New Reasons To Believe Mini-Magazine: 2009, Vol. 01, No. 03

Reaching Deep into Africa

Thanks to those who sent a reply in response to the last issue, where I asked how you were using New Reasons to Believe. Keep ‘em coming (jaguirre@reasons.org). A letter from Africa (excerpt to follow and style unaltered) provides a refreshing reminder of the need for, and impact of, RTB's work.

I am a part-time teacher at the Uganda Christian University (UCU) here in Uganda (East Africa). I teach two course: Understanding Worldviews and Introduction to Ethics. I use the explanations in the Reasons mag in the course on worldviews. I started using some of the explanations after realizing that the students are asking more and more complex questions concerning worldviews, especially when it comes to issues of origin of the universe. For example one student stood up and asked me if I could refute evolution since to her it was very plausible. I had to ask that I answer it in next lecture because I could not generate a good response (imagine in a crammed and packed hall of around 300 students!!). That week I looked up some of my copies of the Reasons mag and looked for academically sound explanations to answer the student. Next week when I started to explain intelligent design, the students were very interested. Some few came after to know more and I occasionally direct them to your website.

THANK YOU Reasons Team once again.

–Kanakulya Dickson • Kampala, Uganda

And thank you, Kanakulya, for bringing joy to hearts in America and everywhere.

In This Issue...

Phone Home! Artificial DNA Provides Authentic Evidence for Design
by Fazale Rana, Ph.D.

"DNA! He's Got DNA. Kilos!"
"DNA?"
"Positive. He's got DNA."

Moviegoers in 1982 would have heard this exchange as they watched a team of researchers––draped in sterile white gowns, faces covered in masks––huddle in an operating room around an alien creature, the lovable E.T.

Scientists and laypeople alike equate DNA with life itself. This biomolecule—ideally suited to harbor genetic information—is so indispensable that many in the scientific community find it hard to imagine how any life-form could exist without it.

Yet, in recent years some scientists have begun to question DNA's exceptional role. These investigators have raised the possibility that maybe life "as we don't know it" might exist somewhere else in the solar system or beyond. And perhaps such hypothetical organisms don't have any DNA at all. Instead, they might make use of a completely different type of molecule to store the information needed to direct life's operations and then pass that information to offspring.

Other scientists are trying to create life in the lab––nonnatural, artificial creatures distinct from anything found in nature. These researchers start with relatively simple molecules and aim to synthesize proto-cellular entities that display the characteristics of life. Investigators have set out on this quest because they hope it will lead to a more fundamental understanding of what life is. Also, the work could yield important biomedical and biotechnology applications. As a first step, some researchers are trying to make artificial DNA molecules.
One of the leaders in this effort is distinguished molecular biologist Steven Benner, who recently formed the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. He and his collaborators have designed a DNA molecule that incorporates eight nonnatural nucleobases into its structure along with the four naturally occurring nucleobases (A, G, C, and T).¹ They refer to these artificial DNA molecules as AEGIS (artificially expanded genetic information systems).

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DNA

DNA consists of chain-like molecules known as polynucleotides. Two polynucleotide chains align in a parallel fashion to form a DNA molecule. The paired polynucleotide chains twist around each other forming the well-known DNA double helix.  The cell's machinery forms polynucleotide chains by linking together four different subunit molecules called nucleotides. The four nucleotides used to build DNA chains are adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and thymidine, abbreviated A, G, C and T, respectively.

When the two DNA strands align, the adenine (A) side chains of one strand always pair with thymine (T) side chains from the other strand. Likewise, the guanine (G) side chains from one DNA strand always pair with cytosine (C) side chains from the other strand.

Because of the base-pairing rules, if biochemists know the sequence of one DNA strand, they can readily determine the sequence of the other strand. The nucleotide sequences of the two DNA strands that comprise the double helix are said to be complementary to each other.

Nucleotide Structure

The nucleotide molecules that make up the strands of DNA are in turn complex molecules consisting of both a phosphate moiety, and a nucleobase (adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine) joined to a 5-carbon sugar (deoxyribose). 

The backbone of the DNA strand is formed by repeatedly linking the phosphate group of one nucleotide to the deoxyribose unit of another nucleotide. The nucleobases extend as side chains from the backbone of the DNA molecule and serve as interaction points (like ladder rungs) when the two DNA strands align and twist to form the double helix.

