The Expanding Universe.

During the years 1922-1927, astronomer Edwin Hubble looking through the reflecting telescope at Mt Wilson near Los 
Angeles noted that the black lines on the spectrum of light from the most distant stars (galaxies) were shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. The black lines are caused by interference with light from elements in that star, the most common is hydrogen. The extent of that shift tells us the 
speed of the star and a doppler shift towards the blue end of the spectrum tells us that the star is coming towards us. A doppler shift towards the red end of the spectrum tells us that the star is going away from us. From his observations, Hubble was able to see that the most distant stars were all heading out into space. Based on this he presented his Expanding Universe Theory in 1927. Scientists at first ignored or rejected his theory, but it is now fully accepted. The universe is expanding and the Hubble space telescope was named in his honour.

Mt Palomar Telescope

 

In the above photo, white light (from Sirius) is being passed through a quartz prism. Refraction divides the light into all its spectral components with high frequency (blue light) at one end of the spectrum and low frequency (red light) at the other end of the spectrum. The black lines are caused by absorption of light by the elements from which the star is made. Hubble observed that for the most distant galaxies the black lines are doppler shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and therefor the most distant galaxies are travelling away from  earth. The universe is expanding. If the universe is expanding, it stands to reason that at some time in the past, the universe had a definite beginning. Careful observations and calculations have fixed that beginning at about 13.7 billion years ago.

George Lemaitre, a Belgian astronomer became aware of 
Edwin Hubble’s work and in 1927 he formed the opinion that the whole universe came into existence with a huge thermo-nuclear explosion some billions of years ago. In 1948, George Gamow and Ralph Alpher published a paper called “The
Origin of Chemical Elements”. This was in fact the “Hot Big Bang Theory” which is generally accepted by today’s 
scientists, but was not widely accepted at that time. Sir Fred Hoyle, a British Astronomer opposed Hubble’s 
Expanding Universe and Gamow’s “Hot Big Bang Theories and proposed instead the “Steady State Theory” in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, but he later accepted the Big Bang. The generally accepted current scientific thinking is that in the first second of time, the energy release must have generated temperatures approaching 1032 oC. Matter such as we know it could not exist at that temperature. Only a soup of sub-atomic particles such as quarks, leptons and photons could exist at that unimaginably high temperature. As the newborn universe expanded, the particles cooled, and after about three minutes, the sub-atomic particles started to bond and form the simpler gases hydrogen and helium which abound in the universe. Did you know that the Sun is made of Hydrogen gas ? After that first flash of energy, the universe was plunged into darkness for a period of about 400 million years. During this 
period, the elements cooled into very large gaseous clouds, then gravity compressed the gases into liquids and solids, then the pressures at the centre became so great, spontaneous 
nuclear ignition occurred, the clouds lit up and became stars. Two American physicists, Bob Dicke and Jim Peebles, reasoned that if the Big Bang did occur, the great flash of light that would have been generated should still be travelling through space, but it would have experienced such a red shift that it would now exist as microwave radiation.

Penzias and Wilson

Then in 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were testing a new microwave detector, when they measured strong microwave radiation from space. They quickly worked out that it was the Big Bang radiation that Dicke and Peebles had predicted. This was conclusive evidence of the Big Bang and Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978. Atomic bombardment at the centre of these stars 
generated the heavier elements such as lithium, beryllium, 
boron, oxygen, titanium and iron. Some of the massive stars exploded and the resulting stardust formed even heavier 
elements, such as are listed in the Periodic Table of Elements. It appears that all things, including you and me, are made of 
stardust, swept by stellar winds to their present places in the cosmos. In the first place, all the elements were hot. Some like the Sun and stars still are hot, white hot. The centre of the earth is still hot, as shown below.

Astonomers are telling us that the universe had a definite beginning. The Old Testament tells us that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Based on rational observations, Creation is supported by science.

Sure Signs of Intelligence

When the USA sent the Voyager 2 unmanned space rocket in 1977 to explore the outer reaches of the Solar System, they included a gold record with some basic information to tell any other life forms there may be “out there” that there is intelligent life on earth. One side of the record holds a range of scientific information, spoken greetings from the Secretary General of the United Nations, The President of the USA, some recorded nature sounds and some music. 

The other side of the record has a diagram showing how the record can be played and some basic information on the Solar System.

Space gold Record.

The scientists and engineers at NASA obviously thought that the presence of complex specific information would tell any space creatures that there is intelligent life on earth.

If complex specific information on a gold disc reliably indicates intelligent life, why not complex specific information in a DNA or RNA molecule ?

For the last couple of generations, our State Schools have been teaching “Evolution” and inadvertently turning out “Atheists”. Would it not be fair if we taught also “Intelligent Design” in our Science classes, and inadvertently turn out a few “Creationists” ? This not primarily about religion, but about evidence and logic. This is science.

