Has Science Disproved Christianity?

I highly recommend “Has Science Disproved Christianity?”, a talk given by Dr. Charles Kankelborg at the Evangelical Free Church of Bozeman, Montana earlier this month. Dr. Kankelborg is a professor of physics at Montana State University.

The audio file is available from the Bozeman Evangelical Free Church site (Scroll down to November 1, 2009)

Here are a few of my favorite slides from his PowerPoint presentation:

Grace and Peace

Mars dust devil trails

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Martian Dust Devil Trails

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

The APOD description for this image:

Who’s been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing martian mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet – martian dust devils. Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas on planet Earth. Typically lasting only a few minutes, dust devils becoming visible as they pick up loose red-colored dust leaving the darker and heavier sand beneath intact. On Mars, dust devils can be up to 8 kilometers high. Dust devils have been credited with unexpected cleanings of mars rover solar panels.

Go to APOD for a higher resolution image. You’ll be glad you did.

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Starry Night

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.

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The Same Color Illusion

From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Same Color Illusion, which illustrates the problem of inaccurate observation in science.

Which is darker, A or B?

Credit: Edward H. Adelson

APOD’s description:

Are square A and B the same color? They are. Are too. To verify this, click here to see them connected. The above illusion, called the same color illusion, illustrates that purely human observations in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate. Even such a seemingly direct perception as relative color. Similar illusions exist on the sky, such as the size of the Moon near the horizon, or the apparent shapes of astronomical objects. The advent of automated, reproducible, measuring devices such as CCDs have made science in general and astronomy in particular less prone to, but not free of, human-biased illusions.

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Water on the moon

From the NASA Image of the Day Gallery: Water Detected at High Latitudes on the Moon —

Credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS

From the decription:

NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth’s moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.

Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.

Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.

As of now, there are gaps in the imagery coverage; hence the black stripes.

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Butterfly nebula

From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble.

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

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Religious belief among scientists

Here are some results of a PEW Research Center study on the religious and political beliefs of scientists:

Statistic #1

42% — Scientists ages 18-34 who say they believe in God.

28% — Scientists 65 and older who say this.

What does this mean? Does it mean that an increasing number of scientists believe in God? Or does it mean that young scientists give up their faith as they grow older? Unfortunately, this study is just a snapshot in time. It would be helpful to see the results of similar surveys done over time, or the results of studies that follow the same scientists throughout their careers.

Statistic #2

3% — Percentage of scientists who are “white evangelicals”.

19% — Percentage of Americans who are “white evangelicals”.

What does this mean? Either we evangelicals are doing a pitiful job of preparing and motivating our young people to enter the sciences, or they fall away from faith once they do enter the sciences. I place part of the blame for both of these possibilities on the dominance of young-Earth creationism in our Christian educational system, whether in our private schools, home schools, or churches. Students are either scared away from the sciences because of the perceived warfare between science and faith, or they are ill-equipped to see God’s world as it is, especially in terms of Earth history. There are likely to be a number of other factors as well.

Statistic #3
Field	Believe in God	Believe in higher power	Believe in neither
Biology and medicine	32	19	41
Chemistry	41	14	39
Geosciences	30	20	47
Physics and astronomy	29	14	46

There is not as much of a difference between the different fields of science as I had been led to believe by some other studies. I had thought that astronomers were more likely to believe in God or some sort of a higher power than other scientists, but according to this study this isn’t the case.

In the geosciences, 47% of scientists are in the “believe in neither” category: atheists and agnostics. But at 30%, we theists are not all that far behind, and I find this encouraging.

One more item from the study that I found interesting, though it related to politics rather than religious beliefs:

Statistic #4 — Party affiliation among scientists
	Republican	Democrat	Independent
All scientists	6	55	32

Some questions:

• Is there a trend towards increasing faith among scientists, as indicated by statistic #1, or will these young scientists lose faith as they grow older?
• Why are only 3% of scientists evangelical Christians? What can we evangelicals do about it?
• Is there any significance to the differences between the various fields of science? Are chemists most likely to believe in God because their science doesn’t have as direct of a relationship to the issue of origins?
• Why do only 6% of scientists identify themselves as Republican? What can be done about it?