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The nonnatural nucleobases form base-pair partners just like DNA's A-T and G-C. Benner and his team have demonstrated a breakthrough; namely, that when nucleotides containing these nonnatural nucleobases are incorporated into DNA, they don't distort the DNA double helix.

Even more compelling, the team has shown that DNA polymerases (proteins that make DNA by adding nucleotides, one-by-one, to a single strand of DNA) can use a DNA strand containing nonnatural nucleobases as a template to generate a complementary DNA strand. This achievement means that once they have synthetically made DNA containing the nonnatural nucleobases, these molecules––just like the natural form of DNA––can be replicated using DNA polymerases.

Additionally, DNA polymerases are prone to errors when they assemble a DNA strand. These mistakes alter the DNA sequence, and in effect constitute mutations. Because of these types of mutations, the artificial DNA can evolve. Many scientists consider self-replication and evolvability to be two key properties of life. In fact, in the future Benner's group hopes to subject these systems to natural selection.

This milestone sets the stage for more ambitious experiments that scientists hope will one day will lead to the creation of artificial life-forms with novel, nonnatural biochemistries. When that day comes, many people will declare that if scientists can make life in the lab, then God isn't necessary to explain the origin of life.
Not so fast. Instead of providing support for the evolutionary paradigm, I think this accomplishment will demonstrate empirically that, if not for the involvement of an intelligent agent, life could not come about. Benner and his colleagues' work already hints at that conclusion.  

Note the intelligence involved in this process. The preparation of artificial DNA molecules required careful laboratory manipulations on the part of highly skilled and extensively trained chemists. More importantly, to create artificial DNAs, Benner and his team had to develop well-thought-out strategies to design these novel biomolecules. They had to expend a significant amount of mental effort to identify artificial nucleobases that would pair with each other in the DNA double helix without distorting it. They also had to work hard to identify nonnatural nucleobases that would be recognized by DNA polymerases. Even though this work has involved some trial and error, the ingenuity of Benner and his team is evident throughout the experimental design. Given how much effort these scientists expended in their quest for artificial life, is it reasonable to think the highly optimized structure of DNA² in natural life could have originated via undirected evolutionary processes?

DNA may or may not equate with life. Scientists will continue to debate that statement. However, whether natural or artificial, it increasingly seems that the creation of this molecule requires the work of a Designer––in the case of natural DNA, an extraterrestrial one.

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DNA Replication

Biochemists refer to DNA replication as a template-directed, semi-conservative process. By template directed, biochemists mean that the nucleotide sequences of the 'parent' DNA molecule function as a template, directing the assembly of the DNA strands of the two 'daughter' molecules. By semi-conservative, biochemists mean that after replication, each 'daughter' DNA molecule contains one newly formed DNA strand and one strand from the 'parent' molecule.

Conceptually, template-directed, semi-conservative DNA replication entails the separation of the 'parent' DNA double-helix into two single strands. By using the base-pairing rules, each strand serves as a template for the cell's machinery to use when it forms a new DNA strand with a nucleotide sequence complementary to the parent strand.

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References:
1. For example see Stephanie A. Havemann et al., "Incorporation of Multiple Sequential Pseudothymidines by DNA Polymerases and Their Impact on DNA Duplex Structure," Nucleosides, Nucleotides, and Nucleic Acids 27 (2008): 261–78.
2. See my book, The Cell's Design (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), for a discussion on why DNA's structure is optimal.

Strange New Worlds: Life Based on Silicon, Arsenic?
by Fazale Rana, Ph.D.

When I was in junior high school, I seldom missed Star Trek (the original series) on TV. In one of my favorite episodes the crew of the Enterprise encountered a silicon-based life-form, called a Horta, on the mining planet Janus VI. Even as a teenager I found this idea intriguing. Could life be based on an element like silicon (or perhaps arsenic, as we'll see later) instead of carbon?

Life as we know it on Earth consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur (CHONPS). But could other elements constitute life as we don't know it?

Not merely a discussion topic for science-fiction buffs, this question bears on origin-of-life discussions and on the search for extraterrestrial life. Carbon-based life requires a strict set of conditions. But perhaps life based on an element like silicon can exist under more extreme conditions. Few places in our solar system, and presumably beyond, can conceivably support carbon-based life. But for life built upon silicon, habitable sites may well abound throughout the universe.

