To provide a fun, educational environment where all people can experience the truth in scientific and historical information. This information is expressed without the common evolutionary presuppositions found in most museums, school text books, and scientific journals. The evidence is presented and theories proposed based on the evidence. If a theory contradicts the evidence the theory is discarded, not the evidence.
What is the truth? Is there a truth that is always correct, never changes, is not relative? According to evolutionary science the age of the earth and the universe has changed many times. Currently it is estimated around 15 billions years, plus or minus 2 billion. The timeframe when dinosaurs roamed the earth likewise has changed many times. Dating techniques of rocks and carbon based materials (dead things) change and are refined, attempting to provide improved estimates. Truth is claimed but not actual as the understanding of the evidence changes. Nevertheless, it is claimed to be truth.
The natural world, the universe and biological life contain a wealth of scientific and historical data. The problem with any data is that the data needs to be interpreted. What theories can be extracted from this data? Do the theories correspond to the data? Is there additional data which the theories contradict? Are the theories told for what they truly are? Different experts from various fields of science interpret the data based on their own presuppositions (not truth but a held belief). Believers of evolution interpret data based on uniformitarianism. This means they believe the universe has come to the state it is currently by a long series of very slowly working random events. Others interpret the data based on a creation about 6,000 years ago followed by global, catastrophic flood about 4,500 years ago.
This museum presents and explores the data, the raw evidence, the truth, in such a way that visitors can see the evidence clearly, understand differing interpretations, and draw their own conclusions from the evidence and theories.
Did You Know?
Mutations show a young earth
Mutations occur frequently in nature. Many diseases are the result of genetic mutations. The number and variety increase every year. Evolutionists claim life evolved through many small changes or mutations over millions of years. The beneficial mutations survived and advanced life on the earth. Mutations not helpful for survival caused the organism to die and not propagate. All mutations observed by scientists show a loss of information, a decay. There has never been a documented gain of information. There are theories of how mutations could randomly evolve but experimentation always fails. Since God created the earth and life, it all has been running down. Mutations multiply each generation. The earth must be young as all life would have died long ago if the rate of mutation existed for hundreds of thousands of years.
Earth’s speed shows it is young
The earth is rotating at 1,674 kilometres per hour (1,046 miles per hour). It is slowing down, thus periodically time is added (a leap second) to our clock. This last happened June 30 2015 at 7:59:59pm. Extrapolating backwards, the earth was travelling much faster in the past. Centrifugal (rotational) force at high speed flings objects outward. A higher speed would have destroyed the earth: ground, water and plants. The atmosphere would fly into space and nothing could live. The truth is, the earth is young. It’s speed has been increasing only for the past 4000 – 6000 years, probably since the destruction and world wide changes caused by the global flood approximately 4,500 years ago.
Magnetic field shows a young earth
The earth’s magnetic field, called the Van Allen belt, has weakened 6% in the past 150 years. If the earth were old the magnetic field would have been too strong to allow life in the not too distant past. This magnetic field decay is not factored into Carbon 14 dating. As the magnetic field affects the amount of solar radiation entering the earth’s atmosphere, the rate of C14 production in the atmosphere varied over time. To calculate the age based on carbon decay the initial amount of the C14 and the rate of decay must be know. Carbon dating is flawed as the magnetic field changes are not factored into the equations, and the initial amount of C14 zero, which is a huge assumption. The magnetic decay also shows a young earth or no life could exist.
The source of all
The Unified Theory of the source of all matter in the universe is based on string theory.
All objects, an apple for example, or even us people, are made of atoms. At one time atoms were thought to be the smallest objects, indivisible. Scientists later discovered atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons are made of quarks. The quarks and electrons, as well as all other particles like photons (light) are made of strings. This may one day be proven true, no longer just a theory. But the question then shifts from “where did atoms come from?” to “where did strings come from?” In the end we still have the same problem – the source of ‘all’, regardless of what that ‘all’ is. The Bible tells us right at the beginning, that “In the beginning God created …” He is the source of all.
Dinosaur or Dragon?
In 1841 the word dinosaur was invented. Before this, these creatures where called dragons. Thus the terms mean the same thing. Many recipes for healing in middle ages called for dragon saliva or crushed bones. The epic story of Gilgamesh records him slaying the dragon Humbaba.Chinese history records driving dragons out of the land as they settled it. There are many reports of dinosaurs still living in the jungle of the Republic of Congo, Africa. The local people call them Mokele-Mbembe. All over the world are carvings in buildings and temples, cave drawings, stone paintings and stories of dinosaurs. To draw and carve images of dragons (dinosaurs) they must have been seen by mankind. Thus they did not live millions of years ago but lived very recently. Some small ones may still be living in remote locations.
The Calendar
The Jewish calendar says the year 5769 is the year 2000 in the Julian calendar, the one most of the world uses today. The Chinese calendar came from the Babylonians around 2500 B.C. It is interesting that this calendar begins at approximately the time the flood, Noah’s world wide flood ended; as would be expected. The world was beginning anew.
It is equally interesting, and telling, that there is no evidence of writing, no records, older than the time of Noah’s flood. Supposed ancient records have not been shown to be as old as declared. Other supposed ancient sources are verbal, not written and thus again cannot be verified. It appears written history, as well as the calendar’s of the world, began shortly after the world wide flood ended.
Scientist who believe
Richard Feynman, Nobel prize in physics, said “Many scientists do believe in both science and God, the God of revelation, in a perfectly consistent way.” Alan Lightman, an M.I.T. professor stated “References to God continued in the scientific literature until the middle to late 1800’s. It seems likely that the lack of religious references after this time seem more from a change in social and professional conventions among scientists rather than from any change in underlying thought. Indeed, contrary to popular myth, scientists appear to have the same range of attitudes about religious matters as does the general public.” God is not dead! As scientific knowledge advances God is coming back, for true science points to Him.
Spiral Galaxies
If the universe is billions of years old the older galaxies should not be spiral; they would have lost their shape by now. But the ‘older’ galaxies have retained their shape. Spiral arms are clear indications of youth, yet many evolutionary scientists claim they are old. If old the tips of the spirals, moving slower, would blend into the rest of the faster spinning inner components creating a circular blob. Astronomers would not be able to see a spiral design.
The Bible says eleven times that ‘God stretched out the heavens…” He created the galaxies as they are, young. He created them with their variety of beautiful designs, including spirals.
Stalactites can grow very fast
Scientists claim stalactites and stalagmites take many thousands of years to form. This stalactite is in the Rolphton Hydro Electric near Ottawa, Canada. It was built in the 1950’s. It formed on the top of a pipe in less than 50 years!
Examples such as these show that long periods of time are not necessary, only the right conditions. Many are old but it is not necessary as not all are. Claims for millions and billions of years for the age of the earth are simply that, claims; they lack real evidence, just as claims that stalactites are thousands of years old.
The Chinese Calendar is strange
The Chinese calendar presents 12 images of animals. Each animal roughly corresponds to a month of the year. 12 animals and 12 months. That is not strange. 11 of the 12 are animals in the calendar exist today, they are real. One does not, which is the dragon. What is strange is that we are told the dragon was not a real animal but the others all are. Deductive reasoning implies the dragon is, or was, a real animal as well. Likewise from other sources we see the dragon is not a typical dinosaur but more like a dragon from the movies. One that had wings and breathes fire. We do not see evidence in fossils of these creatures, thus far. We do not know enough about all dinosaur skull fossils to rule out that some did breathe out or snort some form of fire. The Bible does mention them as real animals. Logic thus implies the Bible is truthful in this aspect, and likewise in many, many others.
Dinosaurs in India and China
Alexander the Great (365-323BC) recorded that his soldiers were afraid of the dragons when they invaded India. Marco Polo (1254-1324) was an explorer who went to China among other places. On coming home he reported that the emperor of China was raising dragons to pull his chariots.
These historical records, along with many others, mean that dinosaurs (called dragons before 1841, when the word dinosaur was invented) were alive as late as 1324 AD. Today many scientists tell us they all died off millions of years ago. Many human sightings provide far more evidence than the theory (no evidence) of these scientists.
Shown above is a fictional example from Lord of the Rings, where mammoth’s are trained as weapons for war.
Our ancestors painted dinosaur
Pueblo Indians painted pictures of dinosaurs as seen (outlined in green) at Kachina Bridge, USA. In Peru similar pictures are painted on stones.
These Indians lived in Utah around 1000AD indicating dinosaurs walked the earth at that time. These people knew these animals to be able to carve or paint them. This is only one example of recent dinosaur existence. There are tribes in the Congo that claim to have seen them as recently as 1960’s. In 2009 some in the Philippine islands claimed a sea dinosaur has been sighted multiple times around the rocky shoreline. This is evidence dinosaurs lived recently.
Extinct species?
A sea dinosaur, plesiosaurus, is thought to have been caught in a fishing net in 1977 off the coast of New Zealand. A Japanese stamp was created for this creature in 1977. It should have been extinct.
An ancient fish, the Coelacanth, supposedly lived 340 – 80 million years ago, is now extinct. Or so scientists said. These have been discovered alive and well in southern Africa, off the coast of Madagascar in 1938. More recently they have been found in the seas of Indonesia.
This really makes one question how accurate dating techniques are and the real timeframe of these animals as well as the age of the earth when we find animals which supposedly evolve yet are found unchanged after 340 million years!
Oceans getting saltier each year
The world’s oceans are getting saltier each year. If one takes the current rate of increase in salts and projects backwards, it was not millions but only thousands of years ago when the oceans were salt-less, ie. fresh water. This is yet another hint that the world is not billions of years old.
If salts have continually been dissolving from rocks and the ground via rainwater falling over millions or billions of years, why are the rivers and lakes not salty? Much rainwater flows through rivers into lakes long before it flows into the ocean, thus the rivers and lakes should be salty if the oceans are getting saltier. One solution is that the lakes and rivers are not millions of years old either, but thousands, similar to the oceans.
The Sahara Desert is quite young
The largest desert in the world, the Sahara, is growing. At 4400 years of age, it is estimated to be the oldest desert in the world. Noah’s world wide flood happened about 4,400 years ago as well. It is no surprise there is no desert older than this, for the catastrophic results of the flood greatly altered the world’s landscape. The pyramids of Egypt are located in the north east corner of the Sahara. They are also of similar age. Careful study will show this to be true for many things. Any object claimed to be older needs close analysis of the dating techniques and assumptions used to derive the age. A proper analysis, with all assumptions factor in, will show the age of any object in nature is no older than 4,400 years.
The oldest living organism
The oldest living organism in the world is the bristlecone pine tree, located in the Inyo mountains in eastern California, USA. Tree ring dating indicates the oldest is about 4,300 years in age. Noah’s world wide flood happened about 4,400 years ago. It is no surprise there is no life older than this. If evolution where true, it is unlikely the oldest living organism’s age would be around the time of Noah’s flood.
Evolutionists claim a world wide flood is a myth. These tree’s provide additional evidence that the flood is real, it happened, if killed all life except what was in the ark, and it shaped much of the world we live in today. The Bristlecone pines, like all other plant life, started growing from seeds after the world wide flood receded.
St George slaying a Dragon
Sea dragons (dinosaurs) did not live millions of years ago but lived very recently. Much ancient pottery, drawings and pictographs exist that show land and sea dinosaurs. The picture here shows Saint George slaying a dragon sometime between his birth in 263 A.D. and death in 303 A.D. The ‘ancient’ pottery and native’s hieroglyphics vary in age from a few centuries to a few thousand years at the mot. They are no where near millions of years old. A fishing trawler off New Zealand probably caught a pleiosaur (extinct ocean dwelling dinosaur) in 1977. Natives in the deep Congo jungle of Africa claim small dinosaurs live there to this day.
The universe is not billions of years old. Evidence shows it is only thousands of years old.
Moon’s Orbit
The moon’s orbit around the earth is expanding every year. It is getting further away by 4 centimetres per year. Going back in history, 1.2 billion years ago the moon would have been touching the earth. Even not that far back it would have had such a low orbit, so close to earth, that there would have been serious trouble. As the moon’s orbit around the earth causes tides, had the moon been very close at one time, the tides would have been extremely high. So high in fact they would have destroyed the earth’s continents with their force and no life could have evolved. The moon is not near as old as some scientists predict. It was created about 6,000 years ago when the rest of the universe was created.