HT: Christianity Today

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A cheaper way to get humans to Mars: One-way tickets

Credit: NASA

NASA’s Astrobiology Magazine has the text of a presentation given by physicist Paul Davies: A One-way Ticket to Mars.

The greatest expense in sending a group of astronauts to Mars is actually getting them back to Earth. Davies estimates that we may be able to save up to 80% of the costs by sending a group of four astronauts to Mars and then just leaving them there.

At first, this might sound crazy, but how different is it than when my great-grandparents left Norway for the United States, never to see their families again? Granted, Minnesota had oxygen and farmland (but my grandparents eventually ended up in Ekalaka, Montana, which may not have been all that different than ending up on Mars).

The astronauts would end up staying on Mars as the first members of a colony, with the hope that more astronauts would arrive every few years.

“As Bob Zubrin [founder of the Mars Society] has pointed out, Mars is the second-safest place in the solar system. And so it’s the one place humans can go where we could actually make a living, because it’s possible to use material on the martian surface, and crucially, Mars has water and carbon dioxide. So you’re not saying to the people who are going on this one-way mission: you’ve got three days’ supplies and that’s it. You could also protect yourself from some of the worlds hazards, such as the hazard of thin atmosphere.

“I would envisage probably four people would go in the first instance. But a one-way mission to Mars would not just be a one-off exercise. They would be trailblazers. It would be the first step to establishing a permanent human presence on another world. Although they would go without the expectation of returning, they would have the expectation that sooner or later they would be joined by others and that this Mars base would grow and eventually become a permanent Mars colony that might take hundreds of years to establish.”

Anyone want to sign up?

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NASA Earth Observatory turns 10 — Winning image

The votes are in from the NASA Earth Observatory’s viewers’ favorites contest, and the winning image out of over 3000 possibilities is:

A view of Earth from Saturn.

To see the top ten vote-getters go to Earth Observatory’s Top Ten Images of the Day.

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Space art: black hole accretion disk

From yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: The View Near a Black Hole:

Artist credit: April Hobart (CXC)

I’ve got this one set as my desktop background. Though a black hole itself is invisible, its powerful gravity sucks in gases from surrounding space. These gases become extremely hot as they spiral into the black hole, emiting x-rays and other electromagnetic radiation in the process.

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Sand dunes on Mars

From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

This view includes crescent-shaped barchans as well as lonitudinal dunes. The prevailing wind is from the right to the left.

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Hawaiian Star Trails

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day has a short video showing the lengthening of star trails as the Earth rotates on its axis. It’s pretty cool, especially as the moon rises.

Credit: Jean-Charles Cuillandre/CFHT

Go to APOD for the movie.

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Satellite cloud

On Tuesday two satellites, one Russian and one American, collided by accident at about 10 km/s over Siberia (CNN story).

The US Space Surveillance Network uses radar and optical sensors to track all of the satellites and thousands of pieces of “space junk” that orbit the Earth. From the SSN space surveillance description page:

The SSN has been tracking space objects since 1957 when the Soviets opened the space age with the launch of Sputnik I. Since then, the SSN has tracked more than 24,500 space objects orbiting Earth. Of that number, the SSN currently tracks more than 8,000 orbiting objects. The rest have re-entered Earth’s turbulent atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-enty and impacted the Earth. The space objects now orbiting Earth range from satellites weighting several tons to pieces of spent rocket bodies weighing only 10 pounds. About seven percent of the space objects are operational satellites, the rest are debris. USSPACECOM is primarily interested in the active satellites, but also tracks space debris. The SSN tracks space objects which are 10 centimeters in diameter (baseball size) or larger.

Eight thousand pieces of space junk sounds like a lot, but space is a big place. The page states that the probability of one of these objects striking the space shuttle is about once every ten thousand years. The probability of a smaller object that is too small to be tracked striking the shuttle—or another operating satellite—is greater.

Earlier this week, NASA’s Image of the Day Gallery had an artist’s conception of the cloud of satellites orbiting the Earth:

Credit: European Space Agency

Remember that at this scale each satellite is really an almost atom-sized speck.

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day from the heart-shaped giant star forming region W5 in Cassiopeia:

Credit: Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA (Astronomy Picture of the Day August 29, 2008)

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P.S. My Valentine’s Day entry last year was Mars and Valentine’s Day.