However, of the 112 known chemical elements, only carbon possesses sufficiently complex chemical behavior to sustain living systems.  Carbon readily assembles into stable molecules comprised of individual and fused rings and linear and branched chains. It forms single, double, and triple bonds. Carbon also strongly bonds with itself as well as with oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrogen.

Silicon belongs to the same chemical group as carbon and should display similar chemical properties, prompting some astrobiologists to propose that life could be based on this element. But while silicon does form rings and chains, these structures lack the stability and the range of complexity found in carbon-based compounds. Silicon-silicon bonds are much weaker than the corresponding carbon-carbon bonds, and unlike carbon-carbon bonds, they are susceptible to oxidation.    

"Analysis, Spock?"
"Nonfeasible."
What about arsenic? Physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies suggests there may be unusual life-forms that use arsenic instead of phosphorus.  Phosphorus plays a key role in forming important biomolecules like DNA. Arsenic appears below phosphorus in the same column of the periodic table and displays similar chemical behavior, thus again prompting speculation that life could make use of arsenic.
However, though arsenic and phosphorus share some chemical properties, the two elements display significantly different chemistries as well. Phosphorus is a nonmetal. Arsenic is a metalloid.

Phosphorus reacts with oxygen to form chemical compounds called phosphates. These groups take part in the linkages that constitute the backbone of the DNA molecule by reacting with the sugar, deoxyribose. The sugar-phosphate linkages are described as phosphate esters. Arsenic will also form a compound called arsenate by reacting with oxygen. Arsenates and phosphates display some chemical similarities, but esters formed with arsenates are unstable. They could never be used to construct the backbone of DNA––considered indispensable for life––or another similar compound.

"Spock?"
"Nonfeasible."
It's laudable for science to boldly go where no man's gone before, but it looks like life based on elements other than CHONPS is truly science fiction.

References:
1 . T. W. Graham Solomons, Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley, 1980), 48–49.
2. F. Albert Cotton and Geoffrey Wilkinson, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry, 5th ed. (New York: Wiley, 1988), 234–304.
3. Paul Davies, "Are Aliens Among Us?" Scientific American (December 2007), 63–69.

GOE or Die:
Earth’s Habitability No Sure Thing

By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

Jason Bourne lives life on the edge. The protagonist of the Bourne spy fiction thriller series relentlessly pursues the truth, with danger lurking at every turn. Regardless of the peril, he must continue. In ways, Earth’s history demonstrates similar hazards. Starting from the most inhospitable circumstances, numerous physical transformations now enable Earth to teem with life. But many of those events brought the Earth—and its life––to the brink of extermination forever. One such change occurred roughly two-and-a-half billion years ago.

For the first two billion years, Earth’s atmosphere contained no free (uncombined with other elements) oxygen. Although oxygen was present, it was tied up in molecules like carbon dioxide and water vapor. Yet anything more sophisticated than single-celled organisms requires free oxygen because of the energy oxygen releases during chemical reactions.

Fortunately, photosynthetic organisms appeared on the scene at this time and began producing abundant quantities of oxygen. Over the course of a couple hundred million years, these organisms delivered a permanent oxygen component to Earth’s atmosphere—although at levels much lower than today. Scientists refer to this period as the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE). On the positive side, the permanent oxygen component generated an ozone layer in the stratosphere. Since the GOE, the ozone layer has protected life from the harmful ultraviolet radiation emitted by the Sun.

Negatively, this permanent oxygen reservoir also began wreaking havoc with Earth’s temperature. The dominant greenhouse gas before the GOE was methane (CH₄). (While carbon dioxide receives a lot of press as a greenhouse gas, methane is over 60 times more effective at trapping heat from the Sun.) Because of oxygen’s high reactivity, during the GOE it reacted with the methane to produce carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O). Like turning off a thermostat in the middle of winter, Earth’s temperature would have plummeted. In fact, an international team of geologists recently discovered evidence for extensive glaciations corresponding to this increase in atmospheric oxygen.¹ This was the first widespread ice age on Earth.

