting that stellar evolution does not occur, but when it does,
it is actually stellar decay.
While many Christians have entered the fields of biology and geology
to combat evolution the takeover of astronomy by evolutionary thinking has
scarcely been noticed, and there are few qualified creationist astronomers.
Creationists need to do much more work in stellar astronomy. Many questions need
to be addressed; we will briefly discuss two. First, are stars forming today? It
is generally theorized that stars form from gas clouds. As mentioned above, many
creationists insist a new star today would be equivalent to a new kind of animal
arising today, and that the completion of the creation week precludes this
possibility. But a supernova appears to be the death of a star, and if death
occurs, why could not the birth occur as well? In other words, perhaps the birth
of a star is equivalent to the birth of an individual organism rather than a new
kind of organism. It has long been known that a cloud of gas is generally stable
against collapse to form a star. The reason is that the gas pressure present in
the cloud will resist the compression. If some agent condenses the cloud to a
certain point, then the gravitational force of the cloud can lead to a star. The
theoretical difficulty has been to identify a natural process that can bring an
originally diffuse cloud to this point.
Several agents have been proposed to initiate the process of
proto-stellar collapse. Two of the more popular, shock wave compression and
cooling by radiation from dust, will be briefly mentioned here. It has been
suggested that a supernova explosion near a gas cloud could cause the cloud to
be compressed to a size that would allow gravitational contraction to occur.
Alternately, for a given size and mass, a cloud could be caused to contract if
it could shed some of its heat. This could be accomplished by the radiation of
dust particles embedded in the cloud. Both of these mechanisms suffer from the
same problem: they require that some stars must exist first. A supernova
explosion obviously requires at least one preexisting star, but evolutionary
theories of the universe demand that the elements found in dust particles could
only have been produced by stellar nucleosynthesis and that the dust grains
themselves could only have been formed in the atmospheres of red giants. This
presents the obvious problem of where the first stars came from.
In passing it should be noted that some creationists believe that the
formation of a star violates the second law of thermodynamics [37], but this is
not true. If one starts with a sphere of gas of larger radius and contracts the
sphere to a smaller radius, then the simple application of gas equations does
seem to suggest a decrease in entropy. It is also obvious that in the lab gases
do not spontaneously contract, which seems to be a consequence of the second law
of thermodynamics. At least two differences exist between the laboratory
situation and a contracting protostar. One is that the protostar possesses
considerable internal energy in the form of gravitational potential energy that
the lab gas does not. The other difference is that the protostar sheds
considerable energy by radiation. As the protostar contracts, the gravitational
potential energy is liberated. By the virial theorem, half the released energy
heats the gas, while the other half is radiated. Recall that the definition of
entropy change is dS=dQ/T, where dQ is the heat flow and T is the temperature.
Since the heat loss is negative, the entropy change of the protostar would be
negative, as it is for any radiating object.
In fact, Mulfinger’s entropy calculation can be generalized to any
self-gravitating spherical gas (cloud, protostar or star) with the result (in
molar units):
D
S=3/2 R ln(r2/r1)
where R is the ideal gas constant, r1 is the radius of the
object at some time and r2 is the size at some later time. Since the
cloud or star is contracting, r2 < r1, so that D
S is negative. Mulfinger applied this sort of equation to demonstrate that since
this entropy change is negative, the second law of thermodynamics prohibited the
contraction of a gas cloud to form a star. What he ignored was the fact that
energy is radiated from the protostar (thus D
S is negative), but that the absorption of that energy elsewhere produces an
even larger positive increase in entropy, so that the total entropy change is
positive.
To emphasize that something is amiss here, let us apply this approach
to another self-gravitating gaseous object. Since the announcement in 1979 that
the sun may be shrinking, many creationists have seized upon the possibility
that the sun may be powered by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism rather than by
thermonuclear reactions. Of course this strongly implies a greatly reduced solar
age [27] (this idea is less attractive than it once was; for a good creationist
review of this see [18]). If the above approach is applied to the Kelvin-Helmholtz
contraction, a negative entropy change seems to be the result. Of course, most
creationists believe that Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction does occur.
The last problem that we will discuss is probably the single biggest
problem that recent creationists face today: the light travel time. Simply
stated, if the universe is billions of light years in size, then how did the
light from most objects get here in a few thousand years? Several answers have
been proposed. One is that light travels in a non-Euclidean geometry. This was
suggested more than 40 years ago by a couple of non-creationist physicists to
address a different problem. Though still mentioned from time to time, few take
it seriously anymore [3]. There is a prediction about close binary stars that
the model makes, and the predicted effect is not observed, but this apparently
has not been published.
Setterfield, who showed that the measured speed of light had decreased
since the first measurement was made three centuries ago, proposed a second
answer. Extrapolating the much higher speed of light into the past could produce
a speed that was near infinite in the early universe and would permit the light
from the most distant objects to have reached us. In the past 15 years there has
been much debate among creationists over this issue, with some insisting that
the effect is real and others convinced that it is not. A mini-symposium on this
topic appeared in the Creation Research Society Quarterly a few years
ago. The early measurements provide the greatest evidence, but are also subject
to the greatest error. It is most curious that the decrease seemed to end about
1960. There are some theoretical problems as well. The speed of light is not a
constant that can be arbitrarily changed. It depends upon some fundamental
constants that have an effect on the structure of matter. If the speed of light
is changed much, the structure of matter will be dramatically changed.
Most creationists have adopted the concept of a fully functioning
universe as the best explanation for the light travel time problem. In the
garden Adam would have been a particularly healthy male. If we could go back in
a time machine and examine him we might have concluded that he was 20 to 30
years old. Of course we would have been wrong, because Adam was created only a
few days before. In other words, creation implies some sort of apparent history.
