When Billions is Pittance, Conclusion

In light of the list from the previous posting it is therefore clear that, measured against standards of probability, the challenge of possible habitable planets out of blind forces alone is far from simple.  To the contrary, the chances are impossibly remote.  Of the 128 factors Ross cited in The Creator and the Cosmos, not one was estimated to have a probability figure higher than 1 in 10.  Many were far lower. 

In calculating the estimated probability of existent habitable planets by mindless powers alone, the procedure is to first of all to assemble all the known required environmental factors together (which popular articles on the question consistently fail to do), and then multiply the probable chance occurrence of each and every factor against every other factor.  Since Ross’s figures were published in 2001, his detractors will surely be quick to boast that current estimates of the number of habitable planets has risen considerably since that time.  But bear in mind that such figures actually yield the impossibly high average of one habitable planet for every thirty five stars (17 billion such planets out of 400 billion stars in our galaxy).  On the basis of point “(4)” alone (listed in the previous posting), close to 90% of stars are eliminated from the pool right off the bat.  I therefore judge the figures proclaimed in recent articles to be absurdly exaggerated!  Interestingly, it should also be noted that, on the other side of the ledger, discoveries over very same passage of time has lengthened the list of stringent conditions (involving high orders of magnitude) that are required in order for planets to be habitable.

Dr. Ross, as of 2001, made the following calculations:

The possibility of the chance occurrence of all 128 factors which are required for a planet to be habitable:  1 in 10 to the minus 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000

and as the maximum possible total number of planets in the universe at:       

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,00

Factoring these figures together, astronomer and physicist Dr. Hugh Ross calculates that (apart from the creative will of the Creator) there is “less than 1 chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, exists that even one such planet would occur anywhere in the universe”  (Creator and the Cosmos, p.198).

Wouldn’t you know it!  Just as I conclude my present series I encounter an up-dated list as of 2009 from Hugh Ross, tiled “RTB Design Compendium.”  Included is a much more extensive list of 402 required “quantifiable characteristics” for advanced life.  See http://www.reasons.org/links/hugh/research-notes.

When Billions is Pittance Part IV

Are the actual conditions for a planet to be inhabitable for advanced life really very simple, as popular literature on this subject seems to imply?  In the year 1966, Ioseph Shklovskii and Carl Sagan expressed awareness of only two such required parameters which included first, the need for a certain kind of star, and second, need of a planet located at just the right distance from that star (details cited across this paragraph can all be referenced in The Creator and the Cosmos, Third Expanded edition, (NavPress, 2001), chapter 16, “Earth: The Place for Life,” by astronomer and physicist, Dr. Hugh Ross.  Further details can be referenced at his website at www.reasons.org).  Ross writes, “What were 2 parameters in 1966 [(p.175)] grew to 8 by the end of the 1960s, to 23 by the end of the 1970s, to 30 by the end of the 1980s, to the current list of 123 [as of the printing of the book in 2001]” (p.187).  Further details on these matters can be found at http://www. reasons.org/articles/fine-tuning-for-life-in-the-universe.  Both of the above references include thorough documentation that represents research across the entire scientific community on matters of cosmology.

On p.188f of his book, Dr. Ross lists 66 parameters in his table, “Evidence for the Fine-Tuning of the Galaxy-Sun-Earth-Moon System for Life Support.”  Later, on p. 195f, his table, “An Estimate of the Probability for Attaining the Necessary Parameters for Life Support,” he both lists 128 total required factors and (conservatively) estimates the probability of the occurrence of each of these necessary parameters.