Evolution has no explanation for the overwhelming evidence of intelligence in the complex digital programming of DNA and RNA in the world’s oldest species, blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), still growing in the shallow salt waters of Shark Bay in Western Australia after 3 billion years. Evolution is an obsolete 150 year old theory, that could not withstand the scrutiny of modern science.

What is the Source of Intelligence in Nature?

Even the simplest single cell bacteria have a DNA molecule with a very complex digital code, that controls its function, repair and reproduction. More complex life forms are composites of multiple living cells, programmed to work together in a totally co-ordinated manner.

Pour a glass of fresh water into the sea. What chance is there that if you dip your glass back into the ocean, it will come out full of fresh water? It will not. The water will be salty, not fresh. Once mixed, there is no way back. Order moves towards disorder. Entropy increases inexorably. Rivers run down into the sea, and the mountains wash down with them. Eventually the mountains will lower and the floor of the ocean will rise until an entropic balance is achieved in a level sea bed.

Order does not come out of chaos, unless an intelligent agent makes order from the disorder. A sea shell, a bird’s-nest or a house will not build itself. These are the result of intelligent activity. A machine will not make something symmetrical or functional unless it is controlled by an intelligence to do so. It is a fact of the universe that information is lost over time, it does not increase unless there is an intelligent contribution.

Darwinian evolution explains how life forms can evolve due to mutations and natural selection, but it cannot explain where the intelligence came from that made and programmed the DNA molecule in all living cells.  Man, the supreme life force on planet earth, is composed of about 100 trillion living cells, all working together as bones, muscles, blood, brains, skin, eyes, ears, touch sensors, heat sensors, taste sensors, gravity sensors, etc. With good food, water, clothing and a bit of luck, man will live for 70 years or more, with the body repairing itself and protecting itself from all manneer of germs and dangerous situations. Then driven by urges over which he has little control, he will mate and reproduce after his kind.

The amount of intelligence controlling a man’s life is phenominal. Each living cell has a DNA molecule, which stretches out to about 2 metres long, and computer programmed with about 3 billion bits of information. Each DNA molecule has enough information to build and repair another complete human being, including such complex mechanism as the eyes, ears, voice, heart and brains. If the 2 metre lengths of the DNA molecules are added, the total length of DNA in your body is about 200 trillion metres, which is about the same distance as 600 round trips from the earth to the sun and back. The brain is the most complex computer ever devised. Did it happen by chance? Dip a glass into the ocean and see if it comes out as fresh water. The Law of Entropy that we see happening all around us, compels us to look for the intelligent source that has made order out of disorder, living organisms out of inorganic matter.

Chance evolution could not provide the complex digital intelligence required for the origin of species. The first verse of the bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is perhaps the most clear scientific statement ever made on the cosmos. While the bible does not set out to be a scientific expos’e on life, the first chapter of Genesis gives a remarkably accurate description of the order in which many life forms came into existence over six extended periods of time. The first chapter of Genesis was written about 7,500 years ago and is probably the world’s oldest written text.

Evidence of The Creation

Suddenly, in a split second, about 13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang of Creation occurrred. While the stars and planets took further millions of years to form, no one can deny that the heavens and the earth just appeared out of nothing. The first statement of the bible is scientifically credible. Science cannot tell us who made it happen, but the laws of physics and the existence of light, heat, gravity, space, mass, energy and the careful atomic structure of the elements, indicate that it was all designed and controlled by some mighty intelligence to accommodate living organisms, such as microbes, insects, vegetation, fish, birds, animals and mankind. Is it more than coincidence that the order in which the various life-forms came into existence is consistent with the order of creation given in Genesis Chapter One?  1. Heavens and earth.  2. Light  3. Atmosphere (oxygenated by cyanobacteria).   4. Single land mass (Pangaea).  5. Vegetation.  6. Sun and Moon.  7. Fish, birds, animals and finally man. Genesis is a very old book, with estimates on its age ranging from 3,500 to 7500 years. The early writers knew nothing of palaeontology or earth sciences. They might have got the sequence of the Sun and Moon wrong, but the rest is spot on.

Stephen Hawking in his fascinating book “A Brief History of Time” published in 1988, suggests that the Universe started about 10 to 20 billion years ago with a “Singularity”, which was an infinitely small spot in space at the very beginning of time. If it is infinitely small, what is it? It is a figment of someone’s imagination. It is simply nothing. Astonomers and scientists are now in general agreement that the Big Bang origin of the universe occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. Quantum scientists tell us that sub-atomic particles just jump into existence and dissappear again just easily. They theorize that the Universe just jumped into existence, but no one knows where all the Energy came from to form the stars and galaxies as required by Albert Einstein’s famous formula:    Energy = Mass x Speed of Light (squared).

On this key mystery of the creation, science has no answers. An Almighty powerful God such as is described in the Bible is as scientific an explanation as any. In the first chapter of the above named book, Stephen Hawking  says: “One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning.”