In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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Figure 140: Atomic Clock. This atomic clock at the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology is named NIST-7. If its time were compared with a similar clock 6 million years from now, they might differ by only one second! A newer development, called NIST F-1, achieves three times greater precision by cooling the vibrating atoms to nearly absolute zero. Despite the extreme precision of atomic clocks, we have no assurance that they are not all drifting relative to “true” time. In other words, we can marvel at the precision of atomic clocks, but we cannot be certain of their accuracy.

The logic behind this common question has several hidden assumptions, two of which are addressed by the following italicized questions:

a. Was space, along with light emitted by stars, rapidly stretched out soon after creation began? If so, energy would have been added to the universe and starlight during that stretching. Pages 269–273 show that the scientific evidence clearly favors this stretching explanation over the big bang theory which also claims that space expanded rapidly. (Yet, the big bang theory says all this expansion energy, plus all the matter in the universe, was, at the beginning of time, inside a volume much smaller than a pinhead.

b. Has starlight always traveled at its present speed—186,000 miles per second or, more precisely, 299,792.458 kilometers per second?

If either (a) space and its starlight were stretched out, or (b) the speed of light was much faster in the past, then distant stars should be visible in a young universe. Here we will address possibility (b) by examining the historic measurements of the speed of light.

Historical Measurements.  During the past 300 years, at least 164 separate measurements of the speed of light have been published. Sixteen different measurement techniques were used. Astronomer Barry Setterfield of Australia has studied these measurements, especially their precision and experimental errors.1 His results show that the speed of light has apparently decreased so rapidly that experimental error cannot explain it! In the seven instances where the same scientists remeasured the speed of light with the same equipment years later, a decrease was always reported. The decreases were often several times greater than the reported experimental errors. I have conducted other analyses that weight (or give significance to) each measurement according to its accuracy. Even after considering the wide range of accuracies, it is hard to see how one can claim, with any statistical rigor, that the speed of light has remained constant.2

M. E. J. Gheury de Bray, writing in the official French astronomical journal in 1927, was probably the first to propose a decreasing speed of light.3 He based his conclusion on measurements spanning 75 years. Later, he became more convinced and twice published his results in Nature,4 possibly the most prestigious scientific journal in the world. He emphasized, “If the velocity of light is constant, how is it that, invariably, new determinations give values which are lower than the last one obtained ... There are twenty-two coincidences in favour of a decrease of the velocity of light, while there is not a single one against it.”5 [emphasis in original]

Although the measured speed of light has decreased only about 1% during the past three centuries, the decrease is statistically significant, because measurement techniques can detect changes thousands of times smaller. While the older measurements have greater errors, the trend of the data is startling. The farther back one looks in time, the more rapidly the speed of light seems to increase. Various mathematical curves fit these three centuries of data. When some of those curves are projected back in time, the speed of light becomes so fast that light from distant galaxies conceivably could have reached Earth in several thousand years.

No scientific law requires the speed of light to be constant.6 Many simply assume it is constant, and of course, changing old ways of thinking is sometimes difficult. Russian cosmologist, V. S. Troitskii, at the Radiophysical Research Institute in Gorky, is also questioning some old beliefs. He concluded, independently of Setterfield, that the speed of light was 10 billion times faster at time zero!7 Furthermore, he attributed the cosmic microwave background radiation and most redshifts to this rapidly decreasing speed of light. Setterfield reached the same conclusion concerning redshifts by a different method. If either Setterfield or Troitskii is correct, the big bang theory will fall (with a big bang).

Other cosmologists are proposing an enormous decay in the speed of light.8 Several of their theoretical problems with the big bang theory are solved if light once traveled millions of times faster.9

Atomic vs. Orbital Time.  Why would the speed of light decrease? T. C. Van Flandern, working at the U.S. Naval Observatory, showed that atomic clocks are probably slowing relative to orbital clocks.10 Orbital clocks are based on orbiting astronomical bodies, especially Earth’s one-year period about the Sun. Before 1967, one second of time was defined by international agreement as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun. Atomic clocks are based on the vibrational period of the cesium-133 atom. In 1967, a second was redefined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the cesium-133 atom. Van Flandern showed that if atomic clocks are “correct,” the orbital speeds of Mercury, Venus, and Mars are increasing. Consequently, the gravitational “constant” should be changing. However, he noted that if orbital clocks are “correct,” then the gravitational constant is truly constant, but atomic vibrations and the speed of light are decreasing. The drift between the two types of clocks was only several parts per billion per year. But again, the precision of the measurements is so good that the discrepancy is probably real.

There are four reasons orbital clocks seem to be correct and why atomic frequencies are probably slowing very slightly.

    * If atomic clocks and Van Flandern’s study are correct, the gravitational “constant” should be changing. Other studies have not detected variations in the gravitational constant.
    * If a planet’s orbital speed increased (and all other orbital parameters remained the same), its energy would increase. This would violate the law of conservation of mass-energy.
    * If atomic time is slowing, then clocks based on the radioactive decay of atoms should also be slowing. Radiometric dating techniques would give ages that are too old. This would bring radiometric clocks more in line with most dating clocks. [See pages 34–37.] It would also explain why no primordial isotopes have half-lives of less than 50 million years. Such isotopes simply decayed away when radioactive decay rates were much greater.11
    * If atomic frequencies are decreasing, then five “properties” of the atom, such as Planck’s constant, should also be changing. Statistical studies of past measurements show four of the five are changing—and in the right direction.12

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So orbital clocks seem to be more accurate than the extremely precise atomic clocks.13

Many of us were skeptical of Setterfield’s initial claim, because the decrease in the speed-of-light measurements ceased in 1960. Large, one-time changes seldom occur in nature. The measurement techniques were precise enough to detect any decrease in the speed of light after 1960, if the trend of the prior three centuries had continued. Later, Setterfield realized that beginning in the 1960s, atomic clocks were used to measure the speed of light. If atomic frequencies are decreasing, then both the measured quantity (the speed of light) and the newly adopted measuring tool (atomic clocks) are changing at the same rate. Naturally, no relative change would be detected, and the speed of light would be constant in atomic time—but not orbital time.