The dramatic nature of this cooling likely resulted in glaciers covering the entire surface of Earth. Such a state, if it persisted, would drive life to near extermination. However, it appears the same process that initiated the covering of Earth with glaciers also helped remove the glaciers. Cooler oceans dissolve more oxygen. This dissolved oxygen then reacted with the carbon remains of previous life that rested on the ocean floor. The abundant carbon dioxide released further enhanced the greenhouse heating, leading to a warmer Earth.

By itself, either event (the cooling induced by the GOE or warming caused by the reaction of dissolved oxygen with carbon remains) had the potential to render Earth uninhabitable. The fact that both occurred concurrently suggests that a supernatural Designer––like a spy thriller novelist who knows where the plot’s going––orchestrated both events in order to prepare Earth for the arrival of human beings.

Reference:
1 . Qingjun Guo et al., “Reconstructing Earth’s Surface Oxidation across the Archean-Proterozoic Transition,” Geology 37 (May 2009): 399–402. 

Bird Thinks It Can Dance
Soulish Animals Designed to Bring Joy

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

Sometimes tests for the validity of evolutionary and creation models come from unusual research. In this case it’s a bird’s dancing ability.

Reasons To Believe’s creation model claims that before humans existed, "soulish" animals–those endowed with mind, will, and emotions (Genesis 1:24)–were designed and equipped by God for their special roles. These qualities allow them not only to form relationships with humans, but also to serve and please us in their own distinct ways.

Naturalistic evolutionary explanations for life would assert that all animals preceding humans bear no specific-to-humanity innate capacities to serve and to please.

Only in the past few months has suitable testing gained notoriety and momentum among research biologists. The instigator: a cockatoo named Snowball. This amazing bird achieved international fame through a YouTube video that shows him dancing to the Backstreet Boys’ song, “Everybody.” Snowball bobs his head and body and kicks his legs in rhythmic response to the music’s beat.

A neurosciences research team from UC San Diego suspected Snowball’s movements represented a response to off-camera visual cues. So they traveled to his home to study him in person. They determined that Snowball danced on his own and actually altered his moves and dance tempo as the researchers either sped up or slowed down his favorite music.¹ This discovery demonstrated that a nonhuman animal possesses the brain structure and circuitry to comprehend and appreciate a musical beat and to synchronize body movements in response to the beat.

Another research team from Harvard, MIT, and Brandeis then searched the YouTube database for evidence of other species’ dancing to a musical beat.² They found 34 additional examples, including cockatoos, parrots, and even an Asian elephant. Through their investigation they determined that the capacity to dance to a musical beat is strictly limited to “vocal mimics,” those animals with the ability to emulate spoken words, musical sounds, or machine noises. To their surprise, none of the primate species they studied showed any capacity for either vocal mimicry or for rhythmic dancing to musical beats.

Further investigation by the leader of the San Diego-based research study, Aniruddh Patel, showed that an animal’s ability to dance to a beat emerges only if that animal has forged a strong bond with a human. He noted that parrots in the wild do not dance—not even to the songs that accompany their courtship displays.³ He further observed that the stronger the emotional bond between the vocal mimic and its human owner, the more spectacular its ability to dance to music.

Anecdotal evidence may be of limited value, but I find it easy to corroborate these studies’ findings by my firsthand experience with a family pet. During my teen years my family acquired a green conure (small parrot) named Pedro. Pedro became particularly attached to me, so strongly bonded that he would assist in my personal grooming. He never soiled my shirts while sitting on my shoulder, and––to the chagrin of my bridge opponents––he would cheer loudly and dance whenever I won a hand.

Pedro also served as a music critic. Whenever my sisters played rock music, he’d throw a screeching tantrum, but would bob and sway to my selections––classical music. He seemed especially fond of Bach.

As both research teams implied, it would be a mistake to conclude that cockatoos, or even Snowball in particular, are Backstreet Boys fans, while conures or even Pedro specifically, are Bach aficionados. (Though if my pet were alive today he might spawn an upsurge in “Vote for Pedro” T-shirts.) Rather, both creatures bonded so closely to their human caregivers as to detect and reflect human emotions. Snowball and Pedro responded in accordance with the people with whom they were bonded.