Planet Orbits
Two planets and six moons spin backwards compared to the others in our solar system. Due to the laws of inertia, all planets should move and spin in the same direction around the sun, All planets travel eastward around the sun, as expected. Venus, Uranus and Pluto’s spin is opposite to the other planets and the sun. These planets could not have ‘evolved’ as ejected material from the sun as some scientists claim. They may have been ‘captured’ as stray objects in space getting too close to our sun and hooked by it’s gravitation. Very unlikely. Most likely they spin the way they do because they were created this way. God is a God of creativity and variety as we can see by live on earth. No reason to think He would be different in the creation of objects in outer space. Our universe shows many signs of being designed and not of random evolution over billions of years.
The World is under populated
The entire population of the world could stand inside the area of the United Kingdom! Each person would have 36 square meters or a space 6 meters by 6 meters (19 feet by 19 feet). The earth is no where near over-crowded, it is mis-used. More efficient irrigation, better use of sloped land for housing and terracing for agriculture would assist greatly with the worlds food needs. Better sharing and distribution with less waste and there would be no shortages.
People could work on resource management, not war machinery and destruction to resolve our population (food/water shortage, living space) concerns. God created this world for us and would not have created it with insufficient resources to provide for ourselves. The problem is not over-population but selfish greed. This comes from a belief that the strong prey on the weak. An evolutionary concept. Contrary, the God who gave us this world tells us in His book, the Bible, to love and care for each other and to take care of His planet.
Comets
Comets lose material as they travel through space. If comets have existed for billions of years, they should have all disintegrated by now.
There is no proof that the Oort cloud (proposed origin of comets) exists. Evidence suggests it does not. Where did the comets come from then? No one knows, maybe the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto. But that just begs the question, where did the Kuiper Belt come from? So far science has no answer as they do not seem to be part of planets. A good possibility is that they did not ‘come’ from anywhere, but that they were created the way they are.
Universe
Universe – latin from ‘uni’ and ‘verse’. Uni means ‘one’. Verse means ‘spoken word’.
This means all that is was created by a spoken word. The Bible, John 1:1 says ‘In the beginning was the Word’. Genesis 1:1 says “God said …’ People once believed, and many still do, that the universe did not evolve from a ‘big bang’ but was created by God saying “Let there be …” A close analysis of the scientific data, without an anti-God bias, does fit the idea that the universe was created recently, like 6,000 years ago. It did not randomly evolve over billions of years.
Beautiful World
Our world is incredibly beautiful. Blue waters, white clouds, green plants, shades of brown earth and rock. An amazing variety of plants and animals, such as this Golden Pheasant. What colours!
What defines beauty? Why is this bird beautiful? Did beauty evolve or was the world created with beauty built in? It’s hard to imagine beauty coming from random events. An analogy is music. A classic composition is beautiful to listen to. It has order, symmetry, pleasing tones. Random bangs on a drum or picks of guitar strings don’t make music. The idea that beauty evolved from random events makes no sense.
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Green Energy, Net-Zero. Not so green, not so zero.
by Ed Van Gennip | November 28, 2023 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Credit: Small Family Footprint
The environment – it is where we live. It provides all our basic needs such as air, food, water, materials for clothing and shelter. Beyond that it provides materials for everything else we need, except for the energy we get from the sun. Our environment is critically important to all life on the Earth. We should be good stewards of our home for it is the only home we have.
In the Bible, we read is Genesis chapter 2 verses 7 through 8 that when God made man he also made a garden and placed the man in it. Verse 5 tells us that God instructed the man to ‘work and keep’ the garden.
Thus, caring for our environment where it makes sense, where our knowledge of environmental science, as limited as it is, guides us, is good for everyone. Listening, watching, reading and learning today would lead one to believe ‘green energy’ is the answer, or at least the best answer we have. The first question then is “what is green energy?”
Surprisingly, the United Nations and even Wikipedia do not have a definition of Green Energy. They use the term ‘Renewable Energy’. The United Nations defines this on their ‘Climate Action’ webpage. The fact they tie renewable energy to climate change is significant in understanding the motivations behind green energy and thus renewable energy.
The UN webpage opens with “Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.” It gives sunlight and wind as examples. So let’s go based on this definition.
The first problem seen is the fact, the science, that this statement contradictions the 1st law of Thermodynamics which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it only changes form. Thus, we cannot ever have a system, natural or otherwise, that is replenished at a higher rate than consumed. Energy cannot come from nothing, just like our universe could not have come from nothing.
Regardless of this, sun, wind, wave action, geothermal heat and other sources of energy do seem, for human purposes, to be infinite. We cannot use them all up, so they are good sources of energy for us.
In nature, plants take in the sun’s energy and through the process of photosynthesis use that energy to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) into food to feed the plant. Nature does this extremely efficiently. Likewise, solar panels, wind turbine, heat pumps, convert energy from the sun, wind, air or ground into electrical energy we can use. All good so far, except our process are not near as efficient as nature.
Once we have this electrical energy we can use it to power electrical devices. Battery based power tools and vehicles for example. Cellphones, laptops, electric shavers are other kinds are electrical devices. To operate this energy must be stored. It is stored in batteries of some sort. Lithium Ion batteries are the most common today. The storage is needed to make the energy portable so we can carry around in cellphones and we can drive around in our cars. Storage is also needed so the energy can be withdrawn in times when there is not enough solar or wind energy available. On cloudy and calm days and over the dark nights for example.
Credit: Chile Lithium Mine
How about the green part of this. That is the part that is so compelling. The ‘green’ label means these kinds of energy sources are good for our environment. Let’s look at that.
Lithium is a mineral this is mined from the earth. Cobalt and other minerals are also essential in batteries. Our environment is providing all this for us. earth.org has good material on the actual impact of extracting these minerals from the ground, the amount of pollution produced, the water used in the processing and contamination with heavy metals of much of that water. It is not as clean we we are lead to believe. There is a limited amount of recycling of batteries so these minerals contaminate landfill sites and thus end up in the ground water. Batteries is not very “green” after all.
Aside from the batteries there is the process of converting energy into the electrical form we can store. The solar panels for sunlight and the turbines for wind are the 2 prime examples.
Wind turbine blades, for many years could not be recycled. They are huge and are buried in landfill sites when they can no longer be used. Some companies are now recycling but the vast majority are still being dumped into our environment. They do not breakdown and decay for a very long time. Not so “green” after all.
Solar panels, like wind turbines, have an lifespan. They need to be recycled or discarded and replaced. Like turbines, there is some recycling but it is a vey small percentage. Most solar panels are discarded. They have hazardous materials which over time leach from the landfill sites into the water table contaminating it. As solar panel use is growing at an amazing rate, primarily due to government subsidies, the problem will grow. Even if more recycling is done the growth is far outpacing recycling. Today in the USA, according to a Harvard Business Review it costs $20-$30 per panel to recycle and $1-$2 to discard of it. What do you think a business, that wants to complete with others businesses to sell panels, will do? They will save the $18-$27 per panel and discard them. Not so “green” after all.
The primary (supposedly) motivation for green energy is saving the environment; reducing ‘green house gases’. The next question is “what are green house gases?” and “why do we need to reduce them?” The primary greenhouse gas we hear about is CO2 – Carbon Dioxide. Is it bad? Apparently, according to many governments, including our Canadian Liberal party. The United Nations claims they are bad, or at least to much is bad and we have too much, thus we need to reduce it.
The United States Geological Survey, a science organization created in 1879 as part of the USA government’s Department of the Interior, states “Adding more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, like we do when burning fossil fuels, acts like putting a thicker blanket on the planet. The thicker the blanket of greenhouse gases, the less heat escapes into space.” Putting a blanket around the earth is warming it up, thus global warming. Remember that term? We don’t hear that anymore as it is not true, so the terminology has changed to ‘climate change’.
The fact is that plants ‘breathe’ CO2 just like humans breathe oxygen. More CO2 means plants grow larger. Larger plants consume more CO2. In the past, when dinosaurs roamed, earth core samples show the planet was warmer. Even more recently the “medieval warm period” from around 900 AD to 1300 AD was warmer than today. That was a 400 year period, not just the past half century talked about now with respect to global warming, aka climate change. To quote Canada’s current prime minister “we follow the science”. That does not seem to be true in this case as the science is very clearly against what our PM and his team espouse.
Now we know what green house gases are and what they do, we are left with the question “why do we need to reduce them?” Why do we need Net-Zero programs, carbon-tax programs, reduction in fertilizers, reductions in animal farming, subsidies for electrics vehicles and billions of dollars, in Canada alone, to subsidize green energy concepts? It is clearly not the science of the environment. The science that seems to apply here is economics. The economics of shifting wealth and political power from one place to another.
In conclusion, I could go on and on about sun cycles, El-Nino and El-Nina cycles, the effect of clouds on temperature, the very long and slow change in ocean temperature and that effect on climate and many other factors that are not well understood from a climate change perspective. But no need. As the global warming scare of Al Gore in 2006 with “An Inconvenient Truth” faded away quickly as truth came to light, so Net-Zero is now quickly fading for the same reasons. Many companies and investment that switched focus to “green energy” are turning back to industries that show growth and potential. Many politicians in the democratic world (countries ruled by the people) are realizing this is a sinking ship and like rats they are fleeing while they can. In the non-democratic world (countries ruled by dictators) they never did care about these issues and were never on-board.
The next time you hear someone talking about green energy, net-zero, or climate change ask some questions to see if they really know anything beyond what the main stream media is saying. As much of Canadian media is government subsidized one can logically expect their reporting is far from objective.
We can all, and should all, do our part to care for and maintain our environment. I’d suggest we don’t blindly believe that our leaders have our best interests at heart but do what makes common sense for our environment, our home.
What came first – the Chicken or the Egg?
by Ed Van Gennip | November 9, 2022 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
What came first, the chicken or the egg? A paradox which applies to many similar things. Chickens produce eggs. Eggs grow into chickens. Did some pre-chicken drop the first chicken egg? Did some pre-chicken egg hatch into the first chicken?
How about a bigger question. What came first, the dinosaur or mankind? Did dinosaurs evolve and die off long before mankind evolved? If you believe in the Bible account both were created by God on the 6th day of creation with dinosaurs hours mankind. If you believe in a mix of both, then God created them on day 6 but day 6 was really a long period of time, an era or epoch. In the epoch dinosaurs came early on and mankind near the end, again after dinosaurs went extinct.
This past September Nancy and I had the privilege of doing something we planned in 2019 to do in the spring of 2020. But, the world changed that spring, so it finally happened 2 month ago. We went on a road trip to a few places in the western and mid-west USA. 2 key places where Government Canyon State Natural Area and Dinosaur Valley State Park. Both are located in Texas. Both have dinosaur tracks exposed in rock layers as the covering rocks have eroded away.
In the Paluxy River, which passed through Dinosaur Valley State Park are amazingly clear impressions of hundreds of footprints from different sized and types of dinosaurs. The creatures walked here in the mud. It was somehow covered quickly and the mud hardened into rock over time. That covering has been eroding and in 1908 the first prints were discovered.
The amazing thing about this find is that human footprints are found mixed right in the dinosaur tracks. The picture below shows a 3-toed dinosaur, an Acrocanthosaurus, who stepped on top of a human footprint. We know the dinosaur walked by after the human as it pressed mud into the human print as the dinosaur toes overlapped the human print.
Back to the question, what came first, the dinosaur or mankind? The evidence here is clear. The famed critic of creation, Richard Dawkins from the University of Oxford, said “… there are certain things about the fossil record than any evolutionist should expect to be true. We should be very surprised, for example, to find fossil humans appearing in the record before mammals are supposed to have evolved! If a single, well verified mammal skull were to turn up in 500 million year old rock, our whole modern theory of evolution would be utterly destroyed.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p. 225)
While this dinosaur and mankind footprint does not exactly match Mr. Dawkins example, it means the same thing. The whole theory of evolution is utterly destroyed because something supposedly modern is found with something supposedly ancient.
The only issue remaining is whether we each will believe the evidence. We see the evidence points to God creating dinosaurs and mankind on day 6, a literal day, not an age or epoch. Dinosaurs did not die off long before mankind came onto the scene. They co-existed, just as lions and mankind today.
That leaves the chicken and the egg question. That may be a future topic to look into.
NOTE: Wikipedia claims the human prints are fraud. They were created as a way to generate income. Scientists who have examined the prints using sophisticated equipment to measure impression pressures from different parts of a foot as well as shapes, relatives proportions and the mud impressions on the surrounding ground confirm these are real. This is stated in the text in the image below the rock cast.