Misconceptions.  Does the decrease in the speed of light conflict with the statement frequently attributed to Albert Einstein that the speed of light is constant? Not really. Einstein said that the speed of light was not altered by the velocity of the light’s source. Setterfield says that the speed of light decreases over time.

Einstein’s statement that the speed of light is independent of the velocity of the light source, is called Einstein’s Second Postulate. (Many have misinterpreted it to mean that “Einstein said the speed of light is constant over time.”) Einstein’s Second Postulate is surprising, but probably true. Wouldn’t we expect a ball thrown from a fast train in the forward direction to travel faster than one thrown in the opposite direction, at least to an observer on the ground? While that is true for a thrown ball, some experimental evidence indicates it is not true for light.14 Light, launched from a fast-moving train, will travel at the same speed in all directions. This strange property of light led to the more extensive theory of relativity.15

Some people give another explanation for why we see distant stars in a young universe. They believe God created a beam of light between Earth and each star. Of course, a creation would immediately produce completed things. Instantly, they would look much older than they really were. This is called “creation with the appearance of age.” The concept is sound. However, for starlight, this presents two difficulties:

    * Bright, exploding stars are called “supernovas.” If starlight, seemingly from a supernova, had been created en route to Earth and did not originate at the surface of an exploding star, then what exploded? Only a relatively short beam would have been created near Earth. If the image of an explosion was created on that short beam of light, then the star never existed and the explosion never happened.  One finds this hard to accept.
    * Every hot gas radiates a unique set of precise colors, called its emission spectrum. The gaseous envelope around each star also emits specific colors that identify the chemical composition of the gas. Because all starlight has emission spectra, this strongly suggests that a star’s light originated at the star—not in cold, empty space. Each beam of starlight also carries other information, such as the star’s spin rate, magnetic field, surface temperature, and the chemical composition of the cold gases between the star and Earth. Of course, God could have created this beam of light with all this information in it. However, the real question is not, “Could God have done it?” but, “Did He?”

Therefore, starlight seems to have originated at stellar surfaces, not in empty space.

Figure 141: Hubble Deep Field North. The Hubble Space Telescope, searching for evolving galaxies in December 1995, focused for 10 continuous days on a tiny patch of sky, so small when viewed from Earth that a grain of sand held at arm’s length would cover that area. This picture of that tiny patch of sky is called Hubble Deep Field North. Most objects in it are not isolated stars, but galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Of the 3,000 galaxies photographed that emitted enough light to measure their redshifts, which presumably measure distance, all seemed surprisingly mature. As stated in Scientific American, “the formation of ‘ordinary’ spiral and elliptical galaxies is apparently still out of reach of most redshift surveys.”16 Moreover, fully formed clusters of galaxies, not just galaxies, are seen at the greatest distances visible to the Hubble Space Telescope.17 In 1998 and 2004, similar pictures—with similar results—were taken.

Think about this. There is not enough time in the age of the universe (even as evolutionists imagine it, times a billion) for gravity to pull together all the particles comprising clusters of galaxies.18 (As explained under “Galaxies” on page 30, clusters of galaxies cannot form, even granting all this time.) Because the most current studies show fully-formed galaxies even farther away than those shown above,19 creation becomes the logical and obvious alternative. We may be seeing galaxies as they looked months after they were created. Vast amounts of time are no longer needed. [See page 277.]

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Figure 142: Spiral Galaxies. The arms in these six representative spiral galaxies have about the same amount of twist. Their distances from Earth are shown in light-years. (One light-year, the distance light travels in one year, equals 5,879,000,000,000 miles.) For the light from all galaxies to arrive at Earth tonight, the more distant galaxies, which had to release their light long before the closer galaxies, did not have as much time to rotate and twist their arms. Therefore, farther galaxies should have less twist. Of course, if light traveled millions of times faster in the past, the farthest galaxies did not have to send their light long before the nearest galaxies. Spiral galaxies should have similar twists. This turns out to be the case.21 The galaxies are: A) M33, or NGC 598; B) M101, or NGC 5457; C) M51, or NGC 5194; D) NGC 4559; E) M88, or NGC 4501; and F) NGC 772. All distances are taken from R. Brent Tully, Nearby Galaxies Catalog (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Surprising Observations.  Starlight from distant stars and galaxies is redshifted—meaning that their light is redder than one might expect. Although other interpretations are possible, most astronomers have interpreted redshifted light to be a wave effect, similar to that of the lower pitch of a train’s whistle when the train is going away from an observer. As the wave emitter (train or star) moves away from an observer, the waves are stretched, making them lower in pitch (for the train) or redder in color (for the star or galaxy). The greater a star’s or galaxy’s redshift, the faster it is supposedly moving away from us.

Since 1976, William Tifft, a University of Arizona astronomer, has found that the redshifts of distant stars and galaxies typically differ from each other by only a few fixed amounts.20 This is very strange if stars are actually moving away from us. It would be as if galaxies could travel only at specific speeds, jumping abruptly from one speed to another, without passing through intermediate speeds. If stars are not moving away from us at high speeds, the big bang theory is wrong, along with many other related beliefs in the field of cosmology. Other astronomers, not initially believing Tifft’s results, did similar work and reached the same conclusion.

All atoms give off tiny bundles of energy (called quanta) of fixed amounts—and nothing in between. So Setterfield believes that the “quantization of redshifts,” as many describe it, is an atomic effect, not a strange recessional-velocity effect. If space slowly absorbs energy from all emitted light, it would do so in fixed increments. This would redshift starlight, with the farthest star’s light being redshifted the most. Setterfield is working on a theory to tie this and the decay in the speed of light together. If he is correct, we should soon see the redshifts of a few distant galaxies suddenly decrease. This may explain why two distinct redshifts are seen in each of several well-studied galaxies.22 Those seemingly typical galaxies are not flying apart!