The two teams involved in these animal behavior studies proposed an evolutionary explanation for their findings. The difficulty they faced, however, is that every evolutionary paradigm hypothesizes a much closer evolutionary connection between humans and the great apes than between humans and birds or humans and elephants. And yet humans are the only primate species that “evolved” this sophisticated bird and elephant capacity to dance to a musical beat.

It should also be noted that dancing to a musical beat offers vocal mimics no recognizable survival advantage. Thus, no evolutionary model would predict this ability as a natural-process outcome. The fact that this dancing behavior is not manifested in the wild underscores the point. However, the behavior does seem to fit with the biblical creation model claim that God designed soulish creatures in ways that would later bring joy and laughter to humans.

References:    

1 . Aniruddh D. Patel et al., “Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal,” Current Biology 19 (April 30, 2009): 827–30.
2. Adena Schachner et al., “Spontaneous Motor Entrainment to Music in Multiple Vocal Mimicking Species,” Current Biology 19 (April 30, 2009): 831–36.
3. Aniruddh Patel, quoted by Virginia Morell, “That Bird Can Boogie,” ScienceNOW Daily News (30 April, 2009), http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/430/1?rss=1. Accessed June 7, 2009.

Religious Faces in the Crowd: The Sage and the Savior

By Kenneth Richard Samples

Among the world’s great religious leaders, two became far-reaching moral instructors of humanity. Confucius (the Sage) laid down the ethical foundation for much of Asian civilization. Jesus of Nazareth (the Savior) taught moral lessons that distinctly shaped the ethical nature of Western civilization. Yet while both became great moral teachers, the identity, mission, and message of these two influential men stand in powerful contrast.

The Chinese Sage

Born in China as Kung Fu-tzu (551-479 B.C.), this philosopher became known in the West by his Latinized name “Confucius.” Unlike other famous Chinese teachers whose lives are mixed with legend (such as Taoism’s Lao-tzu), Confucius’ life and teachings have been reliably documented by historians. This historical imprint is due to his significant influence on Chinese history and culture.

Though disadvantaged, Confucius received a robust liberal education that prepared him well for the civil service he entered at an early age. He eventually rose to the powerful position of minister of justice in the Chinese government. Later in life he left government and became an itinerant teacher with a significant following. Described as a one-man university, Master Kung (as he was called) is said to have provided instruction in such fields as history, poetry, government, propriety, music, philosophy, and divination. Confucius’ collection of influential teachings was later compiled into a book called the Analects.

Confucius’ central teaching focused upon developing a system of ethics that would produce a morally superior human being (the “magnanimous man”). In light of China’s troubling cycle of anarchy and warfare he strove for an efficient and benevolent form of government that would lead to a morally ideal state. He attempted to define a system of conduct that could be applied to all aspects of society. While his efforts failed to create a Chinese utopia, his ideas nevertheless became so influential that a couple of centuries after his death Confucianism had become the official imperial philosophy of China.¹ World religions scholar Huston Smith has called Confucius “the most important figure in China’s history.”²

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Confucian Moral Ideals:

• Jen: Human-heartedness, benevolence, concern for humanity
• Chun Tzu: “Magnanimous man,” superior person, humanity-at-its-best
• Li: Good form, propriety, ceremony, decorum, correct order
• Te: Integrity, moral influence, power of the good example
• Wen: “The art of peace,” aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual influences

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Confucianism

Confucianism is often viewed as more of a moral philosophy of life than as a traditional religion. For example, Confucius didn’t explicitly advocate the worship of God or gods, nor did he speculate about death and the afterlife. Confucianism has no priesthood, no divine revelation, and does not advocate such common Eastern practices as asceticism and monasticism. While some have suggested that Confucius was an atheist or agnostic, it is more likely that he did believe in the supernatural but simply viewed religious beliefs and rituals as secondary in importance to the need for social reform and order.³

The Sage and the Savior

The title “Sage” is granted to those who are revered for their wisdom and good judgment. Confucius stands as China’s greatest philosopher and religious teacher. The title “Savior” is a New Testament designation given to Jesus Christ (Luke 2:11) because his atoning death on the cross saved sinners from God’s just wrath (1 John 4:10).

