Podcasts

We continue our response to the BBC-TV series The Planets, narrated by Professor Brian Cox. In this article, we are considering the second episode, The Two Sisters: Earth and Mars.

In May and June 2019, the BBC TV showed British audiences a five-episode series about our solar system, narrated by Professor Brian Cox and titled The Planets. We shall discuss Cox’s claimed long ages and evolutionary origin of these planets vs recent creation for them as described in the Bible, and see which scenario fits the evidence the best. Cox offers no scientific evidence for his assertions. Rather, his aim is to tell viewers the evolutionary story. So, we shall evaluate his story according to the known laws of science, and in the process show that Mercury and Venus disproves the evolutionary nebular hypothesis for the origin of the solar system.

I sometimes wonder how the Apostle Paul would have enjoyed (and used) the Internet had it been available to him in the 1st Century AD. God has His tools for each phase of His program, and now we are in the 21st Century with this truly astonishing means at our disposal. We get very excited at the potential to reach increasing numbers, in rich and poor nations alike, through the Internet with the news that the Bible is true and can be trusted, including about their origins.

The observable changes that evolutionists cite as evidence for their paradigm, such as in sticklebacks, bighorn sheep, Atlantic cod, pollution-resistant worms, and antibiotic and pesticide resistance, are all going the wrong way. They’re the direct opposite of what microbes-to-man evolution requires. The fact that we’re still here, with such a high rate of mutational degeneration, is powerful evidence for the Bible’s 6,000-year timeline of human history.

When the peacock vibrates his tail, it seems those ‘eyes’ can hypnotize the one he is trying to woo. But how can the eyespots stay relatively still when the whole tail is shaken vigorously? Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the eyespot feather structure is different. Such an unwieldy tail would be a huge handicap for the peacock’s escape from predators, and contradict neo-Darwinian evolution.

Dolphins generate their sound beam with ‘phonic lips’ below the blowhole, one low pitched and the other higher pitched, producing a beam with overlapping pulses. Dr Starkhammar attributes this to “millions of years of evolution”. A better explanation would incorporate the principle of analogy—to which Darwin himself appealed frequently… .

Noah’s Ark has never failed to be the target of skeptics and the butt of many jokes. ‘Everyone knows’, for instance, that you cannot build a boat as large as Noah did from wood, even using today’s advanced technology. Just because we cannot duplicate something that was done thousands of years ago, it does not mean the ancients could not do it either!

When facing difficult questions, do we respond by asking God or searching His Word? Or do we think we know best? Such self-idolatry reaches as far back as the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:6). Instead, we should seek to understand how God’s Word addresses our lives which help us to think correctly, resulting in lives that are honoring to Him.

Life looks like it was designed. Even Richard Dawkins admits it: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Skeptic Michael Shermer has developed specific terminology for this, such as ‘patternicity’ and ‘agenticity’. He says they are all just the product of an overactive agency detection device in our heads, regularly inferring patterns and agents where no such things exist.

The birds on the Galápagos Islands show an amazing adaptation to their environment, and provide excellent examples of the ability of animals to adapt to changing conditions. But are any of these variations examples of evolution? And how does the biblical creation model explain them?

To experimentally mimic the fossilization process, taphonomists have undertaken what they call maturation experiments. Three scientists decided on what they called a ‘novel’ approach. Current surface processes of erosion and deposition of sediments cannot explain the billions of fossils found globally. What was needed was a flood of unprecedented magnitude, capable of providing vast quantities of sediment over a short time period.

‘Our view is that Adam made a good decision’, a Mormon replied when I asked him about Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. My Mormon friend also told me that he believed that Adolf Hitler would be saved along with Mother Teresa. When interacting with Mormons, Christians would do well to focus on the Fall, since it is foundational to the Gospel.

“Archaeology team finds 9,000-year-old artifacts in NewBo [Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA] neighborhood” declares an article from a recent edition of The Gazette. According to the Bible, there was no death or bloodshed of nephesh chayyāh life before Adam and Eve sinned. But what of claims of civilizations that, according to the biblical timeline, would pre-date the Flood?

Adorning the walls of Krakow Castle, Poland, is a magnificent display of royal tapestries from the 16th century. Within the eight pieces telling the story of the Flood are two tapestries showing the animals going onto and coming off Noah’s Ark. Many of them are easily recognizable as good depictions of their living counterparts today: lions, camels, cows, and various types of birds. But there are also animals that look distinctly like dragons. Why would the tapestries’ designer have included dragons going onto Noah’s Ark?

It was the foundational account of the Creation (which New Testament writers attribute to Jesus (e.g. John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), the subsequent Fall of Adam, with the entrance of sin and death into the human race, which explains the reason for a substitutionary atonement for sin. Jesus explained why He had to die. Similarly, we, too, should explain to people today not just that all need a Saviour, but why, and why He had to die for us—foundational concepts established in Genesis.

A novel ‘giant virus’ has recently been discovered in a Japanese hot spring. Medusavirus as it is called has several very interesting genetic features. It is still a question as to what Medusavirus is exactly. All we know is that we have a new species of NCLDV, distinct from all other NCLDV species, implying its special creation. Genetics again vindicates the Bible.