Another surprising observation is that most distant galaxies look remarkably similar to nearer galaxies. For example, galaxies are fully developed and show no signs of evolving. This puzzles astronomers.23 If the speed of light has decreased drastically, these distant, yet mature, galaxies no longer need explaining.

Also, the light from a distant galaxy would have reached Earth not too long after the light from nearby galaxies. This may be why spiral galaxies, both near and far, have similar twists.  [See Figure 142.]

A Critical Test.  If the speed of light has decreased a millionfold, we should observe events in outer space in extreme slow motion.  Here is why.

Imagine a time in the distant past when the speed of light was a million times faster than it is today. On a hypothetical planet, billions of light-years from Earth, a light started flashing toward Earth every second. Each flash then began a very long trip to Earth. Because the speed of light was a million times greater than it is today, those initial flashes were spaced a million times farther apart than they would have been at today’s slower speed of light.

Now, thousands of years later, imagine that throughout the universe, the speed of light has slowed to today’s speed. The first of those light flashes—strung out like beads sliding down a long string—are approaching Earth. The large distances separating adjacent flashes have remained constant during those thousands of years, so the moving flashes slowed in unison. Because the first flashes to strike Earth are spaced so far apart, they will strike Earth every million seconds. In other words, we are seeing past events on that planet (the flashing of a light) in slow motion. If the speed of light has been decreasing since the creation, then the farther out in space we look, the more extreme this slow motion becomes.

About half the stars in our galaxy are binary. That is, they and a companion star are in a tight orbit around their common center of mass. If there is a “slow-motion effect,” the apparent orbital periods of binary stars should tend to increase with increasing distance from Earth. If the speed of light has been decreasing, the Hubble Space Telescope may eventually find that binary stars at great distances have very long orbital periods, showing that they are in slow motion.

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Why Does the Universe Seem To Be Expanding?

At least eleven times, the Bible says that God “stretched out” or “stretches out” the heavens. [See Table 17.] For emphasis, important ideas are often repeated in the Bible. While we may have difficulty understanding all of this, we can be confident of its significance.

The Hebrew word for stretched is natah. It does not mean an explosion, a flinging out, or the type of stretching that encounters increasing resistance, as with a spring or rubber band.  Natah is more like the effortless reaching out of one’s hand.


Expansion: Big Bang or Stretching?

The stretching explanation, proposed here, has similarities and differences with the big bang theory. Both the big bang and stretching explanations describe a very rapid expansion of the universe, beginning soon after time began, when not all laws of physics applied. As one big-bang authority states:

In its standard form, the big bang theory maintains that the universe was born about 15 billion years ago from a cosmological singularity—a state in which the temperature and density are infinitely high. Of course, one cannot really speak in physical terms about these quantities as being infinite. One usually assumes that the current laws of physics did not apply [during the big bang’s rapid expansion]. ... One may wonder, What came before? If space-time did not exist then, how could everything appear from nothing? What arose first: the universe or the laws determining its evolution? Explaining this initial singularity—where and when it all began—still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology.2 [emphasis added]

Contrary to the standard big bang theory, the expansion (or “stretching”) did not begin at a singularity, an infinitesimal point.3 Nor did energy expended in stretching out the heavens come from within the universe or during its first trillionth of a trillionth of a ten-billionth of a second (10-34 second) or less, as with the big bang theory. Energy flowed into the universe as the stretching progressed. According to the big bang theory, stars, galaxies, and black holes began forming after hundreds of millions of years. According to the stretching explanation, these bodies were formed (or began) near the beginning of time—during the creation week. Because matter and starlight occupy space, they were also stretched. You can decide which explanation the evidence supports.

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The Evidence

Accelerating Expansion.  The redshift of distant starlight suggests an expansion. However, a big bang—as in a big explosion—would produce only a decelerating expansion, not the accelerating expansion observed. [See “Dark Thoughts” on page 29.] Stretching during the creation week could have produced the accelerated expansion seen today at the edge of the visible universe.

Star Formation.  Astronomers recognize that the densest concentrations of gas seen in the universe could not form stars by any known means, including gravitational collapse, unless that gas was thousands of times more compact than today.4 Apparently, stars were formed as, or before, the heavens were stretched out.

Black Holes.  A supermassive black hole is in the center of at least every nearby galaxy. Black holes are so massive (a few billion times that of our Sun) that nothing can escape their gravity—even light. Astronomers admit that black holes must have existed very soon after the universe began,5 but the big bang theory says that all matter was spread out uniformly after 300,000 years, before stars formed. That uniformity would prevent gravity from forming galaxies and black holes even over the supposed age of the universe.6 However, stars and supermassive black holes could easily have formed—or been formed—soon after the creation of the universe and matter, but just before the heavens were stretched out.

Spiral Galaxies.  If spiral galaxies formed billions of years ago, the arms of spiral galaxies should be wrapped more tightly around their respective galaxies than they are. Also, nearer galaxies should show considerably more “wrap” than more distant spiral galaxies. [See Figure 142 on page 266.] However, if space was stretched out recently, spiral galaxies could appear as they do.

Heavy Elements in Stars.  According to the big bang theory, there are three generations of stars, each with increasing amounts of heavy elements. The first generation would have contained only hydrogen and helium. After hundreds of millions of years, second generation stars would begin forming with heavier elements made inside first generation stars. Although some first generation stars should still be visible, not one has ever been found. [See Endnote n on page 83.]

According to the stretching explanation, stars have always had some heavier chemical elements. Telescopes that can see the farthest back in time see stars, galaxies, and quasars containing these heavier chemical elements.

Stellar Velocities.  Stars in dwarf galaxies and in the outer parts of spiral galaxies travel much faster than one would think based on physical laws. However, if only thousands of years ago those stars were nearer the centers of their galaxies before the heavens were stretched out, such high speeds would be expected.

Speeding Galaxies.  A similar observation can be made about tight clusters of galaxies. Galaxies in clusters are traveling much faster than they should, based on their distances from their clusters’ centers of mass.