NOTE: In Mr. Dawkins quote he uses the example of 500 million year old rock. He has no proof rock is that old; he is making the assumption rock is possibly that old. I am in no way endorsing Mr. Dawkins claim that rocks are so old.
The Multiverse – How Strange!
by Ed Van Gennip | July 26, 2022 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Marvel movie fans will recognize the reference implied by the title of this article. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is a recent Marvel movie. In this movie Dr. Strange, with the help of a woman who can travel between universes, go to different universes searching for a book of magic that can destroy the demon being used by a witch to create her perfect world. A mix of supposed science, the demonic and witchcraft.
In 1954 Hugh Everett was a grad student at Princeton University. He was drinking with his friends and proposed the concept of ‘many worlds’, later called the ‘multiverse’. A theory that has no evidence of any sort yet is very popular today. A theory that, by nature, cannot have evidence as it is beyond our universe, which we barely understand. It is a theory roughly based on quantum mechanics, an accepted scientific field of study, that explains how extremely small things interact. But nothing in quantum mechanics provides evidence of a multiverse.
A primary reason the multiverse concept is somewhat accepted is that it allows our ‘perfectly tuned for life’ universe to exist without a creator. Many do not believe in a creator, God, so they like this alternative. If there is an unlimited number of universes in existence, the multiverse, then at least one of them, ours, must have turned out, randomly, just right for life to exist. This theory is necessary as scientist have long acknowledged our universe is so finely tuned, in every way, for life to exist that it could not have happened by chance. If the ‘big bang’ is not a viable solution to where we came from, then the multiverse is. But is it?
Scientists have calculated the odds of our universe coming into existence randomly is ’10 to the exponent 120′. Or one change in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. That is based on what they know today, and that there are no duplicate universes created, which is highly unlikely. As they learn more the odds only get worse!
Image credit: Daniel de Bruin.
This machine has 100 gears. Each gear has a 10:1 ratio, meaning each gear ticks (moved) ten positions for the next gear to tick one. In mathematics, to turn the 100th gear would take ’10 to the exponent 100′ ticks of the first gear. That is 10 followed by 100 zero’s. It is called a ‘google’. An extremely large number. The odds of evolution are far, far smaller than even this number (one change in a google).
There is an infinitely small random chance of the universe coming into existence versus an infinitely large number of universes in the multiverse. What is ‘infinitely small X infinitely large’? No one knows.
Scientists have long accepted our universe had a beginning. By extension then, the multiverse must also have had a beginning. What caused the multiverse? No viable answers exist so this question is ignored in the same way it was for the Big Bang theory. NOTE – some say a ‘quantum fluctuation’ was the initial cause, but then what caused that fluctuation and what is that quantum?
The obvious alternative is that our universe was created by a creator, by God. The Bible affirms it as it starts with the statement “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But why believe this theory over the multiverse?
Evidence. Nobel prize winning scientist Charles Townes said “Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seem to be quite real.” Likewise, famous physicist Paul Davies said “Everyone agrees that the universe looks as if it was designed for life.” If it looks designed it is logical to believe it is designed.
No scientists have any explanation for where the laws of physics such as gravity, nuclear forces, electrical forces, mass of subatomic particles and so much more, come from. For example, we know gravity exists, we can measure it, but we do not know why it exists, where it came from. We do not know why the gravitational constant ‘G’ has the value it does. It is “madness”, referring back to the movie.
Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has said “Universes beside our own are logically equivalent to gods. They are unobservable by assumption, hence they can exist only in a religious sense. You can believe in them if you want to, but they are not part of science.”
Hopefully one day we will get over this “strange” behaviour of belief in something with no evidence and turn to something with overwhelming evidence. While Dr. Hossenfelder is right, God is unobservable, there is overwhelming evidence for His existence. God knew we would try to reject Him and thus said in His word, the Bible, “For his [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they [all of us] are without excuse.” Romans 1:20.
All nature points to an intelligence; to God. The multiverse has nothing pointing to it; it is not an alternative to a creator.
Mars life?
by Ed Van Gennip | May 6, 2021 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
“Space, the final frontier” was the opening phrase of the original Star Trek series running from 1966-1969. That opening includes their mission “ … to explore strange new worlds. seek out new life and new civilizations …”. That appears to continue to be the final frontier in the real world of today as well.
On July 30, 2020 NASA launched the latest Mars mission at a cost of $2.7 billion (USD). On February 18, 2021 the rover part of the mission began on the planet’s surface. The mission will continue at least a year. It will include drilling rock cores and storing them until a 2026 mission can come, pick up the samples and bring them back to earth for analysis.
The purpose of the mission? From NASA’s mission website (https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/), the first sentence says “The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, which will advance NASA’s quest to explore the past habitability of Mars.” They are seeking out life and possibly past ‘habitability’, which could mean past civilizations. The 60’s are back!
We do not need to go back to the 60’s. On September 28, 2016 NASA “Confirmed evidence that liquid water flows on todays Mars” (https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars). It was big news. Water on Mars seems to indicate life on Mars. What was not big news was the retraction, announcement on November 20, 2017, 2 years later. NASA then acknowledged the ‘water’ was actually sand sliding downhill (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/recurring-martian-streaks-flowing-sand-not-water). No water. No life. But, keep trying.
Scientific study of space exploration and studying the universe is good and can help us understand the universe. It is sad that scientists do not also use the same science skills to realize that life did not just happen somewhere ‘out there’. Physics and astronomy shows us clearly it is not possible for a universe to form randomly. Further to that chemistry and biology show us life cannot form randomly.
Fortunately the Mars rover mission has some other, more practical purposes so the $2.7 billion is not a total waste.
At the Museum of Natural Science and History we are working on a virtual exhibit looking at the physics aspect of the problem of the universe forming. There are almost 300 different ‘constants of physics’ that work together in a precise ways to allow the universe to work. The exhibit will enable visitors to tinker, to change these constants and see if the universe could form. The screen shots below show a prototype of part of the exhibit. Our hope is that visitors will realize the folly of looking for life ‘out there’ as if that would solve the problem of where it originally came from. For even if there was life ‘out there’ it had to come from somewhere else ‘out there’. An endless series of problems until one realizes the beginning is the creator, God. He alone has no origin, no beginning, so could create everything that does have a beginning, like our universe.
Virtual Visitors will arrive at the Physics Pavilion via a hyperloop type train. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop)
They will see the many constants that make our universe operate. The visitor can change the values of these constants to see what will happen. Random changes one might say.
A graph will show the user all the constants, their existing values in the real world, the value the user has set, and a ‘goldilocks’ range of possible values that might make the universe work.
Once the user has set the value they can engage the universe creation engine. All the values are put in and calculations done to see what are the changes the universe will come into existence.
If you would like to support the development of the virtual museum exhibits on physics, chemistry, geology, biology, astronomy contact us by clicking here.
Entropy
by Ed Van Gennip | December 26, 2020 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Entropy – “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”, according to Oxford. A lack of order. A lack of predictability. A decline from order to disorder. Seems fairly straight forward, but is it?
In nature entropy is always at work. Everything eventually get less orderly. An apple, if left after picking, rots to become ash or dust. Youthful health turns into aches and pains as the body wear out. Warmth of a fire dissipates and things become cold. Everything runs down.
Nothing evolves, except in theory. No scientist has ever measured or observed something opposite to entropy. No apple after picking continued to grow. No aged person per became young again. Charles Darwin claimed finches in the Galapagos Islands evolved by growing larger beaks. Over a longer period of observation it was shown the beaks changed back became smaller, when the food again became plentiful.
The human genome is also experiencing entropy, it is decaying. People not getting stronger and healthier. It looks like we are as people are living longer but that is due to better food, medications and living conditions. We are temporarily countering entropy, but not defeating it.
Consider if evolution occurred over the past 2.5 billion years from single celled life to all life forms – bacteria, plants, animals and humans. Great diversity. Let’s say mankind took 2.5 billions steps to evolve to our present form. That means 1 evolutionary step happened per year. This included many failed steps as random chance will product far far more failures than successes. The estimate is that there are 1 million bad mutations (evolutionary steps) for every 1 good one.
Now look at our present world of 8.5 billion people. Evolution is supposedly still happening. That 1 step of evolution per year to produce 1 human in 2.5 billion years is like 2.5 billion humans each taking 1 step in 1 year. Thus we should see at least 3 beneficial steps of evolution, somewhere in the world, etc year as we have over 3 times as many humans (2.5 billion x 3 = 7.5 billion) alive today.
In the last 100 years people have been all over the world, seen and studied so many things. That is a lot of people that could be evolving, one step at a time, in some way. No one has reported a single piece of evidence that humans are evolving, and no evidence of any failed evolution either. None, either way!
We are decaying as entropy shows us. It is also called the 2nd law of Thermodynamics – that everything runs down to a less ordered state. We are not evolving as lack of evidence shows us.
Estimates vary, but a common figure is that each child is born with around 100 new mutations (100 increases in entropy or degeneration). These are added to the ones already accumulated in previous generations. One person put it this way – “Could you ever expect to improve an encyclopedia by adding more and more spelling mistakes every time one is printed?”
What are the alternatives? Currently, after hundreds of years of looking for alternatives there is only 1. That God created almost everything, and what He did not create directly came about by Him adding adaptability into what He did create. So for example He could have created a wolf and it adapted over time to become a dog. But it did not evolve to become a giraffe or some completely different species of animal. Likewise an ape like creature did not evolve into a human creature. Humanity is a unique species.
As we celebrate Christmas 2020, in our very isolated environments, I hope we each have time to consider not only where Christmas came from, but where we came from. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth over 2000 years ago, which ultimately lead to His death 33 years thereafter. He was born to die, for us. For humanity. Not for plants or animals, but for humanity.
At the Museum of Natural Science and History we try to look at science through the perspective of the Bible as the foundation. Thus we interpret science fact differently than non-Christian organizations. media, universities, and such. They use the perspective of evolution as the foundation. The evolution foundation is based solely on theory; there is no ancient book or other material on which to rely. Thus we see many different conclusions. Regardless of the foundation, in the case of entropy, it is fact for it not there would be no 2nd law of thermodynamics.
As the museum, we are working on a virtual exhibit whereby individuals can tinker with the constants of physics (undisputed ‘laws’) that control our universe and see if life could evolve from that. At some point we plan to do the same with chemistry and maybe biology. Watch for more information in the spring 2021.
Sources:
- Gerrish, P. and Lenski, R., The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population, Genetica 102/103: 127–144, 1998.
- https://creation.com/genetic-entropy-vs-evolution?utm_campaign=infobytes_ca&utm_content=Humans+are+headed+toward+extinction.+That%27s+the+EXACT+OPPOSITE+of+evolution%21&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailing.creation.com&utm_term=Fortnightly+Digest+-+2020.12.11
Are Scientists credible? Should we believe them?
by Ed Van Gennip | August 12, 2020 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
When something new comes out should we jump on board and believe it just because a credible scientist says it? The simple answer is no. It takes time to really gain the knowledge and come to a correct and complete answer. Depending on the subject, the factors can vary over time, so that an answer to an issue today may not be the answer tomorrow. As a result, going to extremes over an issue is not a good idea.
Over the past 50 years we have heard increasing concern from scientists about global warming, lack of fresh water and lack of food for the ever growing population. Some say we need to reduce the world population to 500 million from our current 7.5 billion. That is a 93% decrease in population. Put another way, 93 of every 100 people on the planet need to die in one way or another!
I have recorded some video’s on these and other topics over the past few years. A video on global water supply is https://youtu.be/ZKaCtstUKR0. One on global food supply is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNmxCWEpqlw&feature=youtu.be. One on over-population is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIqVKytEAAU&feature=youtu.be. Many others including many scientists (which I am not) have also written on these subjects with the same view. In fact my research draws on these scientists.
This variability in answers from scientists is not something new. Scientists throughout history have made mistakes. It is understandable as we are always learning more, gaining a deeper understanding.
The Corona virus is the current world threat. What is the next one? Maybe it will be that the world is under populated. Thats right, ‘under’, not ‘over’. On July 15 2020 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) published an article (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521) claiming just that, including the following images.
Higher levels of education for women, more women working, easier access to birth control all lead to families with less children and thus decreasing population in future generations. The study by the University of Washington predicts that by the year 2100 China’s population will be half of what it is now and India’s will be about 80% of todays. As the worlds most populated countries these changes will have a huge impact.
