My wife and I sometimes enjoy watching nature programs on cable
television about life in the sea or life in Africa. During the show, usually sometime close to
the beginning of the program we will hear the narrator mention how many
millions of years ago a species came into existence and what the species
evolved from. There is never an explanation of the basis for the claim; it is
simply stated as fact. This post is not an attempt to debate the controversy of
humans evolving from lower animals. We will certainly blog about that at a
later time. This post is to educate the reader about the methods devised to
determine how old something is and the assumptions that are made to support
these methods.
According to secular
scientist, it is settled that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years
old and the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. A variety of
“scientific” methods have been developed to support these claims. One thing we
plan to do is to interview college students and ask their opinion as to the age
of the Earth and ask them to explain how they arrived at their opinion. We will
publish these results in a later blog.
Let us begin at the beginning and discuss the age of the
universe. In the book, Starlight and Time, Dr. Russell Humphreys explains that the measure of time in the universe
is not the same everywhere; in fact, time passes at different rates depending
on factors including the magnitude of the force of gravity. The accepted theory
of Black Holes in the universe is that any object or even light sucked into a
Black Hole cannot escape because of the massive force of gravity. In other
words, the velocity of light is not a constant. This understood theory means
that light will travel at a much slower rate under the influence of massive
amounts of gravity. Dr. Humphreys' theory is that the creation event took place
in the vicinity of where the earth now resides and that the entire mass of the
universe was centered here. As the universe rapidly expanded, time passed much
faster away from the center of mass. As the universe expanded, time would pass
faster as the mass increased its distance from the center of gravity. If you
were able to be on the outside edge of this expansion, the rate of the passage
of time would not seem unusual to you just as it would not seem unusual to
someone left behind at the center of gravity. Both would experience time
passing at a normal rate but there would be a vast comparative difference. In
other words, one could experience 13.7 billion years while the other could
experience only 6000 years. The math is complicated, but it has been worked out
and it is in the realm of possibilities. This phenomenon is due to the fact
that the rate of time passing is not a constant but varies depending on the value
of gravity at a point in the universe.
What about the theory
that we see light from galaxies that are 13.7 billion light years from earth?
If the Earth is near the center of the universe, this would be the original point
of the source of the light.
When astrophysicists
measured the rate of the acceleration of the universe, they understood that there
was not enough visible matter in the universe to explain the rate. Their
solution was that the overwhelming type of matter in the universe was “dark
matter”, the kind we cannot see. As a
counter to that theory, in the Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Science, two mathematicians, Blake Temple and Joel Smoller
suggest a solution to the accelerating universe that doesn’t require conjuring
up anything like “dark matter” — in fact, it doesn’t require conjuring up anything new at all. Their solution
works with the current laws of physics we already have. Their solution? That
the acceleration seen is due to an expanding shockwave that occurred after the
Big Bang–a shockwave that would have originated very near the Earth. Did you
catch that? A shockwave, plowing through the universe and spreading out the
galaxies that originated near the
Earth.
It is understood that this
will not sit well with established science in that it flies in the face of The
Copernican Principle that states that the Earth is not in a special place in
the universe and has no special significance. Actually the only thing that
Copernicus demonstrated was that the whole universe did not rotate around the
Earth, but that the Earth rotated around the Sun. His discoveries were later
expanded by scientist to claim that Earth was mediocre and not privileged in
any way.
This blog post is
not an attempt to claim that it is absolutely true that the earth is at or near
the center of the universe, but an exercise in critical thinking so that we
understand the concepts that are presented as scientific fact, are not
necessarily the truth.
When you let your
mind challenge scientific statements and start asking questions about the
veracity of what you have been taught, you find that behind some claims is not
the truth, but a desire to validate someone’s philosophy. Then you will know the truth and the truth
will set you free, John 8: 32 NIV.