Dwarf Galaxies.  Dwarf galaxies are sometimes imbedded in a smoothly rotating disk of hydrogen gas that is much larger than the galaxy itself. The mass (hidden or otherwise) of each dwarf galaxy and its surrounding gas is insufficient to pull the gas into its disk shape,7 but if this matter was once highly concentrated and then the space it occupied was recently stretched out, all observed characteristics would be explained.

Figure 143: Dwarf Galaxy. A vast hydrogen disk (blue) surrounds the dwarf galaxy, UGC 5288 (bright white). The isolated galaxy, 16 million light-years from earth, contains about 100,000 stars and is 20 times smaller in diameter than our Milky Way Galaxy, which has at least 100,000,000,000 stars. The dwarf’s mass is about 30 times too small to gravitationally hold onto the most distant hydrogen gas, so gravity could not have pulled the distant hydrogen gas into its disk. Because the gas is too evenly distributed and rotates so smoothly, it was not expelled from the galaxy or pulled out by a close encounter with another galaxy.

Hydrogen gas would have assumed this shape if space was once more compact. Gravitational forces would have been much more powerful and also would have produced this smooth rotational pattern. If so, space was later stretched out. This would have occurred recently, because the disk has not disbursed into the vacuum of space. (The galaxy is seen in visible light; the hydrogen disk is seen by a fleet of 27 radio telescopes.)

Strings of Galaxies.  It is widely recognized that gravitational forces cannot pull matter into long, giant filaments composed of hundreds or thousands of galaxies—even if the universe were unbelievably old. Instead, gravity, acting over such enormous time and distances, would form more spherical globs of matter. Yet, long, massive filaments of galaxies have been discovered.8

These strings of galaxies can be understood if galaxies were formed when all matter in the universe was initially confined to a much smaller volume. (In that small volume, stars and galaxies formed either by the direct acts of a Creator or the powerful gravitational forces resulting from so much extremely confined mass.) Then, the heavens were rapidly stretched out. Just as one might pull taffy into long strings, the stretched out heavens might contain long, massive strings of thousands of galaxies. A surprising number appear connected or aligned with other galaxies or quasars, as prominent astronomers have noted.  [See “Connected Galaxies” on page 37.]

Distant Galaxies.  Massive galaxies and galaxy clusters are now found at such great distances that they must have formed soon after the universe began. The big bang theory cannot explain how such galaxy concentrations could have formed so quickly and so far away.9 The stretching explanation says that galaxies and galaxy clusters began before the heavens were stretched out, when all matter was relatively confined.

Colliding Galaxies.  Some galaxies contain two distinct rotating systems, as if a galaxy rotating one way collided with another rotating the opposite way. Based on the speeds of galaxies we see and their separation distances today, such mergers would take billions of years. Does this show that the universe must be billions of years old?

No.  Before the heavens were stretched out, galaxies would have been closer to each other, resulting in much greater speeds and frequent collisions. Today, galaxies are stretched so far apart that collisions rarely happen. Because galactic collisions appear surprisingly common, astronomers disregard their own calculations.10

If some galaxies merged over billions of years, why haven’t their respective rotations homogenized by now? Obviously, the mergings happened recently.11

Helium-2 Nebulas.  Clouds of glowing, blue gas, called helium-2 nebulas, have been set aglow by something hot enough to strip two electrons from each helium atom. No known star —“young or old”—is hot enough to do so,12 but compressed conditions before the heavens were stretched out would do this.

Dark “Science.”  The big bang theory must invoke unscientific concepts, such as “dark matter” and “dark energy,” to try to explain the “stretched out heavens.” (Dark matter, dark energy, and many other scientific problems with the big bang theory are explained, beginning on page 28.)

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is often given as evidence for the big bang theory. Actually, that radiation, when studied closely, is a strong argument against the big bang and evidence for the sudden creation of matter throughout an immense universe. [For details, see pages 274–276.]

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Summary

With both the big bang and stretching explanations, it is difficult to imagine time beginning, space expanding, a brief initial period when laws of physics were not in operation, and the sudden presence of matter and energy in the universe. The big bang theory says that space expanded for a brief fraction of a second from a mathematical point—trillions of billions of times faster than the speed of light today. The stretching theory says that a smaller universe than we have today rapidly stretched out space and all that was in it, including matter and light. Although no scientific explanation can be given for either form of expansion, we can see which explanation fits all the observable evidence.

We also can appreciate why at least eleven Bible passages, involving five different writers, mention the “stretched out heavens.” Another verse, Psalm 19:1, takes on a new depth of meaning: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”

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If the Sun and Stars Were Created on Day 4, What Was the Light of Day 1?

Light from the Sun and other stars is not the only way to illuminate the earth and produce day-night cycles. The light of Day 1 may have been a consequence of the instantaneous creation of matter. To understand why, some basics must first be explained.

Before planets, plants, and people could be created, fundamental forces must be created including the gravitational force and the electrical force. All things on earth—rocks, the chair you are sitting in, and your body—are pulled toward the center of the earth by the gravitational force. Each object is also held together by forces associated with electrical charges.

Gravity. The Bible seems to mention the beginning of gravitational forces. In describing earth’s earliest state, Genesis 1:2 says, “And the earth was formless and void, ... .” The second half of that verse then states, “... the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Could the earth be formless but soon afterwards have a surface? Yes, if gravitational forces suddenly began acting to make a “formless” earth spherical.

The earth’s particles, when created, would have been located at various distances from where they would finally rest after gravitational forces came into existence and pulled the particles together. Likewise, if atomic particles (electrons, protons, etc.) were not created in their equilibrium resting positions within atoms, the newly created electrical forces would have pulled electrons and protons—negatively and positively charged particles—toward each other to form atoms.

Electrons. Suppose electrons were created at various (even tiny) distances from what would become their first atoms. Negatively charged electrons would accelerate, or “fall,” by electrical attraction toward positively charged nuclei. In doing so, they would emit light. Genesis 1:3 may be describing this: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.”

Whenever electrical charges accelerate, electromagnetic radiation—which can include visible light—is given off. That is how an antenna works. Electrons surge up and down the antenna at a particular frequency, causing radio, television, or other electromagnetic waves to radiate out at that frequency.