Consider the following partial list of parameters necessary for habitable planets that are capable of supporting advanced life:  (1) that candidate planet must reside in spiral galaxy (only 5% of them are) that is (2) gravitationally associated with a small and loose cluster of other galaxies.  (3)  For reasons of protection from too much harmful radiation, it must reside at a just right location within the galaxy.  It must lie neither too close to nor too far away from either the galactic core or the spiral arms, and it must reside neither above nor below the galactic plane but in between.  (4) A habitable planet must have only one parent star (85-90% of known stars are doubles), (5) of a kind that happens to be a third generation star (6) of the right age, 7) right size, 8) level of stability, 9) and itself contain the necessary range of elements  to “seed” the solar system with solid planets like Earth.  (10) A habitable planet furthermore must itself, for gravitational reasons, be almost exactly the right size.  (11) It must lie at almost exactly the right distance from its parent star, and must contain on its surface (11) a wide range of the right elements, (12) included radioactive ones, (13) all in the necessary proportions.  (14) It must have neighboring planets of the right size (15) and distance.  (16) It must also have, for a host of critical reasons, a single moon, (17) of the right size, (18) at the right distance, and (19) revolving around its parent planet at the right speed.  A habitable planet furthermore (20) must have water, (21) rotate at the right speed, and (22) have both plate tectonics and (22) an electromagnetic field.

To be continued...

When Billions is Pittance Part III

When it is the actual search for extraterrestrial life that animates Darwinists in their assembly of a habitable-planets-in- the-universe list, it must be pointed out that several assumptions fuel that investigation.  They are assuming first of all that mindless evolution universally tends toward both the creation of, and the further development out of, life everywhere that the conditions allow. The logical problem with that assumption is that it utterly contradicts the foundational dogma of materialism, which is that nothing at all exists except for mindless (goal-less) matter.  Second, following logically from the first dubious assumption, they are asserting that a “habitable” planet must, at least potentially, equate to an “inhabited” planet.  Yet in fact these assumptions really amount to nothing more than arguing in a circle. 

Before I fulfill the intention of the title of this essay to lay out the reason why billions of planets in our own galaxy amount to pittance with respect to the question of other habitable planets, I wish to highlight one further highly relevant concern.  The literature I read on these matters consistently understates the ramifications from the distinction between so-called primitive (single-cell) life on the one hand, and advanced life (homo sapiens) on the other in matters of habitability.  The former is by order of magnitudes more adaptable to “environment” conditions of a kind that would be absolutely hostile, if not fatal, to the survival of, say, human-like creatures. 

Now, I will turn us to the extensive list of the actual environmental requirements that are necessary for any planet to be considered as “friendly” to advanced life on the order of human beings.

To be continued…       

When Billions is Pittance Part II

On the other hand, it is in the actual interest of Darwinists that evidence for habitable planets across the cosmos should continue to mount in an accelerating fashion.  After all, it is logically sound that the greater the sample of potentially desirable planets, the greater the chances that life should have sprung up elsewhere in the universe, perhaps even ubiquitously.   My critique of the Darwinian agenda is not their logic in this particular matter.  It is instead their actual failure, firstly, to demonstrate the evolutionary chemical transition from non-life to life in the first place, and secondly their failure (by an utter lack of a transitional fossil trail, most glaringly illustrated in the “Cambrian Explosion”) to demonstrate the Darwinian program of the amoeba –to-man development of life right here on planet Earth under the most favorable environmental conditions.  Worse still, Darwinists are at an utter loss to account for the very beginning of material existence (space, time, matter, and energy) in the Big Bang, not to mention accounting for the existence of the kind of source that is logically required to bring material existence into being in the first place.  Therefore Darwinists are effectively asking for a free pass when they down-play the challenge of the beginning of existence out of nothing and insist instead on limiting discussion about origins to “the toys already on the floor.”   

Now to the matter of the overlooking of enormously relevant factors:  An article from the NASA website dated July 17, 2013, titled, “In the Zone: How Scientists Search for Habitable Planets,” states that astronomers “search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria (boldface mine). …The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star – in a region termed the habitable zone. …NASA’s Kepler mission is helping scientists in the quest to find these worlds.”  (www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/ news/ kepler20130717.hi).

