Charting the Slow Death of the Universe

Charting the slow death of the universe

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150810162511.htm

 

 

Otis and Cynthia, two of RTB apologists buddies, note regarding this latest finding by the Astronomical Union general assembly:

 

This is the press release from the International Astronomical Union general assembly yesterday:

 

An international team of astronomers studying more than 200 000 galaxies has measured the energy generated within a large portion of space more precisely than ever before. This represents the most comprehensive assessment of the energy output of the nearby Universe. 

 

http://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1509/

 

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matt 24:35)

 

Cynthia

 

 

The results of this research are in close agreement with two important biblical concepts: (1) The natural world is tending toward decay, and (2) The flow of time is linear and irreversible.  Both of these concepts were unique to the Judeo-Christian worldview.  Physicist Paul Davies explains it this way:

 

"The Jews taught that the Universe unfolds in a unidirectional sequence – what we now call linear time – according to a definite historical process: creation, evolution, and dissolution.  This notion of linear time – in which the story of the Universe has a beginning, a middle, and an end – stands in marked contrast to the concept of cosmic cyclicity, the pervading mythology of almost all ancient cultures.  Cyclic time – the myth of the eternal return – springs from mankind's close association with the cycles and rhythms of nature, and remains a key component in the belief systems of many cultures today."

 

Once again we witness the truth that is found in the Bible.

 

Otis

 

If you are after the ScienceDaily article on this, you can find it here:

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150810162511.htm 

 

Would You Bet Your Species on "Earth-Like"?

Otis writes:

Here is an excerpt from the article in Science Daily that I think explains what is thought to happen when planets form:

 

 

"Planetary systems, including our own Solar system, are thought to form from hydrogen, helium and heavier elements that orbit their parent stars in a so-called protoplanetary disk. Dust and rocky material is thought to clump together over time, eventually forming rocky cores that go on to be planets. The gravity of these cores attracts hydrogen from the disk around them, some of which is stripped away by the ultraviolet light of the young star they orbit."

 

So as the protoplanetary rocky core forms it attracts hydrogen, methane and other gasses.  If the core is not too big, the hydrogen is stripped away by the host star's ultraviolet light.  For Earth, the hydrogen was stripped away long before the Moon-forming impact that further removed some of the Earth's atmosphere.  According to the recent work reported in Science Daily, if the rocky core is larger than about 1.15 Earth radius then the hydrogen sticks around on the planet and it turns into a "mini-Neptune."  The researchers do acknowledge that some unusual event (like the impact that formed the Earth-Moon) could remove the hydrogen from those 'super-Earths'.  

 

I think that the takeaway message is that Super Earths are not likely to be habitable.

Terms such as "Earth-like" and "Earth Cousins" are misnomers.  If you are not willing to go live there, then the exoplanet is NOT Earth-like.

 

Astrobiologist Caleb Scharf agrees with that assessment. (click for link)

 

Otis

Ancient lizards in amber amaze scientists

 

Ancient lizards in amber amaze scientists

 

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/07/28/4279562.htm

 

A community of lizards from the Caribbean, preserved for 20 million years in amber, have been found to be identical to their modern cousins, say researchers.

 

20 million years and no evolutionary changes.... just saying...

Biblical text revealed from damaged scroll, 1,500 years old

 

For the first time, advanced technologies made it possible to read parts of a damaged scroll that is at least 1,500 years old, discovered inside the Holy Ark of the synagogue at Ein Gedi in Israel. High-resolution scanning a revolutionary virtual unwrapping tool revealed verses from the Book of Leviticus.

 

 

"The text revealed today from the Ein Gedi scroll was possible only because of the collaboration of many different people and technologies," said Seales, who is professor and chair of the UK College of Engineering's Department of Computer Science. "The last step of virtual unwrapping, done at the University of Kentucky through the hard work of a team of talented students, is especially satisfying because it has produced readable, identifiable, biblical text from a scroll thought to be beyond rescue."