Covid-19, from what I have heard (but have no substantial data) is helping ‘fight’ climate change. Human Rights Watch posted an article (https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/16/how-covid-19-could-impact-climate-crisis) opening with the statement “Satellite images showing dramatic drops in air pollution in coronavirus hotspots around the globe have circulated widely on social media, offering a silver lining to an otherwise very dark story.” They go on to say we must continue to fight it. For now, with so many people staying home for the past half year and airline traffic almost to a standstill, carbon emissions must have drastically reduced. Sorry Mr Al Gore but it looks like the ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ predictions in 2006 are a little, or a lot, off the mark.
Population decline will lead to new problems. As the populations of many countries, including Canada and USA get older there are less workers in the work force to pay taxes to cover our retirement benefits and medical costs. Less workers for retirement homes and nursing care. Countries will be paying immigrants to come instead of restricting them! It will be interest times, but then every age seems to have something that is ‘interesting’.
Back to my opening questions “Are scientists credible? Should we believe them?” I say we should listen, look at their research, look at opposing research and then make an informed decision. Generally they are credible, although fraud does exist in every industry. Generally they do their best in trying to help so we should believe them, but not with a ‘blind faith’ type believe just because a person is a ‘scientist’. So let’s not go to extremes like trying to reduce the world population by 93%, get too passionate about food or water shortages or climate change or a myriad of other issues. “Everything in moderation” some wise sage of days past has said.
The Museum of Natural Science and History seeks to present alternative views, based on the same evidence, to many claims made by scientists. The different views come from our different foundations, different beliefs. One belief is that we evolved over longs periods of time by random chance. The other is that there is a creator, an intelligence, the God revealed in the Bible, who created all things. Base on your staring belief, your starting foundation, you come to different conclusions in many fields of science.
In this case, world population concerns, it is not this different foundation directly, but indirectly, that leads to the different conclusions and suggested actions. For in the Bible God says says twice that mankind is to fill the earth (Genesis 1:28, 9:7). Thus over population will never be a real problem.
PS – in this blog I referred to a few short video’s. This same material and much more on many different areas of our world and universe are covered in my book ‘The Ultimate Design’ available here: https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/edward-van-gennip/the-ultimate-design/paperback/product-1g2w94gn.html
Just last week I released an eBook version which can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Design-Edward-Van-Gennip-ebook/dp/B08FCNRPRH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Ultimate+Design&qid=1597107561&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
It’s A Small World After All
by Ed Van Gennip | April 13, 2020 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
“It’s a Small World after All” is the name of an old Walt Disney World theme park ride. Recent events have shown this to be true.
The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has come upon the world quickly. It has been a wake-up call in many ways. It is easily spread and causing much death. one reason the spread has been so fast is due to the amount of world wide travel that happens on a daily basis. The virus travels with them. We are also now seeing economic impacts through layoffs from work, cancelled trips, restaurants, movies, all kinds outings, virtually everything ‘non-essential’ has come to a halt. I do not want to minimize in any way the impact of this virus but do want to use it as an introduction to another topic, based on some similarities. One similarity is the speed at which the world can change. Who in January 2020 could have imagined that the world would be so widely impacted, so changed, by April!
Speaking of people and how fast the world can change, I now switch to the topic I am writing about today. The migration of ancient people from the ‘cradle of civilization’, where humanity supposedly first evolved, found the world. Evolutionary theory says it took about 200,000 years. The image shows the timing and routes supposedly taken. Maybe there is another scenario where- by the migration was much faster; where the world changed much more quickly.
One Sunday in early February 2020 a young man named Phuc was sharing how science has proven the earth is millions of years old, or older. As time was already late we could not go into all the evidence from science to the contrary. Much of this science I have shared in my book ‘The Ultimate Design’, available by clicking here.
Recently I read an article which led me to a NASA sponsored simulation of what the earth could have been like in the past if the ocean levels were lower. This is science looking at the ocean floor and and what appears as land when the ocean level drops. Interesting, but not surprisingly the results are consistent with what Bible believing, creation believing, scientists have long taught. The images below show the land when the oceans levels are dropped by 1.6 kilometre (1 mile) and 3.2 km (2 miles).
With the oceans down only 1.6km we see 6 of the 7 continents connected by land bridges. Mankind could easily have walked and migrated around the earth. With the oceans down 3km virtually all land, all major islands, are connected.
In the Bible, the first book thereof, we read in chapter 11, verse 8 “So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; …”
But you might ask was the ocean level lower in the past? Those scientists who study geology, ice ages and the past, both from a Biblical and non-Biblical foundation, agree there was at least one ice age and the oceans were lower. Biblical scientists say it came after the global flood; Noah’s flood as we call it. The dispersal of people over the earth in Genesis 11 comes after the flood. The events, the dispersal of people occurred around 4,200 years ago, or 2200 BC. People and animals migrated and adapted to the new environments, they did not evolve in these new environments over millions of years. The lower ocean levels make additional migrations routes available, enabling human and animal migration to happen faster and more recently in earth’s history. In fact it is a small world after all!
While the simulation of ocean level changes in not direct proof it does provide one more piece of circumstantial evidence in support of the accuracy of the Biblical account of history in contrast to the evolutionary account. The more we learn from science the more evidence, direct and circumstantial supporting a young earth, a recent creation, not millions and billions of years of evolution.
Phuc, speaking of proof, I defer to some examples. In mathematics we know the derivative of ‘x2’ is ‘2x’. In physics we know Sir Isaac Newton’s force of gravity is Fg = G * m1 * m2 / r2. From electrical circuits we know E= I * R. These have been proven and no one disputes their validity.
No Phuc, despite the ‘scientific evidence’ and the ‘proof’ you hear and read, science has not proven the earth is millions or billions of years old. There are many qualified scientists who do not agree with the evolutionary theories. Every day we see growing evidence to the contrary in many, if not all fields of science. These ocean simulations are a recent example showing the possibility the earth is young, it was created by a creator, God. It is not a random series of events that just happened to bring us to where we are today.
Climate Change – What do we really know?
by Ed Van Gennip | October 20, 2019 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Credit: NASA
In July 2013 I published a blog titled “Global Warming”. We do not hear that term today, 6 years later. Now “Climate Change” is in vogue. In 2006 Al Gore from the USA travelled around promoting something called “An Inconvenient Truth”. It was all about global warming and the impact it was having on the world. A drastic, cataclysmic type impact.
In my last blog I said my next article, this one, would focus on science. With climate change the number 2 issue facing Canadians this election (Global News report, Oct 9) I felt it is timely to relook at this issue.
One afternoon last week as I drove through Barrie, school kids were out walking the streets with posters related to climate change. Probably a lot of this recent activity is a result of Greta Thunberg’s speech at the United Nations on September 23rd. She is a 16 year old from Sweden who’s speech hinted at ‘us’ as evil, destroying her world, and that ‘we’ can never be forgiven. She and many others are very passionate about the climate change issue.
Recently a friend shared an article from a climate scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, who has been working in this field for many years. Some of you may know her husband, Andrew Farley, a pastor who speaks on the WDCX radio station weekly. There is a lot of research in the climate change field by many scientists, including Katherine, resulting in much bad news.
Recently our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, as part of his re-election campaign was in the far north talking about climate change, as a bad thing. If I lived in the far north I think that I would welcome climate change (global warming) as it means the north would be warming, growing larger trees, becoming farm land, providing jobs and helping the northern economy. But, that is my opinion.
Let’s try to ignore all the opinion and hype for a few minutes and look at some of the history and facts. From that you can draw your own conclusion. I am going to focus primarily on those who say mankind is not the cause of climate change. I am doing this as that is the ‘underdog’ today, and also because that is what I believe from the research I have done. Having some knowledge is always better than just following the crowd which is what a lot of people, especially the young, are doing. Certainly the media would not build up the issue; they only tell what is really happening around the world, and are perfectly un-biased. NOT!
- In 2013 Forbes magazine did a survey of earth scientists and engineers. 36% said they think mankind is causing global warming problems. That is only 1/3 of scientists!
- In 2018 Forbes published a new report, not mentioning the previous one but now focusing on the increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. CO2 is the primary component of global warming (climate change).
- Mr Gore, 2006, used a chart from NASA which showed the ocean temperature have risen about 0.7oC in the past 140 years.
- ScienceDaily on July 17 2019 published an article explaining how inaccurate temperature measurement were for the first half of this time period. Do we really know the temperature change?
- Nature magazine published an article on Oct 31, 2018 claiming the oceans are warming drastically due to man-made emissions. On Sept 25, 2019 they retracted (deleted/removed) that article. Why? They are not warming as previously stated.
- Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, commenting on the Nature article said “Climatology is littered with examples of bad statistics, going back to the infamous Hockey Stick graph and beyond.” NOTE – the hockey stick graph refers to Al Gore’s dire presentation I previously mentioned.
- Sadly, whenever something is retracted it is a very small article and certainly not on the front page, so few people see it and go on believing the previous article’s untruth.
- Principia Scientific International, Feb 9, 2017 has an article written by an industrial chemist explaining why carbon dioxide cannot be causing the warming of our oceans. He summarizes his explanation by saying “In short, our influence on our climate, even if we really tried, is minuscule!”
- American Thinker published an article on Aug 4, 2014 which looked at climate change over the past 120 years, from mankind’s perspective. The article reported that the New York Times in Feb 1895 published an article saying geologists thought the world is freezing up, an ice age is coming. By 1902 the glaciers were melting which was bad news. 1912 they flipped back to an approaching ice age and in 1923 the Chicago Tribune said the “Arctic ice will wipe out Canada.” The Washington Post said the same in 1923. By 1929 the Los Angeles Times said we are getting warmer again. It goes on and on, every 5 years or so, flipping between warming and cooling. We seem to be in an extended warming period right now, at least from the media’s voice.
- “It is not a debate over whether the earth has been warming over the past century. The earth is always warming or cooling, at least a few tenths of a degree…” Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, 2006.
- “Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating. The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as ‘proof’ of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.” as published in the New York Post, Dec 5, 2013.
- New York Times, Aug 10, 1969, article by biologist Paul Ehrlich claiming it is already too late to stop the disaster of environmental problems. He claims everyone will be dead in 20 years (by 1989) “unless we are extremely lucky”.
- In many places around the earth there are active volcanoes. 20 or more are erupting all the time, continuously spewing ‘green house’ gases into the atmosphere. Around 70 a year. The United States Geological Society (USGS) says there are 1,500 active volcanoes world wide and these do not include the ones deep under the oceans.
- USGS states man-made machines create far more gases than volcanoes each year, which is big part of the justification that mankind is causing the perceived problem.
There are scientists on all slides of this issue: warming is happening and mankind is the cause; it is not happening; it is just a cycle of nature; it is happening but mankind is not the cause, …
- Some additional thoughts:
For those who believe in evolution, the earth was much hotter in the past. If we plotted the temperature over the last 3.45 billions years if would show a strong line down! - Oil companies and geologists in the far north have found fossils and petrified trees which are far far larger than any today. Even above the arctic circle where no trees grow today. Thus the land was far warmer in the past than today, and it was a thriving tropical world.
- All Canada and part of USA, not to mention parts of many other countries, were once under ice and snow from the ice age a few thousand years ago. The climate has been warming since then. If not we would not be here today.
- Plants breathe in CO2 the main ‘greenhouse gas’ which supposedly causes global warming. More CO2 means the plants will grow bigger, maybe faster. This is good for mankind as there are concerns we are cutting down too many forests. Thus in some ways more CO2 will help us.
- Look at a map of the world. Look at how much land in the north is unused. Look at Canada and see that almost all people live along the southern border. If Canada’s climate where to warm we would have much more agriculture. We could grow more crops. We could have more and bigger forests in the north. This all sound good for us. I know there are problems for people in warmer climate. I am not denying that. I am just saying there are benefits as well as costs. People in warmer climate will need to move north.
Finally, for those who are believers in the God of the Bible, we can look at His perspective. The Bible does talk about ‘end times’ and drastic changes in the earth. Climate change could very well be a part of that. The Bible contains no language to hint that mankind is the cause. The Bible talks about all nature groaning and struggling. Do we cause earthquakes to increase? Do we cause volcanic activity or more hurricanes and tsunami’s? I’ve not heard we cause these. It seems there is evidence on both sides of the climate change issue. Only time will tell the truth, as it always does!