The articles I read declare that recent scientific exploration has uncovered the potential existence of between eight and seventeen billion habitable planets right within our own Milky Way Galaxy.  Under the specific terms that are laid out in the NASA article above I will not argue against the legitimacy of these numbers.  As a non-astronomer I am not in a position to address that challenge.  I will instead challenge the prevailing thesis that builds upon them on other grounds that in fact do place me on equal footing with cosmologists.  I will do so with non-controversial scientific data that is available to all.  Let me just say for now that the word “billions” is a relative term.  Possession of a billion dollars is an impossibly large figure for an average person like me to imagine.    On the other hand, a billion is a tiny number when measured against a number such as “a hundred thousand trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.” The significance of that number with respect to the question of habitable planets will be laid out in the following postings.

To be continued…   

When Billions is Pittance Part I

“Astronomers ‘search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria’” (NASA website)

Investigating the heavens to estimate the number of habitable planets in the cosmos is what scientists, by definition, do.  They should be so encouraged, with blessing from the Bible (Romans 1:18).  However when scientists actually cheer the alleged mounting number of life-habitable planets, they are then involving themselves in something other than pure science.  As a Christian I acknowledge my personal desire that the testimony of science should support Christian belief in the God of the Bible.  My recitation of that evidence, however, is not science, but apologetics.  Correspondingly, the obvious desire of many (not all) in the scientific and journalistic communities to find increasing numbers of habitable planets, accompanied by their gleeful celebration at that very prospect, gives strong indication that the scientific spirit (an impassioned pursuit of truth wherever the evidence leads) is NOT what guides their goal in this particular case.  I am not suggesting that that attitude, in itself, nullifies their findings.  But it ought to raise fundamental questions about the precise criteria that are applied to the question, and what actual data has been accumulated to determine the answer to the challenge of finding habitable planets.  I am here arguing that what is glaringly overlooked or worse, ignored, in their quest, in fact calls the “assured” results of their venture entirely into question.

A specific example of the overlooking of relevant factors will be referenced in the next paragraph just below.  For now however, I wish to share that, as a Christian, I consider that the outcome of the question of habitable planets elsewhere in the universe to be irrelevant to my beliefs about God and the Bible.  In an article I wrote over a decade ago titled, “What We Can Know About Life on Other Planets,” I stated what I still believe, ”Life on other planets is a theoretical possibility.  Although some Christians reject this statement on the basis of Genesis chapter one, I do not.  The God of the Bible can create whomever and whatever He pleases [e.g. angels, who are apparently immaterial beings living in other dimensions].  God is not obligated to tell us what He may be doing in another corner of His creation.  And it is asking too much of the Bible to demand to know what plan God may have for creatures elsewhere in the universe.  Silence from Scripture about other worlds does not preclude the possibility of their existence.  God is quite big enough to care for creatures beyond us earthlings.”  I hasten to add here the proviso that life happens at all, only insofar as God intentionally creates it.

to be continued...

Straight To the Highest Authority Part IV

“If I do not know the meaning of the language… the speaker [shall be] a foreigner to me.”  (1 Corinthians 14:11)

 

The consequences that follow from the failure to consult the Hebrew are not limited, however, to adherents of the evangelical end of the investigational spectrum.  While my blog postings make clear my serious disagreements with my brothers and sisters in Christ who, relying on English translations, insist that the creation days of Genesis are 24-hour, others also commit this same error.  Certain scientists too (especially committed to naturalism), consistently dismiss the record of Genesis creation account for the very same reason as do Christian fundamentalists.  To be clear here, I am not suggesting these scientists personally believe the creation periods are that short.  I am saying they believe (wrongly) that that interpretation is what the Book of Genesis actually intends.

