Creationist cosmologies

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Creationist cosmologies encompass a variety of theories of Young Earth creationists (YECs) that are designed to support the religious belief that the universe is only a few thousand years old, in line with a literal reading of Genesis. Creationist cosmologies are often concerned with solving the "starlight problem"; that light from galaxies at distances of billions of light-years takes billions of years to reach Earth, in contradiction to a proposed universe age of thousands of years. As the technical sophistication of YECs has increased over the years, new attempts to explain away the scientific evidence for the age of the universe of 13.7 billion years has also been incorporated. YECs now re-interpret phenomena such as galactic redshifts and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to fit into their beliefs, though there is no single creationist model which attempts to uphold the cosmic microwave background as interpreted by the Standard Model. They believe, along with advocates of intelligent design, that the universe is "finely tuned" for life.

Creationist cosmologies are criticized for being pseudoscientific, and rejected by the scientific community. The scientific consensus today is the Big Bang model, which was proposed in the 1920s and subsequently corroborated by Edwin Hubble's discovery of the Hubble Law in 1929, and later by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964. These observations falsified non-standard cosmologies. Other observational and theoretical inconsistencies were resolved by inflationary cosmology first described by Alan Guth in 1980 and it is now incorporated in the best-supported concordance model of cosmology.

Appearance of age (light created in transit)

Main article: Omphalos hypothesis

The Omphalos hypothesis was originally proposed in the context of geology, in the 1857 book Omphalos by Philip Gosse. The book sought to reconcile the long geological ages advocated by the leading geologist of the time Charles Lyell, with a recent creation.^[1] Gosse claimed that universe has an appearance of age, but is actually very young. (Omphalos is Greek for navel/belly button. The theory suggests Adam and Eve did have navels, despite never having been born of human parents.) It was revived by creationists in the 20th century. Critics have parodied it as "Last Thursdayism", as in "the world might as well have been created last Thursday", with the physical world and even people's memories of earlier events being merely planted by God.

The Omphalos hypothesis, as applied to cosmology, attempts to answer the "starlight problem" by positing that light which appears to source from distant galaxies was actually created by God en-route, conveniently avoiding long light travel times.

c decay

The concept of c-decay was first proposed by Barry Setterfield in 1981 in an article for the Australian creationist magazine, Ex Nihilo, as an alternative to physical cosmology. Setterfield's proposal was that the speed of light (c), was infinite in the past, but has slowed substantially over time. Setterfield argues that this resolves the so-called "starlight problem", since light may have traveled fast enough in the past to reach Earth in thousands of years, despite being billions of light years away.

Setterfield selected a number of historical measurements of c starting with the original measurement by Ole Rømer in 1667, and proceeding through a series of more recent experiments, culminating in measurements taken in the 1960s. These showed a decreasing speed over time, which Setterfield claimed was in fact an exponential decay series that implied an infinite speed in the not distant past.^[2] He later expanded his claim to cover a supposed decay in several other physical constants.^[3]

Setterfield's proposal has received criticism in the scientific community, including that his data is too noisy to show any strong correlation, and his argument is based on cherry picking outlying points in order to fit his model.^[4]

Setterfield's argument is highly dependent on Rømer's original measurement, which he copied from an issue of Sky and Telescope. This value was "301,300 plus or minus 200 km/sec", about 0.5% above the current value. However, the article was actually an excerpt from The Astronomical Journal,^[5] which disagrees completely, writing "The best fit occurs at zero where the light travel time is identical to the currently accepted value."^[6] In his analysis, Setterfield also left out a number of famous experiments measuring the speed of light, as well as a number of measurements in his quoted experiments. When these points are added back into the set, there is no apparent decay. More recent versions of Setterfield's paper include these figures, using adjusted mathematics to rebuild the curve. These mathematics have been the object of ridicule.^[4]

White hole cosmology

Russell Humphreys, an American physicist and creationist author, proposed in 1994 that the Earth is located near the center of a finite and bounded universe and that the entire universe expanded out of a white hole. He claims that relativistic time dilation explains how billions of years elapsed in the distant universe while only a few days or weeks passed on Earth. Humphreys claims that his model explains cosmological redshifts and the cosmic microwave background radiation.^[7][8]

Humphreys' cosmology has been criticized by several creationists, and is rejected by the scientific community.^[9][10]

According to Alex Williams, Humphreys' proposal grows out of the addition of three assumptions to Einstein's equations: the universe has expanded from a previously denser state, the universe is bounded in space, and the earth is located at or near the center of the universe.^[11][12] The first assumption is supported by big bang cosmology, but according to Williams, the final two are rejected by the scientific community.

Physicist and philosopher of science J. Brian Pitts states that the result of Humphreys' proposal "is simply a modest variant of Big Bang cosmology that provides no help for young-earth creationists' light transit time problem".^[13]

Other theories

• John Hartnett proposed a creationist cosmology which he claimed to be superior to Humphreys' "white hole cosmology". Hartnett's model incorporates a concept of "cosmological relativity" and a 5-dimension universe. Similar to Humphreys, Hartnett invokes time dilation in an attempt to solve the starlight problem, stating that "God designed the original creation in a state such that it would naturally expand, relaxing the fabric of space itself like an uncoiling spring."^[14]

• Gerald Schroeder argued the perceived flow of time for a given event in an expanding universe varies with the observer’s perspective of that event. He thus equates long ages with a short chronology.^[15] He professes Orthodox Judaism.