If “a universe” of newly created electrons accelerated (or “fell”) toward atomic nuclei, light with various frequencies would be radiated. When light reflects enough times off surrounding matter so everything reaches a common temperature, the space between that matter becomes filled with blackbody radiation.1 If that space later expands, that radiation’s temperature will drop.

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Two Perspectives

A Creation Perspective. The instant matter was created, a burst of light emanated from every particle in the universe. Light from one point on earth would reach other points in a tiny fraction of a second. The farther matter was from earth, the longer it would have taken for that light to reach earth. Just how long would depend on the velocity of light and how far matter extended from earth.

Visualize an observer sitting in a rowboat on a very large, glassy-smooth lake. At one instant, pebbles fall uniformly onto the entire lake. Assume that only one wave ripples out from each pebble’s splash. Waves that began nearest the rowboat strike the boat first. As time passes, waves that began farther and farther out strike the boat. For the observer in the boat, the waves hitting the boat at any instant appear to have begun from an imaginary ring centered on the boat, a ring that expands over time at “wave velocity.”

Now imagine a similar situation, but in three dimensions. An observer in the vacuum of outer space sees a constant stream of light coming from all directions—all emitted at the instant matter was created. It will appear to the observer that the light originated from an imaginary spherical shell with the observer at its center. The sphere’s radius increases at the speed of light, but the observer receives the same amount of radiation—from all directions and at all times. This is because the expanding sphere’s increasing area exactly balances the reduction in the radiation’s intensity due to the increasing distance the light has traveled.

If, before space was stretched out, matter was created with positive and negative charges accelerating toward each other, we would see almost identical blackbody radiation coming from all directions. Such radiation was discovered in 1965 and is called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation. Its temperature today corresponds to a very cold 2.73 kelvins (-454.76°F). [Stretched out space is discussed on page 269: “Why Does the Universe Seem To Be Expanding?”]

What would this light have looked like before the Sun, Moon, and stars were made on Day 4 and before the heavens were stretched out? The initial burst of light from matter comprising the “formless” earth would disappear in less than a second. However, light would then reach earth from the surrounding sphere that expanded from earth at the velocity of light. Seconds or minutes later, light would arrive from the newly created matter from which the Sun would be made on Day 4. Hours later—and before the heavens were stretched out—light would begin arriving from matter that would form the bulk of the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.

This bright, temporary source of light, from matter that would become our galaxy, would be concentrated in a particular portion of the sky. Earth, rotating since its creation on Day 1, would experience day-night cycles even before the Sun was created on Day 4. Today, thousands of years after that first day when matter was created throughout the entire universe, the CMB reaching earth is uniformly spread out over the entire sky. This is because blackbody radiation uniformly filled otherwise empty space on Days 1–3, before the heavens were stretched out. Since Day 4, the Sun has been earth’s dominant light source.

The Big Bang Perspective. The big bang theory, whose popularity is largely due to its explanation for the CMB, provides another explanation. Within a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang, the universe was about the size of a basketball and was expanding trillions of billions of times faster than the speed of light today. Minutes later, matter and energy came together to form hydrogen nuclei.

Matter, during that time, was so compressed and temperatures were so hot that most nuclei would have merged to form heavier nuclei such as carbon, iron, and uranium. However, because hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe today, something must have prevented this nuclear fusion. Intense background radiation would do the job, as Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg explains:

[Before CMB was discovered, James Peebles, an early big bang researcher] noted that if there had not been an intense background of radiation present during the first few minutes of the universe, nuclear reactions would have proceeded so rapidly that a large fraction of the hydrogen present would have been “cooked” into heavier elements, in contradiction with the fact that about three-quarters of the present universe is hydrogen. This rapid nuclear cooking could have been prevented only if the universe was filled with radiation having an enormous equivalent temperature at very short wavelengths, which could blast nuclei apart as fast as they could be formed.2

Notice: CMB was needed to make the big bang theory work—as were “dark matter” and “dark energy.” [See “Dark Thoughts” on page 29.]

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Smoothness of the CMB

The CMB is remarkably smooth, so smooth that for 25 years after its discovery, no variations could be detected. Increasingly precise instruments were designed and launched into space to look for variations in the CMB’s intensity, because the big bang theory said they had to be there. Without billions of large concentrations of matter (from which most CMB radiated), other matter could not gravitationally contract around those concentrations to form the untold billions of galaxies. If galaxies did not form, we would not be here!

Finally, after 25 years of searching, variations amounting to only one part in 100,000 were found. However, experts recognized that such weak concentrations, even after hundreds of billions of years, could not have pulled in enough matter to form galaxies.

But this uniformity [in the CMB] is difficult to reconcile with the obvious clumping of matter into galaxies, clusters of galaxies and even larger features extending across vast regions of the universe, such as “walls” and “bubbles.” 3

Why was [the CMB in] the early universe asymmetric by such a small amount? This is one of the outstanding puzzles of the Big Bang theory.4

The theorists know of no way such a monster [a massive accumulation of galaxies, called the Great Wall] could have condensed in the time available since the Big Bang, especially considering that the 2.7 K background radiation reveals a universe that was very homogeneous in the beginning.5

Gravity can’t, over the age of the universe, amplify these [tiny] irregularities enough [to form huge clusters of galaxies].6

Furthermore, the Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the extreme edges of the visible universe. Most experts expected to see diffuse matter slowly gravitating together to form galaxies. This is what one would expect if the extremely smooth CMB was left over from the big bang. Instead, galaxies were already “bunched together”—having formed very early in the history of the universe.

... tremendously distant galaxies are just as clustered as today and are arranged in the same filamentary, bubbly structures that nearby galaxies are.7

In each of the five patches of sky surveyed by the team, the distant galaxies bunch together instead of being distributed randomly in space. “The work is ongoing, but what we’re able to say now is that galaxies we are seeing at great distances are as strongly clustered in the early universe as they are today,” says [Charles C.] Steidel, who is at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.8

[Soldier4Christ]

Conclusion

Is the CMB (1) left over from the big bang, (2) radiation emitted for a brief instant from all created matter, or (3) something else? Both (1) and (2) place the CMB at the beginning of time and attribute the radiation’s current low effective temperature (2.73 kelvins) to an expansion of space.