In his essay, “Genesis, Cosmology, and Evolution,” Rabbi Hillel Goldberg (obviously a Hebrew speaker!) challenges Charles Darwin’s attempted disproof of the Genesis account and his consequent assertion that he thereby logically disproved the God of the Bible.  In doing so he first of all states, “The only readers who take the Torah both literally and uni-dimensionally…are non-Hebrew readers. The simplicity ascribed to the Biblical account of creation within Western culture is not and never has been a part of the intellectual heritage of even the most Orthodox Jewish believers...For millennia, the [Hebrew] interpreter of the Torah has lived congenially with the multiple denotations and connotations of Hebrew words, phrases, and themes. Indeed, he has gloried in them, without, however, violating the plain sense of the text — without twisting its clear intent. If a reader lets Genesis be Genesis, not a translated stultification thereof, Genesis is scientifically accurate.”  And then, to the point, he concludes, “The Genesis that Darwin [attempted to disprove] does not exist, the English renderings he refuted do not, in critical details, reflect the Hebrew” (boldface mine).  See http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5760summer/genesis.pdf. (boldface and ellipses are mine.            

Martin Luther himself placed great importance on a high level of awareness of the original biblical languages, especially for Christian preachers and teachers.  Looking back on the history of the church from his perspective, he writes, “Without the languages [the original Hebrew and Greek]we could not have received the Gospel we could not have received the Gospel…If we neglect [the same] we shall eventually lose the Gospel…In former times the fathers were frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of the languages… although their doctrine is good, they have often erred in the real meaning of the sacred text; they are without arms against error, and I fear much that their faith will not remain pure.”  W. Carlos Martyn.  The Life and Times of martin Luther. (American Tract Society, 1866), p.474,475.  See also Luther’s extensive discussion of this matter in Walter Brandt, ed. Luther’s Works v.45. (Fortress, 1962), p.359f.



Straight To the Highest Authority Part III

“If I do not know the meaning of the language… the speaker [shall be] a foreigner to me.”  (1 Corinthians 14:11)

(restating from my previous posting) On this issue it is highly significant how far afield popular English translations can deviate from the original Hebrew manuscript in both vocabulary and grammar.  To be specific I quote in endnote 5 of my own work, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look,” in order to lay out ten specific examples, almost all of which have a direct bearing on the correct interpretation of the creation days of Genesis:

 “The importance of this question [the interpretation of the days of Genesis] is heightened by the controversial nature of the texts at hand. I highlight the ESV (English Standard Version) because it is representative of a host of other popular translations. Although the ESV bills itself as “an essentially literal” Bible translation that is “carefully weighed against the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to ensure the fullest accuracy” (The Lutheran Study Bible English Standard Version. (Concordia Publishing, 2009), p.XV.), the following details raise important challenges concerning that claim: 1) In Genesis 1:2 the decisive conjunction, “and,” is missing even though it is both present in the Hebrew text, and is studiously included, as the Hebrew demands, everywhere else in the English translation of Genesis 1.  2) In Gen. 1:5, two errors are involved. First there should be no definite article since it is not present in the Hebrew. Also, the term “first day” should instead be translated “day “1” since it is a cardinal number, not ordinal.  3,4,5,6) There should not be a definite article (“the”)  for days 2 through 5 since it is omitted in the Hebrew. They should instead be translated as “a second day…, a third day…,” etc.  7) In Gen. 2:4b the definite article (“the earth and the heavens”.) is used twice even though it is not present in the Hebrew.  8,9) Although the ESV translates Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 as “For in six days,” the Hebrew text does not include the preposition “in” (as in “within”). It only appears in the English translation (of inter-linear texts) inside brackets [ ]. The Hebrew text literally says, “For six days God made….” While this necessary excision does not nullify the aspect of time altogether, it does suggest that the exact duration involved was not the central point of the statement. In any case the actual text cannot bear the weight young-earth creationists place upon it (see p.5, above).  10) In Daniel 8:26, the Hebrew text does not employ plural nouns, but singular ones, thereby actually saying, “the vision of the evening and the morning” (note articles). This point is significant for the reason that young-earth creationists consistently argue that the “evening…morning” refrain signals the “bound[ing]” of expressly 24-hour days (the LSB (above), note on Genesis 1:5). I reply to the contrary that in this instance the span of time recalled in the singular “evening” and “morning” vision in Daniel 8:26 actually spans several centuries, as implied earlier in 8:20,21.”

