The Creation Debate-Part 12

Editor’s note: In June 1990 The John Ankerberg Show taped a series of interviews with men from several branches of the sciences regarding the evidence for creation. For technical reasons we were unable to air these interview. Nevertheless, we have decided to re­lease portions of these interviews in a series of articles so you could read the arguments that were being made at that time—more than a decade ago.

Considerable effort has been made to quote the gentlemen correctly. We have at­tempted to find the correct spelling of the scientific terms used. However, the reader should keep in mind that this is a transcription of oral interviews. Mistakes in spelling and in the technical language should be laid at the feet of the editor.

The Creation Debate-Part 12
The Origin of the Universe-Part 1

Dr. John Ankerberg: We are talking about scientific evidence and in particular, in this program, about the scientific evidence concerning the origin of the universe, the cosmos. A lot of questions in this area, lots of theories are being thrown around. For example, did the world and the universe, the cosmos as a whole, have a beginning? What do we mean when we talk about “beginning”? Will it come to an end? What about the laws of thermody­namics in the universe? Or did the world always exist? These things have obviously a lot of impact on creation/evolution scenario. Dr. DeYoung, start us off in either way you want to go. What is the current theory concerning the origin of the universe, and try to answer some of those questions.

Dr. Don DeYoung1: The standard view today is called the Big Bang Theory and I might describe that briefly and then comment on it. According to the Big Bang theory, originally there was a kernel of mass energy, which was the entire concentrated universe. Then about 15 billion years ago, for unknown reasons, it exploded. And that was the Big Bang itself. As time went by in this hot, early universe, clouds began to precipitate—actually clouds of hydrogen and helium gas, those were the first elements, again, in the Big Bang story. As more time went on, these clouds condensed due to gravity; they contracted, and we had early stars form, first generation stars.

Well, after they went through their lifetime, some of these stars in turn exploded, that’s called nova, or super-nova, type explosions, and in fact, from those exploding stars you get new clouds which contract and make stars which go back to clouds again, and you’re caught in a cycle, round and round. In fact, our sun is called a third-generation star, thought to be relatively recent in the universe.

Now the rest of elements beyond hydrogen and helium are thought to have been cooked inside these stars by nuclear fusion, and so when these later stars explode, that seeded the rest of the universe with carbon and nitrogen and all the other elements. And, of course, supposedly then, in our corner of the universe, some of these materials, instead of condensing into stars, formed planets, and people as we are here. And so it’s kind of poetic that we are said to be made out of stardust, out of elements once formed inside stars.

That’s sort of an idea that the New Agers kind of like, that we are one with the universe.

Big Bang Theory—it’s an interesting story and very popular today, but many creationists reject this theory and I think for good sound reasons. There are a number of weaknesses with the Big Bang that we don’t usually hear. One obvious one is that an explosion, as I’m telling you, has a difficult time explaining the design which we see all about us in the uni­verse. And there is design on every hand. It’s interesting to read many of the technical articles these days as we are studying far away galaxies, as far as things on the earth. Many of these articles are filled with descriptions of cosmic coincidences and accidental relationships. Many things, masses, charges, many different things that appear to be set up so that we can survive in this universe. It’s sort of a people-centered universe. It’s made so that we can get by.

In fact, there is a general term that has been coined to describe this kind of thing called the Anthropic Principle, a man-centered universe. And there are many examples and the science world is not quite sure what to do with this—why things seem to be so well fit for our survival. Just to mention a few of these design things that you bump into in astronomy, there are obvious ones, like the planet we live on, planet earth. As we know, we are the third planet out from the sun, and we are in just the right place so that we can live and survive here with comfortable temperatures. If you go either way, you get into trouble.

Now, next inside our orbit would be Venus, just 30% closer to the sun, with a runaway greenhouse effect—900 degrees Fahrenheit—just a terrible place where you cannot sur­vive. If you move in the other direction from the sun, the fourth planet would be Mars, just 50% further out than we are, and there the surface of Mars is very cold, averaging 50 degrees below zero, just a deep freeze. So what we’re saying is, if you would go either way from planet earth, you get into trouble in a hurry. The earth’s position and our position here seem to be well-designed.

Then you go right down to the lower levels. Let’s go down to the microscopic level— protons, neutrons, and electrons. Now those are the elementary particles that we’re made out of, and their properties are rather interesting. And you might first say, “Well, big deal; those small little things, what does it really matter what they’re like?” But it does matter in a big way.

For instance, consider something like a neutron. Now it has enough mass that it can spontaneously decay and a neutron can turn into a couple of particles—a proton and an electron. We don’t have any free neutrons floating around—they’re unstable. On the other hand, a proton does not have quite enough mass to decay in a similar way, and protons are rather stable. Well, you see, the interesting point is that protons are very abundant. That’s another way of describing a hydrogen atom. That’s what many stars are made out of, that’s what part of water is made out of, and ourselves. And so if protons and neutrons didn’t have the kind of mass that they actually do, if the proton was a little bit heavier, for in­stance, just 2/10 of 1% heavier, the universe would go into chaos. The protons would decay; there would go the water, the stars, there would go us, and it would all be over. It appears that the mass of protons and neutrons has been carefully chosen and planned so that we can have a stable universe. There are whole books written for these design argu­ments, again called the Anthropic Principle.

One other one might just be the Law of Gravity, the strength of gravity. It has been cho­sen and planned very well. If gravity was slightly stronger, the earth would crash into the sun, the universe would cave in and it would all be over. If gravity was slightly weaker, then everything would spread out and orbits would again be unstable, and again the whole universe would go into chaos. Gravity is finely tuned and balanced for a stable universe that we can live in.

So what I’m talking about here is design. And we’re seeing more of this than ever, as we look at both the microscopic as well as the whole universe itself, and seeing that it’s quite evident that there is a Creator who has intelligently planned what we have.

Ankerberg: I follow where you’re going. The person that’s listening to you is saying, “Is it possible that could have happened by naturalistic methods?” Is it possible, because there is randomness, it seems, in other parts of the universe, and there is some design? What’s the balance? How do we know that that actually points to a Creator rather than it just hap­pened?

DeYoung: Well, the design details that I’m talking about I think really set this area apart even from the biological world. Now, we talk about design in living things: our eye and every other part of us. And in that case, secular science has an answer: that mutations and natu­ral selection can change things and sort of force its own design. But when I talk about gravity, or the mass of protons or neutrons, those are non-living areas. They don’t mutate, they don’t evolve. They had to be established from the very beginning. So I believe it’s a strong argument, like a watch which doesn’t change, it demands a watchmaker, because of the design we can see.

Read Part 13