Cosmology

Stephen Hawking is Professor of mathematics at Cambridge University where he held the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge for 30 years. He is author of the best-selling book A Brief History of Time. Hawking suffers from ALS. His most recent book, The Grand Design, was published in 2010 by Bantam Books.

The Big Bang is the most widely accepted theory among scientists for the origin of the universe. It specifies that the universe began as a very small speck of space filled with incredibly dense matter. Then the universe began expanding at an astounding rate; in a billionth of a trillionth of a second, the newborn universe doubled and redoubled 100 times over, stretching each atom-sized volume to the size of a galaxy. ¹ This was the so-called "inflation phase" in which the universe expanded much faster than the speed of light. This cosmology assumes that quantum fluctuations in the early universe led to the distribution of galaxies in the universe.

Good scientific theories are able to explain data and make testable predictions. For the Christian, a third element is required, that the theory be in harmony with the clear teachings of scripture. Some creation scientists even begin with scripture to formulate theories and hypotheses. In this essay, we will look at three predictions ultimately based on scripture, made by physicist Russell Humphreys of the Institute for Creation Research. The predictions deal with (1) the magnitude and dynamics of planetary magnetic fields, (2) the existence of a cosmic rotation axis, and (3) diffusion of helium through zircons. All of these predictions are in accord with a young earth interpretation of Genesis 1. As we will see, the data fit the predictions well.

The Big Bang is defined today as, everything we see in the Universe today having evolved out of a random ¹ explosion of matter ² that took place between 10 and 20 billion years ago. But the author of this paper believes the Big Bang is not a theory. Why? Because a theory is defined as, a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing. Then, is the Big Bang a hypothesis? No. A hypothesis is defined as, a testable statement about the natural world. Then what is the Big Bang? It is merely an idea, defined as, a personal view or estimate.

NASA’s view of the Universe through liquid helium COBE’s eyes. Colors indicate warmer (red) and cooler (blue) spots. The image is a combination of diffuse infrared, far-infrared and microwave frequencies.

Written by Henry Morris, PhD

Introduction and Tribute: by Mark Stephens, MCS, former Chairman and current board member of TASC

Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
Late Founder and President Emeritus of ICR

The phrase "intelligent design" is heard a great deal lately in the media, usually in the context of secondary school science education.

A mathematician and a philosopher, William A. Dembski is the Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Science and Theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville where he heads its Center for Theology and Science. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture in Seattle and the executive director of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (www.iscid.org).

One scientific challenge young earth creationists have had to address is the starlight-time question.

From NASA: Binary spiral galaxies NGC 2207 (left) and IC 2163
(right) are estimated to be 114 million light years away from Earth

That is, if the creation is only 6-10 thousand years old as the scriptures imply, how is it possible for us to see stars and galaxies which are billions of light years away? There have been several solutions advanced to solve this problem including decay of the speed of light, light created in transit, mature creation theory, and physicist Russ Humphreys' white hole cosmology (WHC)¹ theory, among others. This article will discuss Russ Humphreys' white hole cosmology and reply to some recent criticisms of it made by astronomer Hugh Ross.²

The universe is vast. The Earth seems large, yet when examined on a cosmic scale, it is like a spec of dust, even less than a grain of dust. The sun itself is large enough to hold about one million Earths. And the sun is only an average star in a galaxy containing many, many stars in a universe of many, many galaxies.

If we stop to think about it, the vastness of the universe is amazing. While we go about our day-to-day business, we may think of the Earth as being the entire realm of reality. Yet this whole planet is like a spec of dust in the solar system. And the solar system is like a spec of dust when compared with the galaxy. And the galaxy—there are clusters of galaxies, and even superclusters.

Recently I was asked to give a talk on resources available on creation. I expanded the topic to include best evidences for creation. This article is based on that talk. For resources, I will discuss some of the major websites and organizations. Many of these will probably be familiar to you if you have been interested in creation science for a while. For best evidences, I will discuss scripture, the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of species, empirical detection of intelligent causes, and the age of the earth.