 

Read more here:

 

Biblical text revealed from damaged scroll, 1,500 years old

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150720115149.htm

 

'Super-Earths' may be dead worlds: Being in habitable zone is not enough

Otis has pointed out a study a year ago that has a important influence on the discovery of Kepler 452b. This relates to the point I made in a previous post regarding the heavy atmosphere that Kepler 452b is most likely to have. Otis notes:

 

I would like to point to a study published last year that found that super Earths in the Habitable Zone are very unlikely to be habitable.  The reason is that any rocky planet that is larger than about 1.15 Earth radius will not lose its primordial hydrogen atmosphere.   The researchers even predicted that many planets will be found in the HZ like the one recently reported by NASA, but will have hydrogen-dominated atmospheres.  The recently found planet Kepler 452b has an estimated radius of 1.6 Earth's radius.

 

Here is an excerpt from the conclusions in the MNRAS paper:

"Therefore, we suggest that 'rocky' habitable terrestrial planets, which can lose their nebula-captured hydrogen envelopes and can keep their outgassed or impact delivered secondary atmospheres in HZs of G-type stars, have most likely core masses with 1 ± 0.5 M⊕ and corresponding radii between 0.8 and 1.15 R⊕.  Depending on nebula conditions, the formation scenarios, and the nebula lifetime, there may be some planets with masses that are larger than 1.5M⊕ and lost their proto atmospheres, but these objects may represent a minority compared to planets in the Earth-mass domain. We also conclude that several recently discovered low density 'super-Earths' with known radius and mass even at closer orbital distances could not get rid of their hydrogen envelopes. Furthermore, our results indicate that one should expect many 'super-Earths' to be discovered in the near future inside HZs with hydrogen-dominated atmospheres."

 

Otis

 

The ScienceDaily article Otis refers to can be found here:

 

'Super-Earths' may be dead worlds: Being in habitable zone is not enough

 

First evidence of farming in Mideast 23,000 years ago

And here is another cool discovery...

 

Until now, researchers believed farming was 'invented' some 12,000 years ago in an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations. A new discovery offers the first evidence that trial plant cultivation began far earlier -- some 23,000 years ago.

 

The study focuses on the discovery of the first weed species at the site of a sedentary human camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm

 

Cheers,

Anthony

More on that fine-tuned parameter for Earth’s plate tectonics

Here's a follow up on the Plate Tectonics article a few days ago. I was going to post this yesterday, but Kepler-452b (being 60% bigger than the Earth) go in the way :)

Otis, who first alerted me to the original article, comments on this also (see below)

Why we live on Earth and not Venus

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150721193957.htm 

 

Compared to its celestial neighbors Venus and Mars, Earth is a pretty habitable place. So how did we get so lucky? A new study sheds light on the improbable evolutionary path that enabled Earth to sustain life.
__________________________________________________________________________________

The first article did not explain why the amount of radioactive material was less than expected.  This article does.

This information identifies an example of "environmental fine-tuning."   As more is learned about the Earth, planetary formation, stars, climate, etc., more cases of environmental fine-tuning are continually being found.

 

Otis

Is Kepler-452b really Earth 2.0?

With all the hype in the media today around finding “Earth's Twin”, lets have a deeper look at what Kepler has discovered.

 

From the ScienceDaily article...

Bigger, older cousin to Earth discovered

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the "habitable zone" around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another "Earth." 

 

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone -- the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

 

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0."

 

Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.

While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.  

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

You can read the article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150723115703.htm

 

A few thoughts come to mind about the discovery of Kepler-452b.

 

Firstly, it is a fantastic discovery and great to see we are close to detecting Earth sized planets. The majority of planets that have been detect are "Super Earths", Neptune sized or Jupiter sized. Roughly eight or so planets slightly smaller than Earth have also been discovered according to the Exoplanet Catalogue, but these are all either too close to their parent star, or too far away to be suitable to support life.

 

Finding a planet close the mass of Earth, in the zone where water (if present) can exist in liquid form, is a great discovery and full applause to NASA and the Kepler team.

 

So the big question is could Kepler-452b support life?

First up, scientists will need to determine if Kepler-452b is a rocky planet like Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury. If it is not, then no it can't support life.

 

If Kepler-452b is a rocky planet, then in Kepler-452b's favour that it could support life are the facts that it appears to have a fairly stable, circular orbit and that Kepler-452 (its parent star) is a Type G2 star which is a similar spectral class to our own Sun.