I will conclude with some other huge concerns we have had. Remember the hole in the Ozone layer over Antarctica? It was growing and going to cause disaster. How about acid rain killing all our fish? The diseases of SARS, West Nile, H1N1, etc. The world is over populated and fresh water is running in short supply. It seems there is always some looming disaster the media wants us to focus our attention on, and be afraid of. Certainly we can work to solve these problems and we have. None of them have been as severe as predicted. Likewise with climate change – doom and gloom is how it appears on the surface. We will see in 10-15 years if the focus shifts elsewhere. Maybe the focus will be meteors from space that will impact earth and destroy us, so we must act fast.
Frog in the Well
by Ed Van Gennip | August 7, 2019 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Just 3 weeks ago an event happened you may not have heard about. July 20th was the 50th anniversary of the first men to walk on the moon! President John F. Kennedy announced to America on May 25 1961, that America would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Even though JFK was assassinated 2 years later the plan continued to unfold and on July 20th 1969 two men walked on the moon.
Neil Armstrong was the first out the door of the lunar lander named Eagle. Buzz Aldrin join him 39 minutes later. Neil is famous for saying “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What Buzz did is quite different and not as well known.
Credit: NASA
After the Apollo 11 lunar module landed the astronauts waited over 6 hours before NASA gave the OK to open the door and walk on the moon’s surface. During this time Buzz did something he felt was important. He spoke to NASA back on Earth and said “I would like to request a few moments of silence, I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.” He then took the wine and bread he had permission to bring along and later said “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup,” Buzz read from the Bible and then ate and drank. Neil watched but did not participate.
Buzz celebrated the Christian act called “communion”. The first thing he did, before walking on the moon, was to recognize that Jesus Christ had died for his [Buzz’s] wrongdoings [sins].
This event and what Buzz said was not broadcast to the world, even though Neil’s words were. A selfish woman named Madalyn Murray O’Hair had previously sued NASA because the Apollo 8 astronauts had read from the Bible, the book of Genesis, which was broadcast on Christmas Day 1968.
Like Buzz Aldrin, Charles Duke was another astronaut who was a leader in his church. There have been many astronauts who believe in God. Wernher von Braun became a director at NASA and his group developed the Saturn V rocket engine that propelled the Apollo missions to space and the moon. He too was a committed believer in God and creation.
Coming back to the present, the Gallup organization did a poll from June 3-16, 2019 asking American’s what they believe about the origin of our universe. The graph shows the results. The top line, grey in colour, are those who believe God created us, mankind, in our present form. This means we did not evolve from animals over billions of years. The green line represents those who believe God created us but used evolution in some way to get us where we are today. The lowest line, dark green, is those who believe there is no God and we evolved from non-living chemicals into what we are today.
Credit: https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
Despite the continual attacks on the belief in God and the belief in creation, the majority of Americans, and hopefully Canadians, still hold this belief. Despite those like Ms O’Hair who are trying to silence anyone who publicly professes there is a God, despite movies, schools, governments, media, and others all promoting the FAKE NEWS of evolution, most people still do not believe it. These are scientists, astronauts, doctors, politicians like the USA Vice President Mike Pence, and Canadian future Prime Minister Andrew Scheer, and everyday people like the rest of us, who believe in God.
Do not be fooled by media personalities like the American Neil deGrasse Tyson or British Richard Dawkins who claim evolution is a fact. It is not. It is far from fact.
I have adapted a story by Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand into this analogy: A tadpole was born in the bottom of a deep well. It grew into a frog that lived its whole life in the there, eating bugs that happened to come into range of its tongue. In the dark of night the frog looked up the well and through the distant opening at the top could see a circle of stars shining brightly. The frog thought the sky was amazing with all these twinkling stars. One day a flood happened and the well filled with water. The frog rose to the top of the well. That evening as he looked up he was dumbfounded! His sight was no longer limited by the walls of the well. That circle of stars which is all he had known was now a complete sky, in all directions, filled with stars. Far, far larger and more magnificent that he had ever known.
Credit: NASA
Some people like those I mentioned above are like the frog in the well. They see only a small circle of what can be seen. They have chosen to limit their view of science to include only the material world and thereby exclude the magnificent whole sky of options that could be seen, if only they would rise up, open their minds, and look.
This is why we continue to work towards developing the Museum of Natural Science and History. A world class facility that will share the many aspects of science that are not and cannot be explained by evolution. A broader, bigger, view of science must be embraced. Contact us if you would like to help accomplish our goal: http://www.truescience.ca/#contact
This article did not talk about science specifically. It talked about educated and skilled people of science, whether astronauts, scientists or engineers. In my next article I will get back to some new discoveries in science which do not fit the evolution based, ‘bottom of the well’ based, model of life.
Does the past and future lead to the same outcome?
by Ed Van Gennip | May 13, 2019 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The Quora website estimates there are at least 7 million full-time, working scientists around the world today. Some of these scientists look into the past through archeology, the study of human activity in the past. Or through anthropology, the study of human biology and language in the past. There is also paleontology which is the study of the past through fossils. By looking back we can see where we came from and hopefully learn from that to improve where we are going.
The Bible has some forms of archeology and anthropology contained in its early pages. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, chapter 6 verse 4 says “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Here we see human activity in the form of relationships between women and the ‘sons of God’. We see some biology, some physical interaction between these women and the ‘sons of God’.
The book of Enoch, which is not part of the Bible, also talks to this subject. It supports or adds to what the Bible says about these ‘sons of God’ as being spiritual beings who have taken on physical form.
Immediately after this historical event we read that God decided to destroy the earth with a global flood due to the wickedness of this union of women and the ‘sons of God’ and the wickedness of mankind overall. Only 1 family, Noah’s family was saved.
Other scientists work in the fields of biology and genetics. Both of these look at living systems and how they work. Do you remember the sheep named Dolly? She was the first mammal cloned from a single cell. This was in 1996. Genetic engineering has come a long way since then. We alter chickens to grow more white meat, dairy cattle to produce more milk, wheat to resist drought and disease and many more things. Scientists continue to look for ways to enhance growth and hardiness in animals and plants.
Adam was genetically engineered in the year 2000. His genetic information modified, so that he could donate blood to his sister who had a blood disease, and save her life. The term ‘designer babies’ is growing in popularity. It allows parents to alter the genes of their yet to be conceived baby so that the child will have specific traits like blond hair, larger muscles, higher intelligence, and more. It all sounds good. There are many shows on TV today that are based on individuals with special abilities such as flying, super sensitive hearing and vision, super strength and healing abilities. These shows are not pure science fiction; they are becoming reality.
We see it in mythology in the form of the India god Ganesh who has an elephant head on a human body. Or Horus, the Egyptian god with a bird head on a human body. How about the Minotaur from Greek mythology which has a head and tail of a bull and a human body. These sounds like fantasy and they probably were, but they may not be too far from reality in the near future. It makes sense when you consider some scientists says human’s and apes share 98.5% of their DNA. More recent studies say 95%. Sounds like we are almost the same, except for the fact that the 5% difference means there are 150,000,000 actual differences. And that is based on what we know today. Every day scientists are finding more differences.
What happened back in biblical history when the non-human and human mixture happened? That mixture, those Nephilim and their offspring, were destroyed along with the rest of the world. One must wonder what will happen in the future when this mixture or a similar mixture again happens? There is a saying … “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” I wonder if the destruction part of history is also to be repeated.
Human’s are unique. God created us different from plants and different from animals. If you believe in a spiritual realm then you know we are also different from spiritual beings. Despite changing values and ideas in society, despite humans trying to marry their pets as is happening in some European countries, God created us special. Only humans can appreciate beauty, and music. Only humans can develop new languages. Only humans can perform abstract thinking and ponder the future. These aspects that are unique to humanity are one side of science, a good side, that we plan to show at the Museum of Natural Science and History.
Contact us if you would like to help in some way.
UFO’s – Do they Exist? If so, what are they?
by Ed Van Gennip | February 28, 2019 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
U.F.O’s – Unidentified Flying Objects
There have been thousands and thousands of UFO sightings over the years. Are UFO’s real? Could all these reports be hoaxes? If they are real, are they beings that we should fear or beings that have come to help us?
As we start the year 2019 a unique event happened. Something that has never happened before in the history of mankind. A man-made object has encountered an object in the Kuiper Belt area of space, at the boundary of our solar system! On January 1, 2019 the New Horizons space probe flew by Ultima Thule. The name means “beyond the farthest frontiers”. Ultima Thule appears to be two pieces of rock joined together for a combined length of 31 km. There are rocks, meteors, comets, stars, asteroids out there. Is there life? Are there UFO’s?
Scientists who do not believe in God or any god believe the universe and life evolved by random chance over the past 13.8 billion years. This faith, belief system is called science. Let’s look at what science really knows to-date and what we think is needed for life to evolve.
- Abiogenesis – life coming from non-living things. Living matter at some point must have come from non-living matter. How did this transition happen? No one knows. So far all life forms have come from pre-existing living organisms. Cloning for example starts with the original animal, living, and copies it, growing a second one. Even taking parts of a cell, not a whole cell, is beginning with a living organism.
- For live to evolve by abiogenesis, a suitable environment must previously exist. That environment must contain the building blocks of life. For example, to build a house one must have bricks or cement for the foundation, wood for the walls, wire for the electrical and pipes for plumbing. Each of those build blocks is made of their own build blocks. Sand, lime, water and stone make cement. Copper and plastic make wire, etc. Likewise life requires proteins as building blocks. These proteins are made from their building blocks called amino acids. These acids are made of molecules which are combinations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. All these levels of build blocks must each have evolved or come from somewhere.
- Without going into details, there are more underlying requirements. The molecules or chemicals supposedly came from exploding stars. These stars evolved from somewhere and something as well.
- Our current stars, called population 1 stars, evolved from population 2 and those from population 3. Population 3 stars came from matter, mostly hydrogen, created by the Big Bang which gravity pulled into clumps, compressed and then became stars. So the evolution theory goes.
Back to UFO’s, …
for them to exist all these evolution steps must have happened not only on Earth but also elsewhere in the universe. Then life evolved ‘out there’ somewhere. What are the odds of that?
In 1961 astronomer Frank Drake developed a formula to calculate the odds of intelligent life ‘out there’. The formula is
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
- N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
- R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
- fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
- ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
- fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
- fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
- fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
- L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
Looks fairly simple. Just determine these 7 variables and multiple them together. The problem is, scientists do not have a single one of these variables calculated. Thus any answer to the question of the chance of UFO’s is purely a guess.
On July 5, 2018 the magazine SPACE published an article on the Drake equation and current estimates. The result is that in our galaxy, the Milky Way, the odds could be high as 99.6% that we are alone. In fact is goes on to says “The new numbers mean there’s a good chance humanity is the only detectable intelligent civilization around.” (https://www.space.com/41080-alien-life-may-be-rare-today.html).
So the odds of UFO’s from space seems highly unlikely. Then what are they?
Expanding the standard meaning of UFO we can conclude a different answer, if we have an open mind. Near the top of this article I referred to scientists who do not believe in God or a god. If we open our minds to the possibility that there is at least one god then what can we conclude? In fact, let’s be specific and look at the God on which the first 37 books of the Bible are based. This God is the one followed by the Jews, Christians and Muslim’s (in many ways) around the world. (NOTE – I stated the first 37 books, the Old Testament as it is called. This is because Jews and Muslims do not believe in the last 29 books, the New Testament).
Looking at the Old Testament, these ancient historical writings, we do find references to what could be called UFO’s. The best record comes from the writing of Ezekiel, as found in the first chapter of his book. I quote verse 4 to 9 here. “I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.”
Reading further in the chapter there are more fascinating statements that read like something we would see in a science fiction movie. Other examples from the Bible are Jacob’s ladder which depicts angels ascending and defending between Earth and Heaven. Isaiah refers to beings with 6 wings that fly and have great voices. Nehemiah refers to ‘multitudes of heaven’, beings who worship God. There are more examples.
In conclusion, depending on your starting assumptions, your worldview as it is called, one can says yes, UFO’s exist and they are some sort of spiritual beings or no, from a ‘science’ point of view UFO’s do not exist as the conditions for life as we know it in our universe are so finely tuned that Earth is probably the only place life exists.
Interestingly, this last option, that Earth is the only place life exists, makes Earth a very special place in the universe. This is something non-believing scientists do not want to accept because it means Earth is not random, but that we are here by design, by a plan, which implies a designer, a planner. That would be a god. Thus, either way ones looks at it, the same conclusion is inferred. There is a supreme intelligence, a god or God who created the universe, the earth, and all life, including any UFO’s.
The Museum of Natural Science and History endeavours to share many controversial issues in science to open the minds of anyone who wants to know the truth. These are people who do not want to simply accept what they have been spoon-fed to believe, but to seriously search for the truth.