Five Ways the Sage and the Savior Differ

• Nature: Though the Sage was a great teacher and master communicator, he was merely a human being who lived and died. The Savior, on the other hand, revealed himself to be God in human flesh and conquered death by his historical bodily resurrection.
• Character: While the Sage believed in the basic moral goodness of human beings and in the perfectibility of human nature, he failed to achieve those lofty goals in his own life as he wrestled with moral weaknesses and a failed marriage. Conversely, the Savior lived a sinless life and was thus qualified to offer his life as a perfect sacrifice for sin.
• Mission: The Sage’s mission was to forge a universal system of ethics and to help build an ideal Chinese state. The Savior’s mission was to rescue sinners by providing a substitutionary sacrifice for sin.
• Role: The Sage himself isn’t essential to the essence of Confucian philosophy or religion except for providing the original ethical instruction. On the other hand, historic Christianity is all about Jesus Christ’s saving life, death, and resurrection.
• Focus: The Sage was reserved in introducing people to God and to a spiritual life. In stark contrast the Savior revealed himself as Immanuel—“God with us”––whose self-sacrificing love initiated salvation.

Confucianism offers a noble ethical system that shares much in common with that of historic Christianity. However, this reputable Chinese moral philosophy offers no ultimate solution to humankind’s grave problem of moral depravity. That hope is uniquely found in Christianity, which offers its own Sage who is also––more importantly––a divine-human Savior.

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Orientation Comparison:

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References:

1. Winfried Corduan, Neighboring Faiths (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998), 292–93.

2. Huston Smith, The Illustrated World’s Religions (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 119.

3. Lewis M. Hopfe and Mark R. Woodward, Religions of the World, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: 1998), 198.


Additional Resources:
•    A World of Difference by Kenneth Samples
•    Without a Doubt by Kenneth Samples

Pressure’s On:
Accounting for Earth’s Habitability

By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

Here’s an SAT question for you: Carbon dioxide is to global warming as atmospheric pressure is to ___________. Answer: global warming. While carbon dioxide grabs today’s headlines, atmospheric pressure levels in Earth’s history likely played a critical role in whether the planet would ultimately be suitable for large-bodied animals (including humans).

As far back in Earth’s history as scientists can look, they detect an abundance of life. However, Earth experienced at least three potentially devastating changes since life first arose. For one, the brightness of the Sun (which determines how much heat Earth receives) has increased more than 15 percent over the last 3 to 4 billion years. Two, water initially covered the entire surface of Earth but now continents comprise 30 percent of the surface. And three, Earth’s atmosphere started out devoid of oxygen, yet oxygen now comprises 20 percent of the atmosphere (see GOE or Die for how this change could have made Earth uninhabitable, but didn’t).

In fact, the latter two changes help compensate for the increasing luminosity of the Sun, ensuring Earth’s habitability. As continents appeared, weathering of the land masses removed carbon dioxide (one greenhouse gas) from the atmosphere. Also, the oxygenation of the atmosphere removed atmospheric methane (a second greenhouse gas). Thus, as the brightness of the Sun increased, these two processes cooled Earth’s surface both gradually (weathering) and rapidly (oxygenation).
How does atmospheric pressure affect these processes?

To understand the impact that atmospheric (air) pressure exerts on a planet’s temperature, consider Venus and Mars. Venus, closer to the Sun, is naturally warmer than Earth. However, it has a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere with a pressure more than 90 times greater than Earth’s. These conditions result in a surface temperature hot enough to spontaneously ignite this magazine (although there would be no oxygen for combustion). On the other hand, Mars holds a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere with a pressure around 1 percent of Earth’s. Consequently, the maximum surface temperature on Mars still causes water to freeze. In other words, air pressure dramatically affects a planet’s temperature.

While scientists have attained a small (but growing) body of evidence revealing the composition of Earth’s early atmosphere, nothing is known about its pressure. However, recent advances hope to change this lack of knowledge.

The key to understanding the ancient atmosphere is finding geologic formations that were affected by the atmospheric pressure. For example, lava traps air pockets as it cools. The size of the bubbles decreases as the pressure increases. Similarly, the size of raindrops decreases with increasing atmospheric pressure. Obviously, ancient lava bubbles and raindrops no longer exist, but other geological processes will fill the lava bubbles with other minerals and fossilize the craters made from raindrops hitting mud. Such remains in ancient rocks preserve a record of ancient air pressure.