It is not sufficient, however, for you to merely become aware of these deviations.  It is important that you finish my essay with an eye on the ramifications for interpretation that follow from each of them.

To be continued

Straight To the Highest Authority Part II

“If I do not know the meaning of the language… the speaker [shall be] a foreigner to me.”  (1 Corinthians 14:11)

 

I encourage you to read my essay, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look at Genesis 1,” which you can download from my website at www.christianityontheoffense.com.  It is in that article that I share insights, bibliographical materials, and web addresses to assist you in your own journey to understand the relevant questions about that text.  The bottom line is that, because the Book of Genesis was first written in Hebrew, English readers must not uncritically rely solely on English translations for taking dogmatic positions on the creation days of Genesis 1.  People have expressed concerns directly to me that it is too difficult for the lay person to check the facts for themselves.   To those who may be weary, I assure you that my research can be easily checked against the original text for accuracy.  What this means for you is that you can investigate for yourselves the claims I make in my writings (with tools I mention above).  I am an open book with nothing to hide in these matters.  So I invite you to delve into the evidence for yourself.  The bottom line in all of this is that, for the person who is interested in these questions, hard work simply cannot be avoided.

On this issue it is highly significant how far afield popular English translations can deviate from the original Hebrew manuscript in both vocabulary and grammar.  To be specific I quote in endnote 5 of my own work, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look,” in order to lay out ten specific examples, almost all of which have a direct bearing on the correct interpretation of the creation days of Genesis:

To be continued

Straight To the Highest Authority

“If I do not know the meaning of the language… the speaker [shall be] a foreigner to me.”  (1 Corinthians 14:11)

In one of my favorite cartoons from Leadership magazine (I have lost the reference), two choir members seated behind the pulpit of a church are looking over the shoulders of the pastor who is preaching to his congregation.  To their right as they look out onto the congregation, they see the sea of somber faces of the audience who is listening to his sermon.  But to their left, as they are peer over the shoulders of a deaf interpreter signing the sermon to the remainder who cannot hear, they notice that they are rolling over in the aisles with laughter.  The very sight leads the one choir member to whisper to the other, “I think the deaf interpreter is adlibbing again.”

Of course their contrasting responses to the same sermon hint that the original message was either lost or confused somewhere in the transmission.  While certain people that morning may have enjoyed the hilarity of the moment, something stood between them and the capturing of the main point!  To my point, while translators from one language may partially convey the original message to speakers of a different language, they cannot do so exhaustively.  Something will be lost in that communication.  This reality should not disturb us.  My point in writing is not to decry the challenge of speaking cross-culturally.  To the contrary, we have good reasons to do the hard work that celebrating differences between members of differing languages and cultures demands.  So I write instead to encourage recognition that these challenges exist so that we give the required attention to assuring we understand the speaker of another language as best we can.  Attitudes both of haste and laziness can easily get in the way of successful communication cross-culturally.

For Christians, the endeavor to understand the opening chapters of Genesis is a significant cross-cultural challenge.  My purpose in writing this, I repeat, is not to discourage my readers.  Of the two main original languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, I am far more comfortable with the latter.  I have had formal study of both, but far less so of the former.  Indeed the benefit I gain from my comfort with the Greek New Testament makes clear how much I have yet to learn from the Hebrew Testament.  Nevertheless, with the aid of books, articles and essays by Hebrew speakers, commentaries, an inter-linear Hebrew Old Testament, and serious research, I have matured in my understanding and respect of the language of the opening chapters of Genesis.

To be continued…