Time, no friend to evolution
by Ed Van Gennip | September 25, 2018 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
We humans live in four dimensions. Length, width, height, and time. We can move up and down, left and right, forward and backwards. The fourth dimension, time, always move forward. Despite many movies, which I like by the way, we cannot travel backwards in time. But this is what many scientists try to do, in a way.
Many fields of science look at the present to try to determine what happened in the past. Geologists look at the earth today and the processes working on the earth as they attempt to determine what happened in the past. Likewise palaeontologists look at the fossils of plants and animals to determine what life was like in the past.
A recent article in Science magazine looked at fossils made by man, in a laboratory, in a single day. The article states “by ‘baking’ their own fossils with pressure, heat, and clay, scientists have now found a way to reveal how soft tissues preserve in fossils that turn up millions of years later—an approach that may allow researchers to peer into the past like never before.”
WOW, that is pretty amazing. Scientists can create fossils in a single day. The question is, does this advancement in science lead to the conclusion that fossils formed and soft tissues remain in those fossils over millions of years? No, it does not! What this really proves is what Christian scientists have already concluded from the Bible’s timeline of history. The global flood happened about 4,400 years ago. It buried millions and millions of plants and animals all over the world. Many of these turned into fossils due to the pressure, heat and physical processes over the single year of the flood.
As time continues to move forward this discovery is another example of an ever growing list of experiments and discoveries that add support to the theory that our planet was created recently; we did not evolve over billions of years. There is also a growing list of world wide scientists who have realized that Darwin’s theory of evolution and the theories built upon it do not stand up to scientific discoveries and experiments over the past 100 years. These are not Christian scientists. They are not believers in a god that created everything, but they are open minded enough to see the evidence against the prevailing evolutionary theories. From a science intersecting with religion, evolution intersecting with creation, point of view, we live in exciting times.
Image: Human made “fossils,” like this soon-to-be-preserved foot from an Anolis lizard, can teach scientists how fossils form and soft tissues survive the ravages of time. © EVAN SAITTA/FIELD MUSEUM/UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL AND TOM KAYE/FOUNDATION FOR SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT
Nobel Prize Winners & Inundatio
by Ed Van Gennip | June 7, 2018 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
I do not like to rely on statistics too much as they can be skewed in different ways, but I will rely on them a little for this article as these statistics seem pretty straight forward. According to the book “100 Years of Nobel Prize (2005)”, written by Baruch Aba Shalev, the following pattern can be seen in terms of scientists around the world who have been award Nobel prizes, between 1901 and 2000:
- 65.4% of these people have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.
Christians have won a total of:- 72.5% of all the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry.
- 65.3% in Physics.
- 62% in Medicine.
- 20% of the recipients are Jewish. Jews represent 0.2% of the worlds population, and thus should have about 0.2% of the Nobel awards.
- 10.5% of the recipients claim to be atheists.
- 0.8% of the recipients are Muslim.
I find it very interesting that such a high percentage are Christian or claim that is their preference. This is even more-so when one considers Dr. Richard Dawkins, a well known British scientist, who claims in his book “The God Delusion” that “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.” Mr. Dawkins is indirectly claiming the vast majority of scientists are insane! As an aside, I found no evidence Mr. Dawkins has won or even been considered for a Nobel prize.
Not only are a very high percentage of leading scientists Christians, many, probably most, believe what the Bible says – God created the universe and earth in 6 literal days, not billions of years. If interested you can see a partial list of such scientists here https://creation.com/creation-scientists. Do not be fooled by news, movies, books and interviews which claim all scientists as believing evolution. Do not believe those who claim evolution is fact. It is not, and that is a fact!
We are working on a smartphone game. It will teach people about the global flood of Noah’s day in a fun way. They will solve puzzles by loading all the animals into the pens on the ark in a short period of time before the flood waters come. They will then steer the ark around mountains, avoiding meteors, comets and volcanic eruptions as the rising flood waters carry the ark along. The game will contain short snippets of scientific information about the flood and our world. We will thus be teaching science from a Biblical viewpoint, in a fun way. It will advertise for our organization to raise awareness of who we are and what we are doing. It will, Lord willing, raise funds to help build the museum and science centre. We can sell advertising space in the game as well as enable players to purchase items to make their game play easier. We hope to have a VR (Virtual Reality) version of the game which could then be played in a motion simulator to make it more realistic. This could then generate revenue as people play the game. The featured image is a sample of the floor plan of the ark showing the pens, sizes of pens, other areas, and hallways. This maze of pens provides the foundation for the puzzle part of the game.
Where are they now?
by Ed Van Gennip | March 27, 2018 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
On March 14, 2018 Dr. Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, the same position held by the greatest scientist ever, Sir Isaac Newton, way back in 1663. Dr. Hawking has received numerous awards and been featured in a few TV shows. He was a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He had a very accomplished life for someone expected to die by the age of 30 due to the debilitating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also commonly named Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He was also a published author. His books were related to his life’s work in the area of physics and often contained a consistent theme – a claim that there is no God, with some science to support his claim. In his book “The Grand Design” Dr. Hawking concluded “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” Prior to this statement Dr. Hawking’s spends most of the book reviewing the advances in science throughout history. Then came that conclusion.
It did not take long for other scientists to respond to Dr. Hawking’s conclusion. Dr. John Lennox, from the same university as Hawking points out that if gravity was the cause of the universe forming then where did gravity come from? Also, gravity works by drawing pieces of matter together, like the earth towards the sun and the moon towards the earth. For gravity to work there must have been matter, but the Big Bang created the matter from nothing, so there was nothing for the gravity to work on. Dr. Hawking does not address either of those obvious, gapping holes in his theory.
Only a few months before his death the CERN physics research centre in France and Switzerland conducted an experiment designed to help show how the Big Bang, the evolution of the universe happened. The Big Bang theory states that when matter was created there was an equal amount of antimatter. The problem is that our universe today is composed of almost all matter. There is very little antimatter. When matter and antimatter come into contact they annihilate each other producing a photon, a tiny bit of light.
Large Hadron Collider. Credit: https://home.cern/images
The experiment would show that a few more particles of matter compared to antimatter were created by the Big Bang. Thus even though most particles destroyed each other, the few left over were enough to create all the matter in the universe. The equipment could detect a difference of one particle in 1.5 billion. And the results were … there was an equal number of antiprotons and protons. No difference! No extra particles left over to be used to create a universe.
The result caused the lead researcher in this project, Christian Smorra to state “All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist.” A better statement, in my opinion, would have been “All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe created by a Big Bang does not actually exist.”
Yet, here we are. We do exist! Every day more and more evidence in all fields of science point us farther and farther from evolution by random chance as being our origin. More and more evidence points to a creator, to God.
Despite Hawking’s brain power he failed or chose to ignore the vast amount of evidence that Jesus Christ was a real person who died and came back to life, which we celebrate at Easter. That Jesus Christ is God. Dr. Hawking failed or chose to ignore the vast evidence that life on Earth occurred recently and that evidence from every field of science is contrary, points away from, evolution. Even his field, physics, has huge problems with the fine tuning of the universe for life on our planet. I wonder if he believed in God but was angry with God due to his ALS condition and thus was trying, in his own mind, to get rid of God.
Billy Graham Credit: CNN.com
Just 3 weeks before Dr. Hawking died another world figure died – Mr. Billy Graham. Both were known around the world. Both have met with world leaders and leaders in their respective fields (Theology and Physics). Mr. Graham was not a scientist by title but he did do research work. He did not specifically research evolution but he did hold the theory that there is a creator, a God. His research and life work was based on the Bible.
Two great men, in their own ways. Both now dead. Their life work finished. One drew mankind away from God and one drew mankind towards God. If Hawking is right, both are now dead and done. If Graham is right, if there is a God, both have now stood before him to answer for how they spent their lives. I suspect one was told ‘well done my good and faithful servant’. The other was not!
Water on Mars? Was yes, now it is again no.
by Ed Van Gennip | February 9, 2018 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The Toronto Star, CNN, CBC, NASA, US News, UK Daily mail and many other news outlets reported on November 20 and 21, 2017 that the streaks seen on the surface of Mars are caused by flowing sand, not water. For hundreds of years scientists have been looking for flowing water. In 2015 it was reported they had found it. Now they retract that claim.
Credit: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA22070_fig1.jpg
The dark streaks on crater slopes appeared and disappeared with changing seasons. They appear at the top of craters as the climate warmed, water melted and flowed down the sides, eventually fading away due to freezing when the colder season came. This was thought to be melting and then seeping water being pulled downhill by gravity.
Newer, more detailed research has shown these steaks are actually sand sliding down the crater walls due to gravity. This matches what happens here on earth. They found the sand flows only when the crater wall slope is greater than 27 degrees. The streaks do not flow all the way down, which water would, but stop part way down. You can see the same thing happening on earth when watching sand being piled up in a quarry or sliding down a sand dune.
Scientists really want to find water on some planet. Water is a foundational element for all life forms we know of. Finding water in space increases the chance of life in space. This means Earth is not a unique or special place. It makes the concept of evolution more plausible. I’ll make 2 points regarding this desire of scientists. Finding water does not mean there is life. Water is an element of life but it certainly is not life. It is far from life. Life needs many more chemical elements and it also needs a design, and thus a designer, to put these elements together in a form that lives. The first point is that some day we may find water on some planet. So far we have not. The second point is that even if we do find water it certainly does not mean there is life on that planet or any other. It simply means there is water.
In the Bible, Genesis chapter 1 is says in verse 2 “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”. Verse 6 and 7 say “Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.”. Then verse 9 says “Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.” It really looks like all there was at the beginning of creation was water and light (verse 3). The heavens were formed from water and on earth the water divided for land to form or be created. Based on this it would be logical to conclude that there is water out there in the universe. It is also logical to think there may still be water out there. So finding water some day would not really be a big deal, at least for Christian scientists.
But for today, none has been found. Evolutionary scientists have once again been wrong in the earlier conclusion that there was flowing water on Mars. Our media is quick and verbose to report on some point of news supporting the idea of evolution but slow and curt in reporting contrary evidence. Do not take everything you hear as the absolute truth. Time will reveal the truth. Time has shown God’s Word, the Bible, to be 100% truth.
Mommy, where did I come from?
by Ed Van Gennip | December 11, 2017 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
My wife Nancy and I had the pleasure of taking care of our ‘grand-dog’, Momo, a few weekends back as our son and daughter-in-law travelled to Montreal for a conference. Momo is a West Highland Terrier.
Dogs are amazing creatures. They come in a huge range of sizes and shapes with different facial features varying quantity of fur and of course with different temperaments and abilities. Just think of a pit-bull compared to a Greyhound or a St Bernard compared to a Chihuahua. Huge differences yet they are all dogs. Everyone knows they are all dogs.
Look at the different size of heads on two of them.
Now let’s think about humans for a minute. Humans also come in a variety of sizes with differing body structures, facial features, temperaments and abilities. Evolutionary scientists claim that humans evolved, we came from, ape like creatures over millions of years. On the internet you can find articles from science magazines which show skulls of apes and various other ‘in-between’ creatures and then humans. They are of different sizes and somewhat different shapes, but similar. These similarities can be seen in the featured image above, of skulls taken from TIME Magazine; August 23, 1999, pp. 54-55. The top portion shows the skulls over time while the bottom shows we came from the same ancestors as monkeys and apes about 6 million years ago.
We have seen a great variety in dogs. We can see that same variety in horses. We can see that variety in many species but not to the same extend as the animals where humans have done selective breeding, like dogs and horses. Based on these species does it really make sense to claim humans came from ape-like creatures? Dogs are dogs and horses are horses. Likewise humans are humans. There is no evidence of dogs evolving from some other species like cats or rats. Likewise there is no evidence of horses evolving from lions or tigers. Despite claims to the contrary, there is really no evidence that humans evolved from ape-like creatures. Humans are humans.
In the Bible, in Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27 state “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Mankind is a unique creation by God, as are all animal species. There are claims to the contrary but no real evidence.
“Jimmy”, mom says, “you are very special. God created you just the way you are.” As He did with human kind, so He did with every species of animals, and so they remain to this day.
Featured image credit: TIME Magazine; August 23, 1999, pp. 54-55
A former Astronaut confuses science for scientism
by Ed Van Gennip | November 9, 2017 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The following blog entry is taken entirely from a blog by Kirk Durston. Kirk works for Power 2 Change. His training includes a Ph.D. Biophysics, M.A. Philosophy, B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, B.Sc. Physics, 1976, and about half of the course toward a Masters degree in Theology. His writings cross over these areas of study.