An astrobiologist from the University of Washington and his colleagues found geological formations in Australia and Africa containing such signatures from rocks dating around 2.7 billion years old.¹ They hope to determine the ancient air pressure to a satisfactory precision level. In so doing, their research stands to impact two questions of apologetic significance.

One objection that both naturalists and young-earth creationists raise against an old-earth creation model (like Reasons to Believe’s) is: Why did God wait so long to introduce humanity? A higher ancient atmospheric pressure would provide one more response to this objection. Higher pressure means thicker air, which is tougher to breathe. A factor of two increase in air pressure would significantly impair our ability to work and care for this creation.² Evidently God caused the pressure to drop to current levels before introducing humanity onto Earth.

A second question can be stated this way: Given that the Sun continues to get brighter, aren’t humanity’s days numbered? A steady decrease of carbon dioxide has helped offset the increased energy received from the Sun over the last 3 to 4 billion years. However, photosynthesis requires a certain level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—levels not much below current values. Thus, further compensation requires some other mechanism or we’re toast.

Microscopic creatures might be the answer. Decreasing the atmospheric nitrogen (the dominant component) would result in a decreasing atmospheric pressure, and less atmospheric pressure means that more energy escapes from Earth’s surface. Research by a group of Caltech scientists suggests that this mechanism might extend Earth’s habitability by a billion years.³ The mechanism for reducing the atmospheric pressure from nitrogen likely involves bacteria and other single-celled organisms.

Such research demonstrates that complex interactions of astronomical, geological, atmospheric and biological processes must work in concert to maintain Earth’s habitability. One can reasonably conclude that once the atmospheric conditions permitted, God introduced humanity onto the scene. Scientific advance continues to provide additional support for the idea that a supernatural Designer fashioned Earth as a habitat for humanity.

References:

1 . Michael Shirber, “Measuring the Weight of Ancient Air,” Astrobiology Magazine, October 6, 2008, http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/2895/measuring-the-weight-of-ancient-air.

2. Michael J. Denton, Nature’s Destiny (New York: The Free Press, 1998): 127–30.

3. King-Fai Li et al., “Atmospheric Pressure as a Natural Climate Regulator for a Terrestrial Planet with a Biosphere,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (June 16, 2009): 9576–79.

RESOURCES:

• Why the Universe Is the Way It Is
• Rare Earth

Exploring the Extent of the Flood: Part Three

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

What was the purpose behind God’s act of judgment? The answer helps determine the extent of the Genesis Flood.

The Lord’s dealings with Abraham over the destruction of Sodom show the boundaries He sets in dealing with reprobation.¹ God promised Abram that if as few as ten righteous people could found there, He would withhold His judgment. As it turned out, God removed from Sodom the one redeemable person and offered shelter to his family before pouring out His righteous wrath.² At the same time, God allowed the nearby Amorites to survive, as wicked as they were, “for the sin of the Amorites had not yet reached its full measure.”³ 

In the New Testament the Apostle Paul’s description of reprobates conjures images of a moral cancer. “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”⁴

Just as a surgeon removes a malignant tumor to save a person’s life, likewise God acts decisively and precisely to remove a community that has become completely and irreparably malignant in order to save the larger “body” from spiritual death. Taking the analogy further, the nature and degree of moral degradation the divine Surgeon sees (as only He can) in a particular community determines His actions, specifically how much of the social “tissue” must be cut away and whether additional therapies will be needed in the aftermath of the surgery.

Defilement from reprobate living appears to gain a foothold and then spread in a noticeable order:

1. throughout the sinful person’s being⁵
2. then to progeny⁶ and others in the community
3. then to the soulish animals in contact with them⁷
4. then to material possessions⁸
5. then to the land they inhabit⁹

So when God performs surgery, the procedure will be defined by the extent of the damage caused by the reprobation He sees. Unlike a human surgeon, God needs no safety margin. He works with perfect precision to cut away the malignancy, leaving healthy or reparable tissue in place.

That malignancy was evident at the time of Noah. Genesis records that for every person other than Noah and his family, “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Genesis adds, “All the people on earth had corrupted their ways” and were “full of violence.” Therefore, God determined to rescue Noah, his family, and his soulish animals from the deadly reprobation all around them—the people and their progeny, their soulish animals, and their material goods—and to cleanse the land they inhabited.

