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Reasons To Believe Home PageAstronomer William Keel, University of Alabama astronomer and RTB friend, recently participated in another faith-building discovery. He and two colleagues from the University of Chicago tried observing the spiral arms of distant galaxies through the spiral arms of intervening (nearer) galaxies. The team discovered that only 15 to 20 percent of the light from the more distant galaxies comes through.1, 2 Most of it is absorbed by dust in the nearer galaxies' spiral arms. Researchers have thus discovered another significance to our solar system's location between, not in, the spiral arms of the Milky Way. According to Keel, if we were in one of the spiral arms, we may never have seen other galaxies at all.1 We may never have discovered that we reside in a galaxy.
I say "another" significance because researchers have already determined that intense radiation from supergiant stars within the spiral arms could break through the atmospheric and ionospheric layers that protect living things from that radiation's deadly effects.
Situated where we are, however, we have what can aptly be described as a window seat to the splendors of the universe. We are granted an unobstructed view day and night, everywhere on earth, in a language understandable to all, of God's glory written in the heavens.
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Closer to the Beginning
In their quest to probe the mysteries of the universe's origin and development, astrophysicists have been looking deeper and deeper into space, which means farther and farther back in time. The universe we see today is filled with galaxies and clusters of galaxies, but what existed before galaxies? How did galaxies arise? The growing body of astrophysical data suggests that relatively small clumps of gas and newly forming stars coalesced, or merged, to become galaxies. These building blocks would have been common when the universe was very young, about a half billion to four billion years old, but getting a look at them has been impossible. The biggest and best ground-based telescopes could barely detect giant galaxies, which are many times brighter, at distances of eleven or twelve billion light years.
Within recent months, however, two instruments have provided breakthrough glimpses: the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and a new instrument, the Multiple Mirror Telescope, in Arizona. University of Alabama astronomer (and RTB friend) William Keel joined three Arizona State University astronomers in discovering eighteen dim clumps of stars, each about 1,500 light years in diameter, in an area about a million light years across, approximately twelve billion light years away.1 Spectral studies revealed that the stars in each of these eighteen clumps is comprised of hot young stars—exactly what astrophysicists predicted in their galaxy formation models.
Meanwhile, four French astronomers have detected the most distant galaxy ever observed. It accompanies a quasar at redshift z = 4.7.2 This redshift indicates a truly enormous distance—in time as well as space—taking us back to when the universe was only a billion years old. A study of this galaxy's radiation (its spectral lines) by the French team and by others confirms the presence of very young, very hot stars.2, 3
These two discoveries provide further corroboration—stunning visual corroboration—for the big bang creation scenario. A year ago, researchers could provide us with a brief photo album of the developing universe, which you may have seen in this column.4 It included HST images of galaxies at one-tenth, one-third, and two-thirds the current age of the universe, all that were then available. The dramatic differences in the structure of galaxies at different ages gave a visual testimony to the relatively recent (14-18 billion years ago) "birth" (or creation) of the cosmos. We could see the now middle-aged cosmos as a toddler, a teenager, and a young adult. Now that photo album includes snaps of the cosmos in its infant stages. It has thus become more complete, more satisfying to the curiosity and wonder of us who werenot around to see it from the beginning.
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Fungus Paints Darker Picture of Permian Catastrophe
The greatest extinction of life ever recorded in the fossils appears to have been even worse than previous estimates suggested.1 The Permian extinction, a catastrophic series of events about a quarter billion years ago, may have destroyed as many land species as ocean species—some 90 percent.
An international team of eight paleobotanists and geologists has found evidence of wood-rotting fungi in huge abundance across five continents at an epoch which corresponds with the Permian extinction.2 The quantity of fungi indicates a vast supply of dead wood covering those land masses, a supply so large as to suggest a near total extinction of land plants.
Some corroboration of this hypothesis comes from a recent, specialized study in Australia. That study reveals that 97 percent of leafy plant species went extinct in the Permian era.3 And since animal species rely heavily on plants for food, we can reasonably postulate that a massive animal extinction resulted. Thus, the former 70 percent figure for Permian extinction of plants and land animals is being revised upward.