The original article can be found on the Power 2 Change blog. It is titled “A Former Astronaut and Scientism”. It is republished here with the authors consent.
In a recent speech, former astronaut Julie Payette, now the Governor General of Canada, displayed her unquestioning belief that science alone is worthy of our total trust and mocked those who are “still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process!”
Aside from the fact that her office is to represent the Queen of England, head of the Church of England, and a monarch who has made it clear in recent speeches that she is a woman of faith, there are at least three substantial problems with Her Excellency Julie Payette’s public, unwitting, and sincere embrace of scientism.
Scientism is the belief that science explains literally everything. In this view, even logic, mathematics, beauty, and the laws of physics have a natural explanation, including the origin of nature itself. Setting aside the logical difficulty of having nature bring itself into existence, scientism is essentially atheism dressed up in a lab coat. If there is a war on science today, it is being advanced by the damage done to the credibility of science by atheistic story-telling and science fiction that fails to stand the test of reproducibility, which brings me to the second problem with the Governor General’s speech.
Contrary to her leap of faith that science has shown us how life began, real science has utterly failed to reproduce such an amazing feat. Maybe someday, highly intelligent scientists will figure out how to build a simple life form, which will underscore the need for intelligent design, but we have not reached that milestone yet, much less demonstrated how such a stupendously improbable miracle occurred in natural conditions. In reality, we only have creative scenarios and stories, but one must not confuse creative story-telling with the discipline of good science. Creative scenarios without reproducibility equals science fiction. By confusing creative stories and science fiction with good science, the Governor General unwittingly promoted bad science. If anything, the advancement of science shows that the requirements for a natural explanation for life are growing increasingly fantastic, with the discovery of molecular machines, molecular computers, and digital software encoded within the DNA of every living organism. Nature does not write software, but the knowledge of what does is the elephant in the room of scientism.
The third problem with the Governor General’s example of unquestioning faith in science is the corruption that has reached crises proportions in certain areas of science itself, with a special nod to the biological sciences. In 2012 the journal Nature published an exposé which found that 89% of “landmark” papers in the field of cancer research, could not be reproduced. This launched a series of studies the results of which were summarized in a 2017 Nature article stating that the failure to reproduce scientific findings, in at least certain fields in science, are “the norm”. There are ideas of how to rectify this, but until that fine day occurs, unquestioning faith in science is naïve. Quite simply, science, like anything else people do, has a corruption problem fuelled by competition to win funding, the pressure to publish, and the lack of support for publishing negative results. If there is a war on science, another major contributor is the corrupting influence of human nature when faced with stiff competition for money, tenure, and academic status.
The bottom line is that we need to apply the same critical thinking skills to scientific claims as we would to religious claims, political assertions, and legal opinions. As a scientist myself, it pains me to say, thanks to atheism/scientism as well as the corrupting influence of funding and power, modern science is not the pinnacle of truth that a former astronaut, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, and the general public believe it to be. Good science plus human nature equals modern science … which turns out to be a mix of the good, the meaningless, and the absurd. As I have argued elsewhere, good science, following the scientific method, provides compelling evidence that the origin of life has the fingerprints of an intelligent creator all over its DNA.
References and further reading:
The extensive references and further readings can be seen in the original article here.
Christian Scientists
by Ed Van Gennip | August 18, 2017 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Are there university trained Christian scientists who believe in, support and possibly teach creation – that God created everything; we did not evolve over billions of years? I ask this question due to Mr Nye’s assertion, stated below.
Mr Nye, ‘The Science Guy’ from the United States, stated “The teaching of creationism over evolution could create a generation of youngsters who ‘can’t think’ and ‘will not be able to participate in the future.’ These and other quotes make it clear that these leading evangelists of evolution believe Christians who do not believe in evolution are harmful.
credit: en.wikipedia.org
Let’s look at this from a science point of view. Let’s look at the evidence and see what we can conclude about Mr Nye’s assertion. We will do this by looking at some scientists from history to see if they were harmful and ‘could not think’. If these Christian scientists of the past (and present) could think then it is safe to assume young people today who are taught as these scientists were can also think. In essence we prove Mr Nye incorrect by finding example that contradict his assertion.
Let’s begin…
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician and astronomer living 400 years ago. He discovered Mars has an elliptical orbit around the sun. He invented an improved refracting telescope. He was an advisor to the Roman Emperor and King of Hungary Rudolf II. Mr Kepler believed in the God of the Bible, believing God created the universe about 7,000 years ago. Kepler said: ‘We see how God, like a human architect, approached the founding of the world according to order and rule and measured everything in such a manner’. Kepler further states that God was ‘the kind Creator who brought forth nature out of nothing’. Mr Kepler did great things to advance science. He was respected by his peers. From this one scientist we already have evidence against the claims of Mr Nye. Lets look further.
Isaac Newton (featured image above) is best know for the laws of gravity and inertia. He is credited as being ‘the greatest scientist who ever lived.’ Despite a harsh youth and living through the Black Death plague he graduated university and did research in mathematics, light, telescopes and theology. He developed his theory of universal gravitation. He developed his three laws of motion and proved mathematically that the same laws did, in fact, apply both to the heavens and the earth. While studying the motions of planets and the earth Newton wrote ‘This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being.’ On another occasion he stated ‘Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.’ He was later elected as president of the Royal Society. These appointments and accomplishments clearly indicate his strong Christian values were very acceptable to government and science leaders of his day. Sadly, most remember Newton only for his work in the sciences of mathematics and areas of physics. In fact he wrote far more extensively on God’s Word, than anything else. He has written specifically on a young earth, a literal six-day creation and the evidence for a world wide flood.
Louis Pasteur, famous for the pasteurization process used to make our milk products safe, is another Christian scientist. From France, born in 1822, he studied chemistry to earn a Master’s degree in science.His research resulted in a new branch of science called microbiology, which is a very important area of science today. He stated ‘Microscopic beings must come into the world from parents similar to themselves.’ This discovery was a serious blow to evolution which requires life to come from non-living matter. Pasteur helped French farmers fight disease, including developing a vaccine for rabies. He developed a vaccine for anthrax in 1881. For all his work he as awarded the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award. Some pretty awesome accomplishments for a supposedly harmful Christian who said “The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.”
William Thompson was the first British scientists to become a Lord, Lord Kelvin. This was for his work on the first transatlantic telegraph cable. He was a physicist and engineer in the late 1800’s. He is remembered for the Kelvin temperature scale but he also formulated the first and second law of thermodynamics. He did research, taught and published papers on the nature of atoms, light, sound wave, and electricity. Lord Kelvin was a committed believer in the God of the Bible. He believed that God created the universe and all within it. He was a contemporary of Charles Darwin and publicly disagreed with the ideas of evolution over a very long period of time.
Another extraordinary scientist is Michael Faraday. He lived in England during the mid 1800s. Faraday discovered the chemical benzene, which has become very useful in the manufacture of compounds like dyes, nylon and plastics. He discovered electromagnetic induction which is the foundation of modern transformers and generators. He is called one of the greatest physicists of all time. He believed in a single Creator of all things. Sadly in the many years since his death a great many minds in science have become biased. They distort nature, developing un-necessary assumptions, to suit their preconceived notions, without realizing it. Science teaches us many great things but, he said “… our science, whilst it shows us these things, should lead us to think of Him who hath wrought them;”
Moving to the 20th century we encounter Wernher von Braun, as well as many, many others. Mr von Braun, originally from Poland eventually moved to the USA . He is the icon of the space age, taking mankind from simple rockets all the way to the moon and back. He worked on Apollo missions, the Space Shuttle program, the Skylab space station and interplanetary unmanned travel.
Credit: space.com
He was the first director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. In a letter to the California School Board regarding their 1972 teaching of only evolution von Braun said “To be forced to believe only one conclusion—that everything in the universe happened by chance-would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye?” He wrote “I find it … difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality, namely God, behind the existence of the universe”. The evidence of Wernher von Braun’s life speaks for itself again the uninformed statements of Mr Nye.
As a final example we turn to Samuel F.B. Morse, the co-inventor of Morse code and a key person in the setup of the telegraph system in the USA. He lived through most of the 19th century in America. A delay in him being informed of his wife’s illness, of which she died at age 25, motivated him to find a better, faster way of communication. This eventually led to inventing a single wire telegraph. On May 24, 1844 a message was sent between Washington and Baltimore which said “What hath God wrought.” This was chosen in recognition of Mr Morse’s faith in God who guided and inspired him. He stated “The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, …”.
These are just a few of the many, many Christian scientists through history. It continues today. Christian scientists work in virtually all fields, except evolution. Evolution has no verified history of being observed and has no evidence of occurring in modern times either. In conclusion, looking only at the evidence, ignoring the evolutionary bias of Mr Nye, we can see how much value, not harm, Christian scientists have brought to the people of the world.
Another human ancestor bites the dust!
by Ed Van Gennip | August 3, 2017 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Homo Naledi was discovered in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa in 2013. In 2015 it was declared to be a new ancestor of modern humans, approximately 2-3 million years old. It’s brain was about the size of an orange; much smaller than modern humans.
The Associated Press reported that scientists have “discovered a new member of the human family tree”1. National Geographic magazine (featured image above) ran a story in October 2015 with the face of this creature in its cover. Now, 2 years later, after some solid analysis has been complete on the skeleton fossil the story has changed. Dating techniques say the fossils are around 300,000 years old2. This is only 1/10th as old as previously though. This age assumes one accepts that the dating technique used is valid. If not, it may be much younger yet. Maybe only a few thousand years old.
According to evolutionary theory, 300,000 years ago modern humans existed. Thus this creature could not be one of our ancestors.
So what is Homo Naledi? Scientists do not really know yet. More study is needed. It could be an extinct type of ape. It could turn out to be human but deformed from some disease. It could turn out to be something quite different. Only in time will scientists due further analysis and publish another report narrowing down what Homo Naledi really is. For now we do know it is not millions of years old but possibly only thousands, thus fitting into the Biblical timeline of the Earth being about 6,000 years old.
References:
- Chutel, L. and M. Ritter. Study: Bones in South African cave reveal new human relative. Associated Press. Posted on phys.org September 10, 2015, accessed September 10, 2015.
- Young Homo naledi surprises. Wits University News. Posted on wits.ac.za May 9, 2017, accessed May 15, 2017.
Featured image credit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/
UNESCO denies true science (of history)
by Ed Van Gennip | October 17, 2016 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The Museum of Natural Science and History’s website is truescience.ca. This name was selected to share TRUE SCIENCE as some science being taught and believed is not true, it is a blatant lie. In some cases people propagating the science believe it, not realizing it is a lie as they have never been taught the truth.
Science has many fields. There are the traditional fields like physics, chemistry and biology, as taught in school. But there are other fields of work which I would also call science. For example there is political science. Archeology is a field of science, as in anthropology. Then there is history. It could also be consider a science, especially old history which ties into archeology. Keep this in mind as you read this blog (after this next paragraph which is a disclaimer) with references at the end of the blog.
As you read the following you will see I refer to Islam and Muslims quite a bit. Please keep in mind that I am not criticizing the religion of Islam. This article is not based on any writing in the Quran, to the best of my knowledge. The criticism is on a subset of followers of Islam who seek to change the past to suite their own purpose. This article is about what that subset of people are doing and the response of others to those actions. Thus please do not read into this article that I am critical of Islam itself.
Announcement : “The 58-member Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted on Thursday [October 13, 2016] to approve a resolution tabled by the Palestinian Authority declaring the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City has no historic ties to Judaism. The vote passed with 24 nations voting yes and 6 voting no, while a nearly unprecedented 26 countries abstained from voting, leaving diplomatic analysts saying the vote was actually a hollow victory for the PA and not a catastrophe for Israel. …”
Let me explain. The Temple Mount is the location where the Jewish King Solomon (around 967 B.C.) build the first and greatest Jewish temple (place of worship to Jehovah (God)). At this same site the second temple was built. It was destroyed by the Romans in A.D 70. Today this site contains ‘The Dome of the Rock’, a Muslim mosque (place of worship to Allah (God)). This mosque was completed in A.D 691. The picture shows the Western Wall with the Temple Mount behind the wall. The copper dome you see is ‘The Dome of the Rock’, which is located on the Temple Mount. History is clear. No serious historian debates that the temple was built here approximately 1650 years before the mosque. In fact Islam did not exist until around A.D 630. Thus the Temple Mount is clearly not Islamic, or Muslim, in a historical context.