 

Not in Kepler-452b's favour is that it appears so far to be the only planet in the Kepler-452 system, its size is too big, and Kepler-452 is now likely more active that our Sun. These things don't bode well for advanced life. And also pose a real challenge to simple life, such as bacteria.

If Kepler-452b turns out to be the only planet in the Kepler-452 system, then it will not be protected like Earth is from regular asteroid or comet impact. Jupiter and the other gas giants in our system act like shields their mass, acting via gravity, to either deflect or absorb the vast majority of stellar debris (asteroids and comets) that would otherwise come in our direction.

Its uncertain at this time what mass Kepler-452b has. All we know so far is that its about 60% larger than our Earth. Such a large size will likely mean that Kepler-452b, if its a rocky planet, will have a greater mass than Earth. If so, then it would capture and retained a much thicker atmosphere than Earth and a much larger water content. Too much of both is not good for life, even simple life. Just a cursory look at Venus will show you that a thick atmosphere is not a good thing for life.

Originally when Earth formed it had an atmosphere of about 100 times thicker than our current atmosphere. By comparison, Earths original atmosphere would have been about 2 to 3 times thicker than Venus. Moreover, Earth originally would have had a water content of somewhere between 5% to 15% of the mass of the planet. The water content of the Earth by mass is now far less. As Universe Today notes '..while the oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface, they only account for 0.02% of our planet’s total mass. ' The reason Earth has a much thinner atmosphere and lower water content today is due to how the Moon was formed. And these are very important characteristics for life on Earth.

Kepler-452 is now in its older years. As Type G stars last for about 10 billion years, if Kepler-452 was a human, it would be in its sixties. Type G stars at this stage will be flaring more actively and that's not a good thing for life, especially advanced life. Its detrimental to an atmosphere especially if Kepler-452b has no or little magnetic field like Mars. UV radiation is also a killer to life. If there is no adequate ozone layer, the survivability of any life is not good. If we can get a spectral image of Kepler-452b scientist should be able to work out the primary chemical composition of its atmosphere, assuming it has one. If little or no oxygen is present in the atmosphere, then not only will this show there is no life on Kepler-452b, but also no ozone to protect life.

Another thing to consider about Kepler-452b is to ask if it has plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is essential for life, forming landmasses above the oceans, and burying excess carbon. For plate tectonics, you need lots of thorium and uranium to provide the heat that drives the mantle of the planet. You also need a strong magnetic field to i) prevent the atmosphere from being sputtered away in to space, and ii) protect the planet from solar and cosmic rays. Earth has a rich iron core that produces a long lived magnetic dynamo that protects life on our planet. Mar's magnetic field is almost non-existent. The reason Earth has such a core is due to the Moon formation event. Whether Kepler-452b has such a core will be an open question we may never be able to answer, but is one that is crucial to life.

Your also going to need a moon capable of stabilising the axial tilt of Kepler-452b and slow down it rotation rate enough in order to prevent if from having raging cyclonic storms always raging across most of the surface of the planet. Mars, because its two moons are too small, flip flops on its axis by 40 to 60 degrees off the solar plane. Earth by comparison oscillates by only a degree around its axial tilt of 23 degrees. This tilt and oscillation provides Earth with little variation in its climate extremes, put still permits seasonal variability between the hemispheres. A flip flopping axial tilt really complicates matters for life, and again, that's not a good thing.

I could go on with more examples but this post has gone on much longer than I wanted. So for the sake of brevity, I'll point you in the direct of a few books you can read at you leisure. And as always, the Reasons to Believe website has a plethora of articles about Exoplanets and the fine tuning of our Solar System and Earth that make it habitable.

So, for the above and other reasons, I doubt that Kepler-452b will be suitable for life, even simple life. More research into Kepler-452b over the coming years will help answer some of these points, either in the for or against camp.

The discovery of Kepler-452b is science at its best. And lets be excited about that. But in my opinion, its rather overreaching to call Kepler-452b Earth 2.0. The quest for an Earth twin continues, but I don't believe that we will ever find one.

Book resources:

Why the Universe is the Way it is

How to build a Habitable Planet

What if the Moon didn't exist?

Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe
 

Alone in the Universe: Why our Planet is Unique

Cheers,
Anthony

Another fine-tuned parameter for Earth’s plate tectonics

Otis from the RTB Houston Chapter writes:

 

An article in Science Daily reports on research that has found another fine-tuned parameter that is necessary for Earth's plate tectonics.  Without plate tectonics there would be no carbon-silicate feedback loop that stabilizes global climate thereby allowing a planet to be habitable over billions of years.

 

There are two parts to this new research.  First, it was found that Earth's composition of uranium, thorium and potassium abundance should be reduced 30% from that of previous models.  Second, a model of Earth's geodynamics shows that the new reduced composition makes plate tectonics possible whereas the previously assumed composition does not.  In the words of one of the researchers, "The new compositional model gives Earth a sweet spot of its own where its interior is neither too hot nor too cold.  . . .  there's another dial that's important to turn."

 

I have not yet read the original research article which is in Nature Geoscience.  However, based on the Science Daily article, I think that the takeaway message is this: Earth is very special. Planetary habitability is very fragile and cannot be determined by simply computing a star's current heat flux on a planet.

 

Otis

 

You can read the Science Daily article via the link below.

 

Abundance of certain elements in Earth dictate whether plate tectonics can happen

Organisation of human brain is nearly ideal

Here's a neat little discovery reported on ScienceDaily.com

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150707120101.htm

 

New research reveals that structure of the human brain has an almost ideal network of connections

The structure of the human brain has an almost ideal network of connections -- the links that permit information to travel from, say, the auditory cortex (responsible for hearing) to the motor cortex (responsible for movement).

 

The study continues...

 

Have you ever wondered why the human brain evolved the way it did? A new study by Northeastern physicist Dmitri Krioukov and his colleagues suggests an answer: to expedite the transfer of information from one brain region to another, enabling us to operate at peak capacity.

Putting aside the fact that the human brain has been the same since we first appeared on the planet, and that no evolutionary pathway has yet been clearly demonstrated from the hominids to us (for e.g.  we know humanity didn't descend from Neanderthals, Denasovans or Homo Erectus), and hence no macroevolution can be demonstrated from primates to hominids to us. And putting aside the assumption that macro-evolution is a fact and therefore a theory dependent pre-existed belief in the human brain having evolved from some hominid and primate ancestor, what this study reveals is pretty wonderful and, I believe, echoes the words of David in the Psalms:

 

Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

 

 

So remember, YOU ARE wonderfully made!

 

 

Cheers and God bless,

Anthony 

What's the smartest animal on the planet? (excluding humans of course)

Intelligent Bird Solves 8 Step Puzzle

A friend just sent me a video clip of a Crow revealing their amazing abilities to problem solve.

Back in 2009 Reasons to Believe posted a Todays New Reasons to Believe article on the intelligence of Corvids. The Corvid family comprises Ravens and Crews. You can read the original post here: Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Now a series from the BBC has captured the astonishing capabilities of the Crovids. You can see a short excerpt from the series on YouTube here:
Are crows the ultimate problem solvers? - Inside the Animal Mind: Episode 2 - BBC Two  

Corvids: The Birds Who Think Like Humans article from io9 may also help to show the amazing cognitive capabilities of the Corvids.

These are truly remarkable metal capabilities for an animal. Moreover, Chimpanzees are not able to accomplish this feat without significant teaching and training from humans first. Corvids are capable of problem solving like this directly from the wild.

As the TNRB article shows... Caledonian crows [though not quite matching ravens in intellectual prowess] outperform monkeys in their ability to retrieve food from a trap tube–from which food can be accessed only at one end.” They also refer to an experiment demonstrating that “crows can also work out how to use one tool to obtain a second with which they can retrieve food, a skill that monkeys and apes struggle to master.” Evidently, certain bird species exhibit greater powers of the mind than do apes. (See crows’ cognitive powers in action here.).

When it comes to which animal, between the Corvids or Apes, shows the closest metal capabilities to humanity, Corvids win hands (or wings) down.

Now that's a disconnect between Darwinian Theory and reality. Food for thought there!

Merry Christmas to you from the Sydney Chapter for Reasons to Believe

Isaiah 9:6-7New International Version (NIV)

 

⁶ For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

 

Matthew 2:1-2New International Version (NIV)

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

 

 

Merry Christmas and may God bless you!

 

 

The Sydney Chapter for Reasons to Believe

 

 

For a long life, have faith - Telegraph

An interesting article by James LeFanu appeared in the UK's Telegraph back on the 18th August.