A second basis for the revision comes from a geophysical study published in 1995. As you may recall, the several probable causes of the devastation included huge lava flows across Siberia.4 New research establishes that the impact of these Siberian eruptions was previously underestimated.5 Enough molten basalt spewed forth to pave the entire surface of Earth twenty feet thick, had the stuff been distributed evenly. At the same time, these eruptions released enough chlorine and sulphur to poison both the atmosphere and the water on which land life depends.
Such a vast extinction event as the Permian catastrophe poses a formidable challenge to any strictly naturalistic interpretation of life. Given the extent and characteristics of the Permian devastation, natural selection and mutations fall far short of adequately explaining the rapid, widespread, and diverse speciation that occurred as soon as conditions on Earth improved.
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Our Solar System, the Heavyweight Champion
Scientists long ago acknowledged that without elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, life would be impossible. But these heavier elements take a while to produce. Several generations of large stars must form, burn up their nuclear fuel, and disperse their ashes (sometimes via nova or supernova explosions) to interstellar space before the supply of these heavy elements becomes adequate for solar-type stars, rocky planets, and living things to exist.1, 2
As our galaxy ages, the heavy element density of interstellar space gradually increases. Therefore, the more recently a star is formed, the greater the heavy element abundance astronomers expect to find in and around it. No wonder astronomers were surprised to discover that our five-billion-year-old sun contains about 60 percent more carbon, for instance, than other much younger stars in our galactic vicinity.3 The sun also possesses considerably more oxygen and iron than these youthful stars.
The big question is this: How did our solar system acquire such a rich abundance of these life-essential elements? Since the death of enormous stars (through supernova eruptions) produces much higher concentrations of such elements than does the death of merely large ones, the simplest answer would be that our solar system formed in very close proximity (of space and time) to a supernova explosion. Such an explanation receives confirmation from measurements of the 12carbon to 13carbon ratio. Supernovae produce a much higher 12C to 13C ratio than do other stellar furnaces. The 12C to 13C ratio in the solar system is so high that virtually all of its carbon must have come from a supernova and little, if any, from other sources.4 Does this strategic positioning of our solar system in time and space reflect "good luck" or divine design? You can guess what seems more reasonable to me.
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Cosmic Age Controversy Closer to Resolution
A little more than a year ago, the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, and many other news media reported a "crisis in cosmology," contradictory findings that the universe measures four billion years younger than its oldest stars.1 As I pointed out in my initial response and a subsequent update, the journalists missed the real controversy, a feud among astronomers over ways to measure the Hubble constant (the universe's expansion rate). One group's measurements showed a slower expansion rate, thus an age about two to six billion years older than the other group's figures indicated.2 And early applications of a new technique (gravitational lensing) for measuring the Hubble constant favored the slower rate.3
The latest research brings astronomers substantially closer to reconciliation of their differences and to resolution of the so-called crisis. While additional measures of Hubble's constant through gravitational lensing have been slow in coming, more accurate measures of the oldest stars' ages and of distances to several more galaxies (measurements of primary importance to determination of the Hubble constant) have developed more rapidly than anticipated.
One set of these new measurements involving close study of a certain class of stars called "Cepheid variables" yields values for the Hubble constant of 52, 57, and 62 respectively.4-6 A measurement of the distance to the center of the Virgo supercluster of galaxies produced a Hubble constant value of 55.7 A recalibration of a certain type of supernova observed in various galaxies gave a value for the Hubble constant of 57.8 The average of these five values for the Hubble constant is 57. This figure translates into an age of about 16 1/2 billion years, an age consistent with the ages of the oldest stars.
At the same time, four American and Canadian astronomers completed exhaustive calculations for the burning times of stars in the seventeen oldest globular clusters associated with our galaxy.9 (The oldest stars astronomers see in the universe are stars belonging to globular clusters.) The mean age the team derived for such stars was 14.6 ± 1.3 billion years.10 Depending on which kind of hot big bang creation model one chooses, the time from the creation event to the formation of the first globular cluster stars ranges from 0.1 to 2.0 billion years. Therefore, the ages for the oldest stars are completely consistent with the time frame suggested by the Hubble constant.