Now to the Western Wall. This was one of the walls surrounding the 2nd temple, the one destroyed in A.D 70. The other walls were destroyed but this one left for some reason. During the Muslim occupation of Jerusalem this area was used as a garbage dump. Today is has been restored as a reminder to the Jews of the original temple area. It is used as a place of prayer. The Temple Mount walls existed and most were destroyed 600 years before the religions of Islam, and its followers called Muslims, came into existence.
So how can UNESCO, a division of the United Nations even decide to debate this issue, and then pass such a resolution which clearly ignore the true science of history? They obviously do not care about history. If your are interested, look at the references and see which nations voted in favour of the resolution? (hint – most were nations with Islamic governments or countries with a large percentage of Muslims). Why did many nations not vote? I expect those nations realized this is such a stupid issue they were not going to waste their time on it. They know history; it is a fact, a closed case, no reason to debate and decide as history is clear. Yet, here we are.
Fortunately this resolution means little, a ‘hollow victory for Palestine’ as the quote above states. One thing it does mean, one things it does show us, is that the truth is always a candidate for attack. The truth can be ignored if enough people are willing to. The truth of history and by extension any other field of science is up for debate. On a good note, the UN Secretary stated “any perceived undertaking to repudiate the undeniable common reference for these sites does not serve the interests of peace and will only feed violence and radicalism” and called on all sides “to uphold the status quo in relation to the holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.” He appears to be distancing the UN’s position from the UNESCO sector within the UN.
There is a message here for us. We need to be ever diligent if we seek to know the truth. Do not blindly believe those who lead us. Leaders are not perfect. Leaders have agendas we are not aware of. It is our responsibility to seek the truth, to follow it, to live by it, regardless of the lies we are taught and asked to believe. I have personally heard, talking face to face, that some Muslims deny the holocaust of World War II. Maybe soon there will be a resolution to removed it from history!
The Christian Jewish full article is at https://int.icej.org/news/headlines/unesco-votes-temple-mount-has-no-connection-israel A non-Christian, non-Jewish perspective is here http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/unesco-temple-mount-al-aqsa-israel-palestinian-1.3803729
Featured image credit: http://jerusalemmint.theisraelboutique.com/temple-mount-sacred.html
Christian influence on society
by Ed Van Gennip | March 14, 2016 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
Are Christians generally a good or a bad, a positive or a negative, influence on society?
Two prominent figures state Christians are negative or bad. These 2 figures are Richard Dawkins, a scientist who no longer practices science, just philosophy, and Bill Nye, a well known engineer from the Disney TV series ‘Bill Nye The Science Guy”. The linked video contains their statements and a rebuttal. The rebuttal takes a subset of Christians, namely Christian Scientists, and shows how they have been very positive, very good for society.
Selecting only scientists excludes the many Christians who started public school and many world famous universities. It ignores the organization that provide aid around the world like Samaritians Purse. It ignores the many hospitals and other health institutes built by Christian agencies and church. It ignores many others who help in their communities and travel around the world helping others. This video simply shows a subset of Christians which can be extrapolated to most Christians, to show they are positive and a good thing for society.
Update August 10, 2017: The linked video https://youtu.be/UitXliktOhw has been removed from Youtube and is thus no longer available.
Leap Ahead
by Ed Van Gennip | July 1, 2015 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
June 30, 2015, 7:59:59 = 8:00:00
On June 30, 2015, at 7:59:59pm EDT, the clocks moved forward by one second, instantly. We added a leap second to our common clocks, based on the earth’s rotation around the sun, to re-align them with the real time as determined by the cycle, or vibration time, of the caesium-133 atom. Who cares you might say? Read on to learn the implications of such a small event.
For most of us, in our daily lives this means nothing. We will not even notice; we will not adjust the seconds on our watches. For some, there are important implications. Without this periodic adjustment aircraft, satellite and other complex equipment would slowly but steadily get out of sync. But there are even larger implications.
The earth’s rotation around the sun varies due to events on earth like tsunami’s, earthquakes, changes in polar ice caps, anything that affects the centre of gravity of the planet. This changes our inertia which affects the speed of rotation – the length of a day, and the speed of movement around the sun – the length of a year. Likewise impacts from large meteors can have such an effect. But the largest effect is the force the moon exerts on the earth due to the gravitational attraction of the earth and the moon to each other. This force causes our ocean tides. This force has been in effect as long as the earth and moon have existed. This force is causing the earth’s rotation to slow down, year after year. It is also causing the moon to move farther and father away from the earth each year. In fact it is about 4cm per year. Thus our days are getting longer, year after year. This is why we add leap seconds, we never remove them. We have added 25 seconds to our day since 1972.
Let us consider the long term effect of tides for a moment. If the earth is slowing then going back into the past the earth must have been rotating faster. Going farther back it was even faster. The moon was also closer in the past, since it is slowly moving away. Combining these two facts we see the ancient earth rotated very fast and had huge tidal forces from the moon. Calculations show that the moon would have been touching the earth about 1.3 billion years ago. About 1 billion years ago tides would have been over a kilometre high. The forces would have ripped the planet apart.
Those who believe in evolution claim the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Thus the earth existed for 3.2 billion years without a moon. Life supposedly started to evolve about 2 billion years ago. The global destruction caused by the early moon, 1 billion years ago up to recently, does not allow time for life to evolve. On the other hand, if the universe were a mere 6,000 years old, then the moon would have only been 24 kilometres closer to the earth at the beginning of time. The tidal effects would be minimal and we could have a beautiful earth, as we see around us today. 2 drastically divergent ideas. One matches reality as we see it, one does not. Ponder that as you remember the loss of one second last night.
Credits: Answer In Genesis: answersingenesis.org; British Broadcasting Company, Science news: bbc.com; Astronomy Magazine: astronomy.com
God and suffering in the world
by admin | July 28, 2013 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The following story is copied from the website listed in the credits. It tells a great story. A parable as to why there is so much pain and suffering in the world if there is a God.
A Barber’s Story: Does God Exist?
A man went to a barber shop to have his hair and his beard cut as always. He started to have a good conversation with the barber who attended him. They talked about so many things and various subjects. Suddenly, they touched the subject of God. The barber said: “Look man, I don’t believe that God exists as you say.” “Why do you say that?” asked the client. “Well, it’s so easy, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God does not exist. Oh, tell me, if God existed, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be no suffering nor pain. I can’t think of loving a God who permits all of these things.”
The client stopped for a moment thinking, but he didn’t want to respond as to cause an argument. The barber finished his job and the client went out of the shop. Just after he left the barber shop he saw a man in the street with a long hair and beard (it seems that it had been a long time since he had his cut and he looked so untidy). Then the client again entered the barber shop and he said to the barber, “You know what? Barbers do not exist.” “How can you say they don’t exist?” asked the barber. “Well I am here and I am a barber.” “No!” the client exclaimed. “They don’t exist because if they did there would be no people with long hair and a beard like that man who walks in the street.”
“Ah, barbers do exist, what happens is that people do not come to me.” “Exactly!” affirmed the client. “That’s the point. God does exist. What happens is people don’t go to Him and do not look for Him. That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”
Credit: Barber Shop Story: http://livwater.blogspot.ca/2007/10/barbers-story-does-god-exist.html
Global Warming
by admin | July 1, 2013 | True Science Blog | 0 Comments
The general concern about global warming, as highly publicized by the American former vice President, Al Gore, is that with the globe’s average temperature increasing, the ice caps and glacier ice in mountain ranges will over time melt. This melting eventually flows into the oceans which will cause a rise in the ocean level. A huge portion of the world’s population lives in coastal lowlands or along rivers, which will also rise in coastal areas.
The continent of Antarctica is covered by over 2 kilometres (1.3 miles) of ice. This is about 90% of the ice in the entire world and 70% of the fresh water. If it melts the oceans will rise around 60 meters (200 feet). Currently the average temperature on the continent is -37o, so far from melting. If Greenland’s ice melted we would see about 7 meters or 20 feet increase. The city of Bangkok in Thailand has over 8 million people. The average elevation of the city is 1.5 meters or 5 feet. Thus it would be submerged if Greenland melted. Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India has a population of almost 13 million. It sits on average 5 meters (17 feet) above sealevel. Thus a huge part of this city would be underwater.
Thus we see a huge impact worldwide if the sea levels do rise. So, the questions to consider are 1) are the sea levels on a consistent trend of rising; 2) are humans causing it; 3) if so, what should we do; 4) if rising but not as a result of human actions, what can we do?
Whether one believes in the evolution of the world over billions of years or the creation of the world approximately 6,000 years ago as the Bible indicates does not really matter. Both of these faith systems believe there was at least one, possibly more than one ice age in the past. If there was a global ice age then the temperatures were much lower at that point and thus the ice formed over much of the world. The world has been warming ever since as the ice sheets have receded to the Polar Regions and mountain ranges. Thus the world has been warming for thousands of years now. Global warming is nothing new. The rising of the ocean has thus also been happening ever since the ice started receding. In the past people in small communities could simply build their homes on higher and higher ground. It was not a big deal as homes were small, fairly easy to take down and move, or to leave and start over. There were no roads, power lines, sewers, none of the infrastructure we have today.
The NASA website http://climate.nasa.gov contains many charts. One shows the global temperature changes over the past 130 years. It shows a change of less than 2 degrees. Not much but the sharpest increase began in the 80’s. Will the trend continue? No one really knows. We do know the sun follows an 11 year cycle in increased and decreased output. This affects our global temperature.
To answer the first question “are the sea levels on a consistent trend of rising”, it appears they are but very slowly as the global temperature is slowly rising. There is speculation that the burning of fossil fuels increased what are called ‘greenhouse’ gases. These gasses keep the heat in the air and thus the temperature rises. If this is true then humans are contributing to the increased temperature as we cause these greenhouses gases with our vehicles, coal fired power plants and any other types of burning fuels.
But let us put this in perspective. Around the world today there are 1,900 active volcano’s. Some are continually spewing ash and gases into the atmosphere. Volcanic sulfur dioxide can be up to 10 million tonnes per day. This is far more than all the vehicles. Water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas. As the earth warms the air can hold more water vapor causing an ever increasing greenhouse effect. This is independent of vehicle emissions. Thus the answer to the second question “are humans causing it (global warming)?” is that we might be having a very small effect but nowhere near the effect media and some politically (or otherwise) motivated activists claim.
Third was the question “what should we do?” The Bible says right near the beginning that God created mankind and mankind was to take care of the world. We are polluting the world far more than we really need to. Burning fossil fuels in inefficient engines helps oil companies earn more profit as the engines need more fuel that they really do if designed better. We waste fuel by leaving vehicles idling, especially different kinds of service vehicles which can be left running for hours, needlessly. We waste all kinds of things. We waste time and money and fuel producing weapons to defend and destroy each other. Building weapons uses energy and it is 100% waste as we could all live in peace. Thus there are things we could do if we lived up to our God given mandate to care for this world.
Finally, the question ”if (sea levels) rising but not as a result of human actions, what can we do?” We cannot stop it if we did not start it. We cannot cool the planet. But, if we step back from the concern mentioned above about the flooding of sea level cities and look at the world wide result of global warming we can see some good things. As the cold climate recedes northward the northern land warms resulting in more usable land in Canada, northern Europe, Siberia. This could be true in Antarctica as well as the cold there recedes closer to the south pole, allowing other parts of that continent to warm. Then we can grow more crops. We can move people from the shoreline, moving father inland and thus away from the rising waters. There will be some loss of usable land as the tropic get warmer as well. We may see some increased deserts. But we may also see some new rain forest areas a little farther north and south.
This sounds daunting. How could we possible move a billion or more people? Let’s look back to a previous point about all the resources we spend, worldwide, on fighting and weapons production. If that effort and wealth were diverted to moving people, to building new cities, to taking seawater and creating clean water we would still save money. We would also build good will amongst our peoples as we work together on a common cause instead of squabbling over a piece of land or some raw materials.
There are lots of things we can do to better ourselves whether global warming is a real threat or not. If you have ever watched movies where the fate of the world is on the line, like Armageddon, Deep Impact, Independence Day or others, then you have seen what can happen when we work together. The real question is not the ones mentioned above but “do we have the will to solve the problem?”
Featured image credit: https://medium.com/climate-desk/if-global-warming-is-a-hoax-50648c6290d4
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