The big bang’s explanation for the CMB has several widely recognized problems.

    * The CMB, when viewed over the entire sky, is thousands of times too smooth to be a consequence of the big bang. Without vastly larger irregularities, the big bang predicts that galaxies could not form in even hundreds of billions of years.
    * The most distant galaxies seen are tightly clustered, much more than gravity could accomplish over the big bang’s age of the universe.
    * According to the big bang theory, there is no reason why radiation from opposite sides of the universe should be identical, because radiating matter that far apart could not have reached thermal equilibrium. However, if the CMB is a natural consequence of the creation of matter within a very compact universe that was later stretched out, identical radiation would be expected.

All of this does not necessarily mean that the explanation proposed here for the light of Day 1 is correct. However, if one considers the many other problems with the big bang theory—a discussion that begins on page 28—the two choices described here are reduced to one. (Other possibilities, usually of a nonquantitative, nontestable nature and having nothing to do with the CMB, have been proposed for the “light of Day 1.”)

Yes, there is much we do not know about light and the beginning hours and days of the universe. However, faulty ideas should be exposed and superior ideas presented, even if they are not the final answer. Otherwise, incorrect ideas are accepted by default—reinforcing the reigning paradigm.

The subject is not unimportant. God asked Job (Job 38:19–20), “Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory, and that you may discern the paths to its home?” Just as Job could not answer those questions and others related to creation (Job 38), we also fall short—even though we better understand light and just how immense the universe is today.

One thing is clear: on Day 1, three days before the Sun and stars were created, a temporary light source illuminated the spinning earth and provided day-night cycles.

[Soldier4Christ]

How Old Do Evolutionists Say the Universe Is?

In the late 1920s, evolutionists believed that the universe was 2 billion years (b.y.) old. Later, radiometric dating techniques gave much older ages for certain rocks on Earth.1 Obviously, a part of the universe cannot be older than the universe itself. This contradiction was soon removed by devising a rationale for increasing the age of the universe.

Similar problems are now widely acknowledged. [See “Big Bang?” on page 28.] If a big bang occurred, it happened 13.7 b.y. ago. If stars evolved, some stars are 16 b.y. old, such as the stars in the globular cluster below.2 Obviously, stars cannot be older than the universe. Also, the Hubble Space Telescope has found distant galaxies whose age, based on big-bang assumptions, exceeds the age of the universe.3

Figure 144: Globular Cluster. Globular clusters are tight, spherical concentrations of 10,000–1,000,000 stars. This globular cluster, called M13, is about 22,000 light-years away. To see why stars in globular clusters did not evolve but came into existence at about the same time, see “Star Births? Stellar Evolution?” on page 30.

Here is a similar, but less widely known, problem. Let’s suppose the universe is 13.7 b.y. old. That is not enough time for stars containing heavy chemical elements to form and then transmit their light to Earth. A big bang would have produced only hydrogen, helium, and lithium—the three lightest chemical elements. Light from the most distant stars and galaxies shows they contain much heavier chemical elements such as carbon, iron, and lead—elements that could not have been in the first generation of stars to form after the big bang. Evolutionists, therefore, believe that the hundred or so heavier chemical elements (97% of all chemical elements) were produced either deep inside stars or when some stars exploded as supernovas. Much later, a second generation of stars supposedly formed with the heavy elements from that exploded debris.

In other words, everyone realizes that a big bang would produce only the three lightest chemical elements. Therefore, big-bang advocates must explain the origin of the heavier chemical elements (carbon, oxygen, iron, lead etc.). To squeeze enough hydrogen nuclei together to form some heavier elements would require the high temperatures inside stars. Theoretically, to form elements heavier than iron requires something much hotter—a supernova.

So if a big bang happened, there would not be enough time afterward to:

a. Form the first generation of stars out of hydrogen, helium, and lithium.

b. Have many of those stars pass through their complete life cycles then finally explode as supernovas to produce the heavier chemical elements.

c. Recollect, somehow, enough of that exploded debris to form the second generation of stars. (Some were quasars thought to be powered by black holes, billions of times more massive than our Sun! See Endnote 5 on page 272.)

d. Transmit the light from these heavy elements to Earth, immense distances away.

New and sophisticated light-gathering instruments have enabled astronomers to discover heavy elements in many extremely distant galaxies4 and quasars.5 The current distance record is held by such a galaxy with a quasar at its center.6 If the speed of light has been constant, its light has taken 94% of the age of the universe to reach us. This means that only the first 6% of the age of the universe would have been available for events a–c above. (Only 0.8 b.y. would be available in a 13.7-b.y.-old universe.) Few astronomers believe that such slow processes as a–c above, if they happened at all, could happen in 0.8 b.y.7

Evolutionists can undoubtedly resolve these time contradictions—but at the cost of rejecting some cherished belief. Perhaps they will accept the possibility that light traveled much faster in the past. Measurements exist which support this revolutionary idea. [See page 264.] Maybe they will conclude that the big bang never occurred, or that heavy elements were somehow in the first and only generation of stars, or that stars degrade, but new stars don’t evolve. Much evidence supports each of these ideas, and all are consistent with a recent creation.

Few evolutionists are aware of these contradictions. However, as more powerful telescopes begin peering even farther into space, these problems will worsen and more attention will be focused on them. If scientists find, as one might expect, even more distant stars and galaxies with heavy elements, problems with the claimed age of the universe will no longer be the secret of a few evolutionists.8

[Soldier4Christ]

Figure 145: Compsognathus. While most dinosaurs were large, this one, Compsognathus longipes, was small—about the size of a domestic cat. The German scientist who discovered Compsognathus, Andreas Wagner, “recognized from the description [of Archaeopteryx] what seemed to be his Compsognathus but with feathers! He was extremely suspicious ...”2 Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx have many similarities. Compsognathus fossils are also found at the same site in Germany where Archaeopteryx was found.