For a long life, have faith
Religious faith remains by far the best predictor of a long, healthy life

It is encouraging for those reluctant or unable to engage in vigorous exercise that the splendidly named Dr Duck-chul Lee, of Iowa State University, should have found, as reported in this paper last month, that jogging for as little as five minutes a day should be beneficial, dramatically cutting the risk of dying early.

Still, as Richard Scott, a family doctor, notes in this month’s British Journal of General Practice, religious faith remains by far the best predictor of a long and healthy life.
 

When convalescing recently from a gruelling schedule of chemo and radiotherapy for a tumour of the bowel, Dr Scott, a Christian, read the scholarly Handbook of Religion and Health, whose survey of the research runs to 700 pages.
 

The positive influence of church attendance is well recognised, but the findings of this overview are, he observes, “quite extraordinary”, with faith reducing the risk of a heart attack by two-thirds and being associated with improved survival of a stroke or cancer.
 

For mental health, the statistics are even more dramatic: those with depression recover faster, and those with schizophrenia function better, while alcohol and drug misuse is reduced.
 

“Faith in God,” he says, “is relevant to all diseases yet studied.” That belief could be, as so many nowadays maintain, illusory, but the beneficial effect in conferring “greater happiness, morale, optimism and meaning in life” is indisputably for real.

********************************************************************************

If you are sceptical about the benefits of religious belief (i.e. Christian faith for the most part) just take a quick tour through the Health and Medicine section of ScienceDaily and you will find many articles that talk about the health benefits of religious (again Christian faith for the most part) belief. One of the most recent is here: Believers consume fewer drugs than atheists.

Alternatively, if you would like to read about it in a more lay friendly book (lets face it, the Handbook of Religion and Health is a bit pricy). The can I recommend Beyond Well Being.

 

Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke - from Science 2.0

It's been a while since the blog has had a new post. So I thought I would share something that Jack, one of the Reasons to Believe apologists overseas, passed on today. It's from a blog called Science 2.0, and is about how we think.

 

You can access the Science 2.0 post here:

 

http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/scientists_discover_that_atheists_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982#.U77neYQckwA.facebook

 

It's a very interesting and thoughtful piece and my thanks to Nury Vittachi of Science 2.0 for posting it.

 

I find the following statement in particularly thought provoking:

 

This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that "atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think," says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. "They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul." This shouldn't come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. "A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith," writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people "are only aware of some of their religious ideas".

Reading this reminds me of what Ecclesiastes has to say about what God has done for humanity (emphasis added):

 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)

¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

 

The heart here being the centre of a person, not the organ pump, and it is intimately linked to our very being.

 

The New Atheists have tried to claim that atheism is the default position of the human mind, but this notion is at odds with what we know about the human mind from a very young age, as has been well documented in a plethora of research. Richard Dawkins believes that faith in God is a form of brain abnormality. However, research shows clearly that this is not the case.

 

If you want more information on this, have a read of Born Believers by Justin Barrett.

 

Vittachi also notes the following naturalistic explanation for such human belief:

 

If a tendency to believe in the reality of an intangible network is so deeply wired into humanity, the implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose. Social scientists have long believed that the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind means that mindful, self-aware people necessarily suffer from deep existential dread. Spiritual beliefs evolved over thousands of years as nature's way to help us balance this out and go on functioning.

 

Though on the surface this appears to be a reasonable explanation for the origin of belief in God, the "implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose" is purely a naturalistic or materialistic reductionist belief. It presupposes that such a belief has a genetic basis. My background is in biology and not philosophy, but let me try to explain why I believe this materialistic reductionist explanation for the origin of religious belief becomes self refuting.

 

How so?

 

First off, much to the dismay of Richard Dawkins, no "god spot" has ever been found within the human brain and no genetic origin can be discerned for the origin of belief. On the contrary, research has shown that no "god spot" exists within the human brain (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm). Likewise Dawkins "meme" idea has lost all traction and has been relegated to a failed hypothesis.

 

Secondly, Alvin Plantinga has shown in Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, that evolution cannot select for truth, only survivability. Any number of false assumptions may lead to survivability just as a true assumption may lead to survivability. I won't go into the details, as I will not be doing Plantinga's argument the justice it deserves and it will make this blog post waaaayyyy to long. Bottom line, you can YouTube Plantinga himself and listen to him speak on this.