It is argued that in like fashion, for the stars to serve their intended purpose
(for the marking of time and seasons) their light must have reached earth in
time for Adam to see them two days later. Thus God must have created the light
in transit.
But did Adam bear the scars of past history, such as injuries that
never happened? When the fossilized remains of large extinct and previously
unknown creatures were unearthed over a century ago, some Christians responded
that the fossils were created in the rocks and that the creatures never existed;
they just appeared to have existed. Most people would reject this as absurd. Yet
the creation of starlight in transit raises a similar philosophical point. In
the spring of 1987 a supernova was observed in a nearby galaxy called the Large
Magellanic Cloud. Since that time the progress of the explosion and its
aftermath have been carefully observed. We have been able to piece together many
fine details of what happened. But if the notion of light created in transit is
correct, then none of the observed events happened. How is this different from
God creating fossils in the ground? This idea also has no predictive power like
the other two suggestions above, which relegates it more to a philosophical idea
rather than a scientific one.
On the other hand the white hole cosmogony of Humphreys [29], [30] is
a very detailed scientific model that seeks to answer the light travel time
question. As with the big bang or steady state theories, this model assumes
modern relativity theory, but with a different set of initial conditions for the
universe. One of the big differences is that the universe started as a white
hole. Humphreys assumes that the matter of the universe is bounded. He had
chosen to call his model a white hole cosmology, because he perceives that the
initial condition is similar to what is called a white hole. Most people have
heard of black holes: regions of space where matter and light are falling inward
and cannot escape. Most people are not aware that the same theory predicts the
possibility of white holes, regions of space very similar to black holes except
matter and light are streaming outward. Such a condition is unstable, and so
unlike black holes which may exist forever once they form, white holes exist for
a relatively short time before ceasing to exist. That is one reason why white
holes largely have been largely ignored. Another reason they have been ignored
is that we have a theory of how black holes can form naturally at this time in
the universe, but not white holes. Any primordial white holes should have ceased
to exist by now.
The Humphreys cosmology assumes that the universe began as a white
hole. Sometime during late in the creation week the white hole ceased to exist,
giving us our present universe. The particle horizon swept past the distant
stars on day four when the starlight reached the earth on that day. The
important point is that through relativistic effects, time proceeds at very
different rates in different parts of the universe. While only a few thousand
years elapsed near and on the earth, billions of years could have elapsed
elsewhere. This would allow light to travel millions or billions of light years
to reach the earth while only a few thousand years occurred on the earth. This
all happens because of the different rate at which time passes in different
reference frames in general relativity. Not only does this cosmogony purport to
answer the light travel time problem, it also provides creationists with a
Biblically based cosmology as well.
However, several questions remain. For instance, why does the solar
system, which is not the product of stellar nucleosynthesis, and the rest of the
universe, which has undergone stellar nucleosynthesis, have the same basic
composition? As mentioned earlier, most creationists reject stellar evolution,
but the Humphreys cosmology seems to demand that it has occurred. The Humphreys
cosmology also demands that the universe is indeed Gyr’s old, though only a
few thousand years has elapsed since the beginning of creation in the reference
frame of the earth. It would seem those indicators of a young universe, such as
sprial structure in galaxies, the break up of clusters of galaxies, and the ages
of SNR’s cannot be reconciled to the Humphreys cosmogony. While only six days
occurred on or near the earth, exactly when in those six days did the creation
of the stars take place? If the particle horizon swept past the distant stars on
the fourth day so that the stars first became visible on the earth, then how is
that different from those who argue the same thing (that stars were created
earlier, but only became visible on the surface of the earth on day four), but
that the cause was a clearing of the atmosphere?
While the Humphreys cosmogony met with little discussion or opposition
at first, the level of debate has increased tremendously. Several critical
papers have been written [11], [13], and Humphreys has responded [32]. Humphreys'
critics have charged that he has either misunderstood or improperly applied
general relativity in his model. Byl [11] has argued that while time dilation
effects are real, the sense of time corrections are always in the wrong
direction and/or are too small to solve the light travel time. Byl, along with
Connor and Page [13], concludes that the approach that Humphreys is attempting
would more properly describe the time difference between an observer in the
universe to one outside of the universe. If this is true, then the Humphreys
model certainly does not succeed in addressing the question as framed. This
criticism has led the editorial staff of the ICC to conclude that there was a
failure in the peer review process of Humphreys' 1994 paper [29] in which he
first publicly presented his model. Humphreys is convinced that his model is
still viable and is continuing to correct and refine his model. Whether this
model survives or not, we should applaud this very serious effort that Humphreys
has made.
So what is the state of creationist astronomy? We have seen that it
has some good points to make. We have also seen that there have been some false
starts and some problems. We must go beyond arguing what is wrong with
evolutionary models. What is needed is an overall model or paradigm to describe
the universe. A formation and history of the solar system must be explored. A
particularly important question to address here is when and how the cratering
that we see in the solar system occurred. Did the cratering occur during
creation, at the fall, during the flood, or at some other time? A few authors
have begun work on this question [25], [39]. If we are not satisfied with
stellar evolution, then we must provide physical arguments against it and supply
our alternative. For the universe as a whole we must explain the light travel
time in a plausible way.
Some progress has been made in creationist astronomy, but there is
much work to be done. Older arguments must be continually reevaluated and
expanded. The words of the late George Mulfinger in his early review are just as
true today as they were 25 years ago [38]:
"…much
work remains to be done the in the area of creationist astronomy. Christians who
have sufficient background in the field who have strong enough convictions to
take a good stand on the issues involved should be encouraged to write."
It is hoped that this discussion has inspired some who are already
competent in the field to pursue these matters or encouraged bright young people
to enter the field for this purpose.
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