Figure 146: “Chewing Gum Blob.” These raised spots have the appearance of pieces of chewing gum. They have no corresponding indentation on the mating face of the fossil. Probably some small drops of wet cement fell on the surface and were never detected or cleaned off by the forger.

Figure 147: Furcula of Archaeopteryx? This V-shaped bone is claimed to be the wishbone, or furcula, of Archaeopteryx. It is shaped more like a boomerang than the familiar wishbone in a chicken. A furcula acts as a spring—storing and releasing energy with each flap of a wing. Notice the crack in the right arm of the furcula and the broken right tip—strange for a bird’s flexible bone buried in soft sediments. Perhaps it broke when a forger chipped it out of another fossil. One must ask why only this Berlin specimen shows a clear furcula. Notice how the counterslab, immediately below, does not have a correspondingly smooth depression into which the raised furcula will fit.


igure 148: Double Strike. A forger would have a delicate task positioning the counterslab on top of the slab with a cement paste between the two slabs. The two halves of the fossil must mate perfectly. A last-minute adjustment or slip would create a double strike.

If dinosaurs (or, as other evolutionists assert, reptiles) evolved into birds, thousands of types of animals should have been more birdlike than dinosaurs and yet more dinosaur-like than birds. Evolutionists claim that Archaeopteryx (ark ee OP ta riks) is a feathered dinosaur, a transition between dinosaurs (or reptiles) and birds. Of the relatively few claimed intermediate fossils, Archaeopteryx is the one most frequently cited by evolutionists and shown in most biology textbooks. Some say the six Archaeopteryx fossils are the most famous fossils in the world.

Archaeopteryx means ancient (archae) wing (pteryx). But the story behind this alleged half-dinosaur, half-bird is much more interesting than its fancy, scientific-sounding name or the details of its bones. If Archaeopteryx were shown to be a fraud, the result would be devastating for the evolution theory.

Since the early 1980s, several prominent scientists have charged that the two Archaeopteryx fossils with clearly visible feathers are forgeries.1 Allegedly, thin layers of cement were spread on two fossils of a chicken-size dinosaur, called Compsognathus (komp SOG nuh thus). Bird feathers were then imprinted into the wet cement.

If Archaeopteryx did not have a few perfectly formed, modern feathers, clearly visible on two of the six known specimens,3 Archaeopteryx would be considered Compsognathus.4 The skeletal features of Archaeopteryx are certainly not suitable for flight, because no specimen shows a sternum (breast bone) which all birds, and even bats, must have to anchor their large flight muscles. But why would Archaeopteryx have modern, aerodynamically perfect feathers if it could not fly?5 Finally, Archaeopteryx should not be classified as a bird.6

The two fossils with feathers were “found” and sold for high prices by Karl Häberlein (in 1861 for 700 pounds) and his son, Ernst (in 1877 for 20,000 gold marks), just as Darwin’s theory and book, The Origin of Species (1859), were gaining popularity. While some German experts thought the new (1861) fossil was a forgery, the British Museum (Natural History) bought it sight unseen. (In the preceding century, fossil forgeries from limestone quarries were common in that region of Germany.7)

[Soldier4Christ]

Evidence of an Archaeopteryx forgery includes instances where the supposedly mating faces of the fossil (the main slab and counterslab) do not mate. The feather impressions are primarily on the main slab, while the counterslab in several places has raised areas with no corresponding indentation on the main slab. These raised areas, nicknamed “chewing gum blobs,” are made of the same fine-grained material that is found only under the feather impressions. The rest of the fossil is composed of a coarse-grained limestone.  [See Figure 146.]

Some might claim that Archaeopteryx has a wishbone, or furcula—a unique feature of birds. It would be more accurate to say that only the British Museum specimen has a visible furcula. It is a strange furcula, “relatively the largest known in any bird.”8 Furthermore, it is upside down, a point acknowledged by two giants of the evolutionist movement—T. H. Huxley (Darwin’s so-called bulldog) and Gavin deBeer. As Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe stated,

It was somewhat unwise for the forgers to endow Compsognathus with a furcula, because a cavity had to be cut in the counterslab, with at least some semblance to providing a fit to the added bone. This would have to be done crudely with a chisel, which could not produce a degree of smoothness in cutting the rock similar to a true sedimentation cavity.9 [See Figure 147.]

Feather imprints show what have been called “double strike” impressions. Evidently, feather impressions were made twice in a slightly displaced position as the slab and counterslab were pressed together.  [See Figure 148.]

Honest disagreement as to whether Archaeopteryx was or was not a forgery was possible until 1986, when a definitive test was performed. An x-ray resonance spectrograph of the British Museum fossil showed that the finer-grained material containing the feather impressions differed significantly from the rest of the coarser-grained fossil slab. The chemistry of this “amorphous paste” also differed from the crystalline rock in the famous fossil quarry in Bavaria, Germany, where Archaeopteryx supposedly was found.10 Few responses have been made to this latest, and probably conclusive, evidence.11

Fossilized feathers are almost unknown,12 and several complete, flat feathers that just happened to be at the slab/counterslab interface are even more remarkable. Had a feathered Archaeopteryx been buried in mud or a limestone paste, its feathers would have had a three-dimensional shape, typical of the curved feathers we have all held. Indeed, the only way to flatten a feather is to press it between two flat slabs.  Flattened feathers, alone, raise suspicions.

Also, there has been no convincing explanation for how to fossilize (actually encase) a bird in the 80% pure, Solnhofen limestone. One difficulty, which will be appreciated after reading about liquefaction on pages 158–168, is the low density of bird carcasses. Another is that limestone is primarily precipitated from seawater, as explained on pages 170–175. Therefore, to be buried in limestone, the animal must lie on the seafloor—unusual for a dead bird. Other problems with evolving birds are described in Endnote i on page 62.