 

See, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwE_D9GUC0s

 

And here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbjp9PrtPS8

 

Sufficed to say, evolution's end, so to speak, is survivability and not truth. There is no reason therefore to trust the product of something that is the result of undirected chance, i.e. an accident. As Professor John Lennox has said in a number of his lectures, "if your computer was the product of chance, would you trust it?"

 

Darwin himself eloquently lamented about this very problem arising from his theory:

 

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

 

From Plantinga we encounter an additional problem regarding any evolutionary explanation for belief in God. If evolution puts such deeply held but false beliefs in our minds (let's remember here that evolution is being used to explain why I hold such deep belief in God), then how are we to trust our minds to reveal truth and sort out false ideas from true ones?

 

For the materialist, if evolution puts false ideas in our minds (again remember that the materialist is trying to account via evolutionary theory as to why I believe in God), then how are we to know what truth is, just as Darwin lamented. After all, I believe in the idea that ultimately I am a creation of God, and not the product of some random undirected process. If my conviction that ultimately I am a creation of God's doing is a false belief because, according to the materialist, my belief in God is a false notion planted there by evolution, how are we to discern which notions and beliefs in our minds are true, just as Darwin lamented. Can we trust which ones are false? How would we tell the difference?

 

At this point, the materialist should remember that some of these beliefs of human minds include the belief in evolution, the belief in naturalism, the belief in scientism, and the belief in materialism…

 

So there is simply no basis for belief in Vittachi's statement "...the fact that evolution would discard unhelpful beliefs and foster the growth of helpful ones."

 

And so any evolutionary argument for our universal belief in God falls down due to evolution's inability to arrive at truth and the fact that there is no genetic basis for discerning truth. Plantinga notes that if evolution is true, then naturalism is false.

 

It's not just Christians who point this problem out. Thomas Nagel in his now (in)famous book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, understands the power of Plantinga's argument.

 

Nagel is no lightweight when it comes to being either a philosopher or an atheist. As an intellectual, he puts Dawkins to shame. Nagel goes on to note in his book that the purely reductionist, materialistic NeoDarwinian worldview is hopelessly inadequate to account for mind, rationality and morality. Nagel finds the mind irreducible to mater in motion. He hopes for some teleological law to solve his dilemma, as he states that he doesn't like the alternative option, i.e. God. Needless to say, his book upset more than a few people in the materialistic camp.

 

To finish off this rather long post, I thought I would end on an amusing statement by Vittachi. He writes:

 

God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.

Nice to see a sense of humour in a topic that often sees belligerent dialogue between both sides of the debate in the blog-a-sphere. My thanks to Nury Vittachi for writing it.

The animals float two by two, hurrah...

That's the title of a new research paper released on the 3rd April by students at the University of Leicester.

From the university's own press release:

This month, the classic biblical tale of Noah’s Ark will receive a Hollywood makeover with the release of the movie Noah - and Physics students at the University of Leicester have found that the ark would have indeed been able to float with all of the animals on board.

A group of fourth year master’s students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy have calculated that Noah’s ark, built to accommodate at least two of every animal species, would have floated using the dimensions ordained in the Bible.

In the book of Genesis, chapter 6:13-22, Noah is commanded to build an ark to survive a flood. Noah is provided exact dimensions for the boat which should be: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high and should hold Noah, his family, and at least two of every species of animal for the duration of the flood.

Using these dimensions, Archimedes’ principle and suitable approximations, University of Leicester Physics students Oliver Youle, Katie Raymer, Benjamin Jordan and Thomas Morris tested the instructions and were surprised with their results.

The students found that the ark could carry up to 35,000 individual animals. Well within the number of animals estimated by Dr Hugh Ross (see Let Us Reason: Noah's Floating Zoo).

The full paper, ‘The animals float two by two, hurrah!’ can be found at: http://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/676/475

The paper is very short, at only two pages, and easy to read.

The RTB website has a wealth of information on the Genesis Flood account. If you want to delve deeper into this topic, got to the Reasons to Believe website and type in 'Noah', or 'the Flood' into the search engine.