Uber space nerd

According to NerdTests.com, I can now add the title of Master of Uber Space Nerd’s Mentor to my resume.

HT: GeoTripper

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Moon rover

NASA’s Image of the Day Gallery has a concept of what the next lunar rover will look like:

Credit: NASA

Here’s the description from NASA:

NASA’s Next Generation Moon Rover

In the year 2020, NASA will be back on the moon. This time NASA will explore thousands of miles of the moon’s surface with individual missions lasting six months or longer. Just as we did during the Apollo program, NASA will be developing new concepts and technologies that also will benefit life on Earth.

One concept that is in NASA’s current plans is a Lunar Electric Rover. This small pressurized rover is about the size of a pickup truck (with 12 wheels) and can house two astronauts for up to 14 days with sleeping and sanitary facilities. It is designed to require little or no maintenance, be able to travel thousands of miles climbing over rocks and up 40 degree slopes during its ten-year life exploring the harsh surface of the moon. The rover frame was developed in conjunction with an off-road race truck team and was field tested in the desert Southwest by driving on rough lava.

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Martian methane

From LiveScience.com: Mars Methane: Geology or Biology?

Plumes of methane gas detected over certain locations on Mars in 2003 could point to active geological processes on the red planet, or perhaps even to methane-burping microbes deep below the Martian surface, a new study reports.

There is no firm evidence for life on the red planet, however, despite news reports early today suggesting as much. Rather, scientists are puzzled by the new findings.

The methane gas is concentrated in small areas of the northern hemisphere of Mars, suggesting it is released from deep fractures or from only limited areas of soil; and that it breaks down over time in the atmosphere. Additionally, these releases of gas occur only in the summer.

It is best to have multiple working hypotheses in a situation like this. Here are some possibilites:

• Shallow geochemical processes in the soil.
• Deeper geochemical processes or reservoirs of methane, with release occurring when ice in the subsurface melts.
• Magma in the subsurface (though this is unlikely as other volcanic gases have not been observed in these plumes).
• Biological activity. On Earth, bacteria in the subsurface rely on chemosynthesis, which is like photosynthesis, except that the energy source is oxidation of inorganic molecules rather than sunlight.

Discovery of bacteria on Mars, of course, would be a major discovery. The next question would be, how did it get there?

A perspective from Reasons to Believe can be found here: Bacteria or Boulders? Methane and Life on Mars. I have two disagreements with Fazale Rana’s RTB article:

• He seems to jump to the conclusion that the geological answer is the correct one. It may be, but this seems a bit premature.
• He states: “Rather than life-confirming methanogens, it seems that boring rocks may be responsible for Martian methane.” I object. Rocks aren’t boring!!!

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Day-age time chart

One of the most prominent old-Earth creation organizations is Reasons to Believe, headed by astronomer Hugh Ross. Ross is an advocate of what is known as the day-age interpretation of Genesis 1-2. In the day-age theory, the days of Genesis 1 are not literal 24-hour days, but represent vastly longer periods of time. Ross advocates (and I wholeheartedly agree) that there is no conflict between belief in the trustworthiness of Scriptures and acceptance of an old age for the Earth.

One criticism of the day-age theory is that, according to some, the events of Earth history don’t match the days as recorded in Genesis. For example, vegetation appears on day three, but the sun isn’t created until day four. How could plants survive for millions of years without sunshine? Ross addresses issues like this, and presents the day-age viewpoint as one that closely matches the 4.5 billion year history of Earth.

A key to this understanding of the relationship between Genesis 1 and science is the idea of point of view. The frame of reference of Genesis 1 is the surface of the Earth, not observing the Earth from somewhere out in space. This is based on Genesis 1:2, which says, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (ESV)”  We should read the text, according to Ross’s version of the day-age interpretation, from this perspective. The rest of the chapter then unfolds in a logical way. The sun was created sometime in the period covered by verse 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (ESV). Days one through three describe the early differentiation of Earth, with the sun obscured by a translucent atmosphere in the beginning. Light was able to get through the atmosphere, but the sun itself was not visible. The appearance of primitive “vegetation,” i.e. the beginnings of photosynthesis, occurred in this time period. On day four, the sun, moon, and stars appear. They aren’t necessarily created then, but from the vantage point of the Earth’s surface, it seems as though they are. Days five and six describe the appearance of advanced forms of life: creatures of the sea, air, and land.