According to this theological perspective, the geographical extent of Noah’s Flood can be determined by the geographical extent of the human community and the soulish animals associated with it. The basis for interpreting Noah’s Flood as an event of less than global geographical proportions is that human civilization at that time lacked the motivation and the means (economic, technical, and otherwise) to colonize distant regions of the planet. Archeological evidence indicates that human habitation had not yet spread beyond the area in and around the juncture of three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe.¹⁰ Parasitic and DNA markers indicate the later, rapid spread of humanity from that single region to all of Earth’s landmasses.¹¹

Genesis 11:1–9 tells us that even after the horrific Flood, people remained stubbornly resolute in disobedience to God’s command to “increase in number, fill the earth, and subdue it.”¹² Instead, they set out to “build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”¹³

From a theological standpoint, no reason existed for God to deluge the whole of planet Earth. And the animals He brought to Noah for boarding on the Ark would have been pairs (multiple pairs in some cases) of creatures indigenous to the region (but as yet undefiled) and vital to the rapid re-establishment of the ecosystem and of civilization. Such an interpretation holds true to the text and true to the revealed character of our Creator and Savior.

References:
1. In this article I employ “reprobation” as synonymous with “depravity,” and not in its other theological sense as the opposite of “election.”
2. Genesis 18:22-33.
3. Genesis 15:16
4. Romans 1:32.
5. Romans 7:8-11.
6. Exodus 20:5.
7. Joshua 6:21.
8. Numbers 16:23-33.
9. Leviticus 18:24-28.
10. Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross, Who Was Adam? (Pasadena, CA: Reasons To Believe, 2005): 123–37.
11. Ibid.
12. Genesis 1:28.
13. Genesis 11:4.

Life is Out There…Way Out There

By Krista Bontrager

If aliens landed on the South Lawn of the White House tomorrow, would it be “game over” for the Christian faith?

Many people assume the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, generated through natural-process evolution, would eliminate the need for a supernatural Creator. The probability of a universe with extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) is a matter of scientific debate, with no data yet supporting it.¹  But let’s say for the purposes of discussion that ETI does, in fact, exist. Would this compromise historic Christianity?

It’s interesting to observe the way alien beings are often described––as having super, almost godlike, intelligence. Prominent physicist Paul Davies asserts, “Who can guess what scientific and philosophical insights might be imparted to us from a community with billions of years of contemplative existence?”²

Popular science writer Carl Sagan said that “it would change everything. We would be hearing from other beings, independently evolved over millions of years, viewing the Universe perhaps very differently, probably much smarter, certainly not human.”³

From the standpoint of the Christian worldview, there are at least three key theological issues at stake.

• Sin: Adam and Eve plunged all of their progeny into sin. Many wonder: Would the same be true of ETI? It certainly seems possible, since we know that humans aren’t the only ones marred by sin. Lucifer and his followers also rebelled against God’s commands.
• Salvation: If alien creatures do exist, and if they are fallen, that doesn’t automatically mean they are part of God’s salvation plan. The fallen angels, for example, do not benefit from Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. So while we cannot definitely answer whether alien beings would be saved, it doesn’t undermine the credibility of Christianity if they aren’t.
• The Incarnation of Christ: When Jesus came to earth, He came as the God-man. While remaining fully God, Jesus took on a human nature, but one untainted by the sin of Adam (Philippians 2:5-11). In order to die for humanity, Christ took on the form of the beings He intended to save.⁴ Some have suggested that Jesus went to other planets to die for the sins of those creatures as well. But if that’s the case, then it seems that He would have had to take on their nature as well. Such an idea seems awkward, given that Christian theology affirms that Christ retains His divine and human natures forever.

In short, science doesn’t support the notion of life elsewhere in the universe. But, if there is––Reasons To Believe scholars document the demonic nature of a tiny fraction of residual UFO sightings and abductions⁵––those creatures are still under the authority of their Creator just as we are. For even the demons believe in God and tremble (James 2:19).

References:
1. Some of this debate is summarized in a book by Hugh Ross, Kenneth Richard Samples, and Mark Clark, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002).
2. Paul Davies, Are We Alone? (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 54.
3. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 300.
4. St. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God (New York: Macmillan, 1959).
5. Ross, Samples, and Clark, 107–58.