Significantly, two modern birds have been discovered in rock strata dated by evolutionists as much older than Archaeopteryx.13 In Argentina, many birdlike footprints have been found which evolutionists say preceded Archaeopteryx by at least 55 million years.14 Therefore, according to evolutionary dating methods, Archaeopteryx could not be ancestral to modern birds. True fossilized birds have been found that evolutionists believe lived shortly after Archaeopteryx.15 This has forced some to conclude that the distinctly different Archaeopteryx was not ancestral to modern birds.16

When the media popularize an evolutionist claim that is later shown to be false, retractions are seldom made. One refreshing exception is provided by National Geographic, which originally, and incorrectly, reported the discovery in China of “a true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds.” (Actually, the fossil was a composite of a bird’s body and a dinosaur’s tail, faked for financial gain.)17 Details were explained on a few back pages of National Geographic by an independent investigator at the request of National Geographic’s editor. The report was summarized as follows:

It’s a tale of misguided secrecy and misplaced confidence, of rampant egos clashing, self-aggrandizement, wishful thinking, naive assumptions, human error, stubbornness, manipulation, backbiting, lying, corruption, and, most of all, abysmal communication.18

Such fiascoes are common among those seeking rewards and prestige for finding fossils of missing links. The media that popularize these stories mislead the public.

Archaeopteryx’s fame seems assured, not as a transitional fossil between dinosaurs (or reptiles) and birds, but as a forgery. Unlike the Piltdown hoax, which fooled leading scientists for more than 40 years, the Archaeopteryx hoax has lasted for 125 years. [See “Ape-Men?” on page 12.] Because the apparent motive for the Archaeopteryx deception was money, Archaeopteryx should be labeled as a fraud. The British Museum (Natural History) gave life to both deceptions and must assume much of the blame. Those scientists who were too willing to fit Archaeopteryx into their evolutionary framework also helped spread the deception. Piltdown man may soon be replaced as the most famous hoax in all of science.

[Soldier4Christ]

Figure 149: Birds from Dinosaurs? Birds have many marvelous and unique features: flight, feathers, energy efficiency, navigational abilities, brittle eggs, amazing eyesight, and lightweight construction. If birds evolved, from where did they come? Evolutionists try to solve this recognized dilemma19 by claiming birds evolved from dinosaurs20 or that they are “cousins.” Archaeopteryx is a prime exhibit for both views. Yes, dinosaurs have some features in common with birds, especially aspects of their bone structure, but birds have many unique features. No doubt, more differences will be discovered.

Another possibility is that a designer gave both birds and dinosaurs some common features, because each had similar needs. For example, gears are common to cars, bicycles, windmills, and watches. Everyone knows they were designed. No one teaches, advocates, or even considers that windmills turned into cars or watches. Efficiency dictates design similarities. How could anyone think dinosaurs evolved into hummingbirds? Time, mutations, and natural selection?

[Soldier4Christ]

How Accurate Is Radiocarbon Dating?

Figure 150: Increasing Amounts of Carbon-14. Radiocarbon dating requires knowing the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere when the organic matter being dated was part of a living organism. The assumption (shown in red), which few realize is being made, is that this ratio has always been what it was before the industrial revolution9—about one carbon-14 atom for every trillion carbon-12 atoms. Willard Libby, who received a Nobel Prize for developing this technique, conducted tests in 1950 which showed more carbon-14 forming than decaying. Therefore, the amount of carbon-14 and the ratio must be increasing. He ignored his test results, because he believed the earth must be more than 20,000–30,000 years old, in which case the amount of carbon-14 must have had time to reach equilibrium and be constant.3 In 1977, Melvin Cook did similar, but more precise, tests which showed that the ratio was definitely increasing, even faster than Libby’s test indicated.

Today, carbon-14 forms in the upper atmosphere at the rate of 21 pounds a year, but in 5,730 years, half of it decays. Therefore, carbon-14 would normally increase from the time of the creation, as shown by the blue line. Before the flood, the blue line levels off as the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere approaches equilibrium—where the amount forming balances the amount decaying. Earth’s lush forests had so much carbon that the equilibrium level was much lower than today. Those forests, ripped up and buried during the flood, became our coal, oil, and methane deposits.

During the flood, carbon-12, released from the subterranean water chamber, diluted the carbon-14 in the atmosphere and oceans even more. (Carbon-14 could not have formed in this chamber, because it was shielded from the cosmic radiation that produces carbon-14.) If one thought the C-14/C-12 ratio had always been what it is today, he would erroneously conclude that small amounts of carbon-14 in fossils meant much time had passed.  Instead, less carbon-14 was in those organisms when they died.

Radiocarbon ages less than 3,500 years old are probably accurate. However, before accepting any radiocarbon date, one should know how the technique works, its limitations, and its assumptions. One limitation is that the radiocarbon technique dates only material that was once part of an animal or plant, such as bones, flesh, or wood. It cannot date rocks directly. To understand the other capabilities and limitations of radiocarbon dating, we must understand how it works and consider the flood.

Most carbon atoms weigh 12 atomic mass units. However, roughly one in a trillion carbon atoms weighs 14 atomic units. This carbon is called carbon-14. It is also called radiocarbon because it is radioactive (but not dangerous). Half of it will decay in about 5,730 years to form nitrogen. Half of the remainder will decay in another 5,730 years, and so on.

Cosmic radiation striking the upper atmosphere converts about 21 pounds of nitrogen each year into radiocarbon (carbon-14). Most carbon-14 quickly combines with oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which then spreads throughout the atmosphere. Plants take in carbon dioxide, incorporating in their tissues both carbon-14 (unstable) and normal carbon-12 (stable) in the same proportion as they occur in the atmosphere. Carbon-14 then moves up the various food chains to enter animal tissue—again, in about the same ratio carbon-14 has with carbon-12 in the atmosphere.

When a living thing dies, its radiocarbon loss (decay) is no longer balanced by intake, so its radiocarbon steadily decreases with a half-life of 5,730 years. If we knew the amount of carbon-14 in an organism when it died, we could attempt to date the time of death. The key questions then are: “Has the atmospheric ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 changed in the past, and if so, why and how much?” The assumption usually made, but rarely acknowledged, is that the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution1 has always been the same—about one in a trillion.  Actually, that ratio may have been quite different.