• Jason Lisle argued there are different ways of considering time, and the Bible might use a "phenomenological" (language of appearance) method. He suggests time could be reckoned according to when light reaches earth.^{[16][not in citation given]}

Criticism of the Big Bang theory

Proponents of creationism have attempted to discredit the standard Big bang cosmological theory on several grounds. One of the most common creationist criticisms of the Big Bang concerns the horizon problem and supposed problems with the inflationary theory of the early universe.^[17] Creationists have claimed that dark matter and dark energy are doubtful concepts invented by Big Bang theorists in order to uphold the theory.^{[18][19][20][21]} Creationists also claim that the big bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter.^[22]

Stellar and planetary formation

Creationists typically reject standard accounts of stellar evolution, and observational evidence of recent star formation.^[23] In particular, creationists dispute the widely accepted nebular hypothesis for star formation.^[24][25][26]

Creationists claim that Humphreys correctly predicted the magnetic fields (magnetospheres) for Uranus and Neptune.^[27]

See also

• Astronomy
• Astrophysics
• Biblical inerrancy
• Pseudoscience

References

1. ^ Philip H. Gosse, Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. London: John Van Voorst, 1857
2. ^ Setterfield, "The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe". Creation Ex Nihilo 4:1 (March 1981), p38–48
3. ^ The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time
4. ^ ^{a b} The Decay of c-decay
5. ^ On the Velocity of Light Three Centuries Ago
6. ^ Roemer, navigation, and the speed of light, American Journal of Physics, July 1986, Volume 54, Issue 7, p. 583
7. ^ Russell Humphreys (1994), Starlight and time, Master Books 
8. ^ Russell Humphreys, Seven Years of Starlight and Time, Institute for Creation Research (ICR), http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=446, retrieved 2010-03-30 
9. ^ E.D. Fackerell; C.B.G. McIntosh. "Errors in Humphreys’ cosmological model". http://www.trueorigin.org/rh_fackmcin1.pdf. 
10. ^ D. Russell Humphreys (January 1, 1999). "Starlight Wars: Starlight and Time Withstands Attacks". http://www.icr.org/news/44/. 
11. ^ Alex Williams; John Hartnett (2005). Dismantling the Big Bang: God's Universe Rediscovered. New Leaf Publishing Group. pp. 178. ISBN 9780890514375. http://books.google.com/books?id=FR7basoxkSwC. 
12. ^ D. Russel Humphreys (August 2001). "Seven Years of Starlight and Time". Impact (338). http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/imp/imp-338.pdf. 
13. ^ Pitts, J. Brian (March 2009). "Nonexistence of Humphreys’ "Volume Cooling" for Terrestrial Heat Disposal by Cosmic Expansion". Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 61 (1): 23–28. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2009/PSCF3-09Pitts.pdf. Retrieved 2011-05-29. 
14. ^
    • John Hartnett (2005), Dark matter and a cosmological constant in a creationist cosmology?, http://creation.com/dark-matter-and-a-cosmological-constant-in-a-creationist-cosmology 
    • [Biographical overview at Creation Ministries International], Biographical overview 
    • John Hartnett (2005), Dark matter and a cosmological constant in a creationist cosmology?, http://creation.com/dark-matter-and-a-cosmological-constant-in-a-creationist-cosmology 
    • John Hartnett (2007), A 5D spherically symmetric expanding universe is young, http://creation.com/a-5d-spherically-symmetric-expanding-universe-is-young 
15. ^ Schroeder, Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible. Bantam: 1991. Schroeder, "Age of the Universe", Aish.com (Aish HaTorah)
16. ^ "Robert Newton" (pen-name of Jason Lisle), "Distant starlight and Genesis: conventions of time measurement". TJ 15:1 (April 2001), p80–85
17. ^ eg. Robert Newton (2003), Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang, Creation Ministries International, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/lighttravel.asp, retrieved 2010-03-30 
18. ^ John Hartnett, Has 'dark matter' really been proven?, Creation Ministries International, http://creation.com/has-dark-matter-really-been-proven, retrieved 2010-03-30 
19. ^ Michael Oard, Astronomical problems, Creation Ministries International, http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v9/i1/astronomy.asp 
20. ^ Werner Gitt, What about the big bang?, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v20/n3/big-bang 
21. ^ Michael Oard & Jonathan Sarfati (1999), No dark matter found in the Milky Way Galaxy, http://creation.com/no-dark-matter-found-in-the-milky-way-galaxy, retrieved 2010-03-31 
22. ^ Michael Oard, Missing antimatter challenges the 'big bang' theory, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/antimatter.asp, retrieved 2010-03-30 
23. ^ Wayne Spencer (2008), Star Formation and Creation, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/star-formation-and-creation, retrieved 2010-03-31 
24. ^ Jason Lisle (2007), The Stars of Heaven Confirm Biblical Creation, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n4/stars-of-heaven-confirm, retrieved 2010-03-31 
25. ^ T. Parsons and J. Mackay (1980), Pièrre Simon Laplace: The nebular hypothesis, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v3/i3/ideas.asp, retrieved 2010-03-31 
26. ^ Wayne R. Spencer (2001), "The existence and origin of extrasolar planets", Journal of Creation (Answers in Genesis), http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i1/extrasolar.asp, retrieved 2010-03-31 
27. ^ Answers in Genesis. "Successful Predictions by Creation Scientists". http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/features/successful-predictions. Retrieved April 2010. 

Further reading

• Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences. National Academy of Sciences, 2nd edn (1999)
• Donald B. DeYoung, Astronomy and the Bible: Questions and Answers. Baker Books, 2nd edn, April 2000
• Danny R. Faulkner, Universe by Design. Master Books, September 2004
• John Hartnett, Starlight, Time and the New Physics. Creation Book Publishers, 2007
• Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time. Master Books, 1994

External links

• Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy, W. T. Bridgman
• Gentry's cosmology: A New Redshift Interpretation,
• Gentry's cosmology : A New Cosmic Center Model.