Perspectives : Resolving Genesis - Partus Tres

Last week's session covered three main subjects:

I. The Appearance of Age Argument
II. Against the Big Bang
III. Undermining the Evidence for Transitional Forms

I felt there were a couple of questionable points that he was making, that either seemed factually inaccurate or quite the logical leap. It would also help if the speaker treated the opposition more level-headedly, instead of seizing on every opportunity for an argument ad hominem. However, overall, there are still points worth considering. The shaky edifice of evolutionary cosmology looks shakier than ever.

I. The Appearance of Age Argument

The primary point this argument makes is that if God did indeed create a full and complete universe, it would not appear to be young, but rather, mature. This approach holds that when an evolutionist looks at the universe, they naturally assume that it must have taken eons to develop because, first, there is no supernatural power to shape the universe such, and second, known naturalistic process could not have formed it so without eons to work with. Contrariwise, when a theist gazes upon creation, since he accepts that there is an omnipotent Creator, he is not puzzled by what appears to be an old creation, as it could simply have been created as such.

II. Against the Big Bang

I think the largest problem with the Big Bang, that modern science does not have a good explanation for, is the matter-anti-matter asymmetry. This was duly brought up by the speaker, and is yet another example of a little exception that the layman is asked to make because the mathematics is simply too incomprehensible. The speaker also discussed the apparent uniformity of the universe in temperature, which immediately recalled the cosmic background radiation image. The speaker holds that the temperature differences are too minute to be worth consideration, which I found rather suspect, since, once again, neither of us are privy to the infallible mathematics behind all these predictions. The speaker attributes such minute differences to interstellar material, gravitational interference and a host of other cosmic factors. The speaker refers to the expansion of the universe being adverse to astrogenesis, as the expansive forces would have overwhelmed gravity. The redshift in light is supposedly also attributable to a rotation of the universe rather than an expansion, and is also rendered weak if the speed of light is not constant as we would like to assume.

The Big Bang is also reliant on dark energy and dark matter for the model to work, which is admittedly, as of yet unproven and only a logical consequence of naturalism. The speaker takes this chance to transition into a long tirade on how evolutionists and cosmologists are constantly conjuring up new ideas to salvage the Big Bang theory to make it work. He claims that no other field would find such behaviour scientifically acceptable, especially as the more recent ideas such as dark energy and matter are not even readily detectable. The Big Bang theory is another case of using present day observations to extrapolate backwards into the far distant past. Again, if we were to chart change and make predictions like so in any other field, it would hard to establish credulity. 

It is a little bit of expansion on my own part, but I feel it ought to come in about here. It is impossible to be certain that just because the universe behaves in a predictable and regular manner now, in the few hundred years that we have observed it systematically, it has always done so. In terms of the timescales that evolutionists claim are involved, it would be like someone monitoring their body temperature over the day, using the data from the last few microseconds and extrapolating backwards in a best fit trend. In all likelihood, he will end up with a reading that suggests he was suffering a terrible fever or must have awoken from some bizarre cryonic. Admittedly that is a rough analogy. Regardless, no matter how sensitive and accurate the instruments we design now, the fact remains that we cannot go back in time to observe what has actually taken place. To extend what data we have is speculation, not science. Science should have repeatable observations, done under controlled conditions.

The speaker also chose to go into several points about the nature of the solar system, which did not seem relevant to the Big Bang per se, but I shall include them here all the same. He points out that the substances of the solar system are arranged strangely and not uniformly at all. The compositions of moons and planets do not suggest a common origin, and atheistic cosmologists are at a loss to explain the differing rotations of Venus and Uranus (Ουρανοσ). There are some theories, and moons could have been captured in orbit. However, it either requires a lot of little exceptions here and there, and strange coincidences, which are no stranger to the evolutionist because it must have happened somehow, and it must have happened without the intervention of a Creator.

Ultimately, the Big Bang fails to answer the question of origins. It is a theory of change, development from one state to another, but it does not answer how the energy of the universe comes into existence.

III. Undermining the Evidence for Transitional Forms

This section can basically be summarised as - Every transitional form from unintelligent primate to the wise man was either a hoax, a misinterpreted animal skeleton, or a human skeleton. Other transitional forms in other branches of the tree of life are of extinct species or do not actually fit the supposed order of evolution in the fossil record. We hear more about the supposed claims rather than the embarrassing retractions. Furthermore, if evolution happens gradually, we would expect large populations of such transitional creatures and they should be comparatively abundant. Evolutionists may argue with the theory of punctuated equilibrium, but that is an argument from a lack of evidence to support a preconceived conclusion.