Reasons to Believe has a nice chart that portrays this sequence:

To many, this illustrates an amazing correlation between Earth history and Scripture, unparalleled in the sacred texts of other religions.

The day-age interpretation is just one of several models that attempts to show that there is no inherent conflict between science and Scriptures. The overall outline presented on this time chart is not affected by whether on not Ross’s understanding of events such as the Cambrian explosion are correct (Ross views the Cambrian explosion as a new creation event).

Some other ways of understanding the opening chapters of Genesis, such the analogical day and framework hypotheses, aren’t as concerned with correlating the days of Genesis 1 with the history of the universe.

I am not committed to any one interpretation of Genesis 1. My main objective here is to point out that there are Biblically-valid alternatives to young-Earth creationism.

Old-Earth creationists, such as advocates of these various positions, accept all of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith: The Bible is God’s true revelation of himself, God is the creator of the universe and life, a real Adam, a real fall into sin, real consequences of that sin, and in the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the only answer to our sin problem. They may differ on the details, but acceptance of an old age for the universe is compatible with the Scriptures, and doesn’t lead to error in any core doctrines of the faith.

To any non-Christians reading this, note that there is no necessary conflict between science and the Bible. If you reject Christianity, it has to be for some reason other than Genesis 1.

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Beer can astronomy

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: A six month long exposure of the sun’s path across the sky taken with a pinhole camera that was made from an aluminum beer can!

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Catastrophic space storms

Livescience.com: Perfect Space Storm Could be Catastrophic on Earth, Study Concludes

Solar activity has just passed the low point in its 11-year  cycle, and is expected to peak again around 2012. It is believed that about every 100 years or so, there is a particularly intense solar storm, which could disrupt power supplies on Earth on a catastrophic scale, as well as damage satellites.

A new study from the National Academy of Sciences outlines grim possibilities on Earth for a worst-case scenario solar storm.

Damage to power grids and other communications systems could be catastrophic, the scientists conclude, with effects leading to a potential loss of governmental control of the situation.

The prediction is based in part on major solar storm in 1859 caused telegraph wires to short out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. It was perhaps the worst in the past 200 years, according to the new study, and with the advent of modern power grids and satellites, much more is at risk.

“A contemporary repetition of the [1859] event would cause significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions,” the researchers conclude.

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Hubble Advent Calendar

It doesn’t point to Christ as directly as Advent ought to, but this is still a really cool internet Advent Calendar: Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008.

HT: Internet Monk

(The creation does point to Christ; the text of the Advent calendar doesn’t)

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Mars climate change recorded in rocks

Patterns in sedimentary layers on Mars could be the result of cyclical climate change caused by regular variations in the tilt of the planet’s axis:

Climate on Earth is controlled by similar cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbit and axial tilt, which leads to alternating glacial and interglacial periods.

LiveScience article: Mars Wobbles Created Climate Swings

Credit: Topography: Caltech; HiRISE Images: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona

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Glaciers on Mars, part 2

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Radar Indicates Buried Glaciers on Mars.

Explanation: What created this unusual terrain on Mars? The floors of several mid-latitude craters in Hellas Basin on Mars appear unusually grooved, flat, and shallow. New radar images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter bolster an exciting hypothesis: huge glaciers of buried ice. Evidence indicates that such glaciers cover an area larger than a city and extend as much as a kilometer deep. The ice would have been kept from evaporating into the thin Martian air by a covering of dirt. If true, this would indicate the largest volume of water ice outside of the Martian poles, much larger than the frozen puddles recently discovered by the Phoenix lander. Such lake-sized ice blocks located so close to the Martian equator might make a good drinking reservoir for future astronauts exploring Mars.

The image above shows three large craters which radar data indicates are filled with water ice (as opposed to dry ice, which is frozen CO₂), with a cover of soil which prevents the ice from subliming into the thin Martian atmosphere. The field of view is about 20 km across, and 50 km deep. The craters are found in the Hellas basin, which is the deepest impact crater on Mars.