Even before these new measurements were available, we could conclude that despite a few large error bars, the various measures for the creation date of the cosmos roughly agreed. Now that the errors are much smaller, the agreement is greater. As more measurements and more precise measurements come in, the difference between the oldest stars' ages and the universe's expansion time frame will help determine which of the several dozen hot big bang models most accurately tells the creation story.
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Refined Maps Help Refine Creation Model
If you've watched science news over the past few years, you know that technological advances have enabled NASA researchers to go way beyond merely detecting the radiation left over from the creation event. They have been mapping the features of that radiation, trying to understand more about the features of the universe.1, 2 The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite produced the first two maps, and balloon-borne and ground-based instruments have provided more maps with slightly higher resolution.3-5 These windows to the distant past have generated a big stir in the science community. But the excitement is growing.
A new instrument, the Cosmic Anistropy Telescope (CAT), is generating images sixty times sharper than the COBE maps.6-7 Three small microwave horns separated from each other by about six feet comprise the CAT. Because they are linked to work as an interferometer (an accuracy-enhancing device), these horns can give us this greatly improved resolution. With its capacity for precision, the CAT is measuring the cosmic background radiation at an angular resolution scale as tiny as about one-third of a degree, where the temperature fluctuations are nearly three times stronger than they are for the angular scale measured by the COBE satellite (about seven degrees). Thus, the CAT can produce not only the sharpest but also the most fluctuation sensitive maps to date.
Astronomers anticipate that CAT-like instruments will bring us answers to important unsolved mysteries of the cosmos. By revealing at precisely what angular scale the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation are the greatest, these new tools will show us whether the universe is comprised of predominantly cold dark matter, warm dark matter, hot dark matter, or some combination of cold, warm, and hot dark matter. This determination would give researchers a tremendous boost in refining their creation model for the universe.
Nicknamed the Very Small Array, CAT's ten-horned successor will need several months, possibly even two to three years of observations, to produce results definitive enough to satisfy cosmologists. Watch this column. I will keep you posted as the findings come in.
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Oopsy, Daisy
In a news commentary for the prestigious science journal Nature, Jared Diamond declares the conquest of creationism. He claims direct evidence for the evolution of a plant species from beginning to end over a few years' time.1 What is this remarkable new species? A daisy growing on some islets off the coast of British Columbia, not far from my childhood home. Is it really new?
Two botanists observed a daisy species that disperses seeds the way dandelions do. They noted that the ratio of parachute size to seed weight decreased as the daisy migrated from the mainland to several isolated islets. In fact, they measured a substantial drop in this ratio over just ten years.
This rapid and measurable change supposedly constitutes proof positive that evolutionary processes are sufficient to account for the existence of life and of all the various species of life. Does it? Or is it rather an example of intra-species adaptation propelled by a powerful motivator. On any given islet, daisy seeds with a large chute-size-to-seed-weight ratio will be blown into the ocean (or perhaps all the way back to the mainland) while seeds with smaller chute-size-to-seed-weight ratio have a better chance of falling on the islet's tiny land mass. It should come as no surprise, then, that the daisies responded to natural selection. The size-to-weight ratio determined their chance of survival. This "proof" of evolutionism seems more accurately an illustration of the impact of selective breeding. Consider what unnatural selection (by humans) has accomplished among dogs, cows, and chickens.
The Canadian coastal daisies and the various breeds of dogs, cows, and chickens exemplify micro-evolution. In other words, the daisies are still daisies. They have not changed into dogwoods. What is more, when the conditions favoring small size-to-weight ratios change, the daisies revert rapidly back to the larger ratio that favors survival on a large land mass.
Do creationists deny the operation of micro-evolution? I know of none. Does the Bible rule out all aspects of natural evolution? No. The Bible imposes few limits on the operation of these processes among species of plants and lower animals.2 Nature imposes the severest limits.3 With respect to birds, mammals, and humans, the Bible clearly attributes these creatures' existence to God's direct, miraculous intervention.4 It also states that such creatures will "reproduce after their own kind." The Hebrew word for kind, min, is a term with broad enough meaning that it could refer to genera, possibly even orders, not just to species.5 Thus, some limited natural diversification among these creatures may be possible without violating the biblical creation account. Again, scientific evidence suggests that natural processes impose greater limits on evolutionary change than do the words of the Bible.
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