In the higher resolution jpg file available at APOD, flow lines are clearly evident, which indicate that the ice has been in motion at least at some point in the past. There are also a few small impact craters on the surface of the glaciers (or are they some sort of subsidence pits formed as ice sublimes beneath the soil?).

The image below shows what this area would look like without the soil cover.

The second image is from from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, not from APOD.

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Meteor videos

Videos of a bolide (fireball) which appeared over Alberta and Saskatchewan last night.

HT: Scyldings in the Mead-Hall

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Glaciers on Mars?

Scientists have identified features that could be glaciers at mid-latitudes on Mars. If this interpretation is correct, then these could contain a significant amount of water ice at a considerable distance from the poles.

LiveScience: Buried Glaciers Found on Mars

There is a cirque-like feature in the foreground (the bowl-shaped feature facing the camera at the end of the ridge), as well as flow lines leading out of the cirque. I don’t see any terminal moraines, which I would expect to see if these were long-lasting, debris-rich glaciers. Alternative interpretations would include some sort of slope process or periglacial (permafrost) process, but the authors of the study seem pretty confident of their interpretation.

Perhaps features we associate with glaciers on Earth, such as moraines, eskers, kames, drumlins, and cirques won’t be associated with glaciers on Mars. On Earth, glaciers form by precipitation at higher elevations or latitudes, and dissipate by melting in warmer regions. On Mars, the primary physical processes of formation and dissipation would be deposition and sublimation.

Time for a field trip?

Image: ESA/DLR/FU

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Crescent Earth

The first images of the Earth taken from the moon wasn’t the one taken by Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968; they were taken by unmanned lunar orbiters which were scouting out potential landing sites for the upcoming Apollo missions. This image was taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966, and has been recently reprocessed by NASA:

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

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Another extrasolar planet image

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is another image of planets orbiting another star, this time taken with infrared radiation:

These three planets are orbiting the star HR 8799.

NASA has an ambitious plan to search for Earth-sized, or even Earth-like planets. The hope is to be able to directly image Earth-sized planets (the above image shows Jupiter-sized worlds) and to be able to analyze the light reflected from these bodies. This should tell us if the atmospheres of these Earth-sized planets contain oxygen, water, and ozone, which would indicate the existence of photosynthesis.

“Such a discovery would at last provide convincing evidence that we are not alone.”

Only if one considers the bacterial slime to be enough to say “we are not alone.”

NASA/JPL site: Planet Quest Overview

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First image of a planet around another star

From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The description from APOD:

Explanation: Fomalhaut (sounds like “foam-a-lot”) is a bright, young, star, a short 25 light-years from planet Earth in the direction of the constellation Piscis Austrinus. In this sharp composite from the Hubble Space Telescope, Fomalhaut’s surrounding ring of dusty debris is imaged in detail, with overwhelming glare from the star masked by an occulting disk in the camera’s coronagraph. Astronomers now identify, the tiny point of light in the small box at the right as a planet about 3 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting 10.7 billion miles from the star (almost 14 times the Sun-Jupiter distance). Designated Fomalhaut b, the massive planet probably shapes and maintains the ring’s relatively sharp inner edge, while the ring itself is likely a larger, younger analog of our own Kuiper Belt – the solar system’s outer reservoir of icy bodies. The Hubble data represent the first visible-light image of a planet circling another star.

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Saturn, rings, and moons

From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Saturn, its rings edge-on, and four moons:

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Enceladus close up

A dramatic image of Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, taken by the Cassini probe last week:

The description from Astronomy Picture of the Day, October 14, 2008:

Explanation: What creates the unusual tiger stripes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus? No one is sure. To help find out, scientists programmed the robotic Cassini spacecraft to dive right past the plume-spewing moon last week. Previously, the tiger stripe regions were found to be expelling plumes of water-ice, fueling speculation that liquid seas might occur beneath Enceladus’ frozen exterior. Such seas are so interesting because they are candidates to contain extraterrestrial life. Important processes in tiger stripe formation may include heating from below and moonquakes. Visible above is terrain on Enceladus so young that only a few craters are visible. This newly released raw image shows at least one type of false artifact, however, as seeming chains of craters are not so evident in other concurrently released images of the same region. The large tiger stripe across the image middle is impressive not only for its length and breadth, but because a large internal shadow makes it also appear quite deep. Cassini will next fly by Enceladus on October 31.

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