I have to admit, the first time I saw this episode, I really didn't see much in there that would object creationists. It pretty much just talks about how comets were originally seen as harbingers of destruction, then explains how Halley, Newton and a few others discovered what they are, how gravity works and some other really cool science. I forgot though, creationists are offended by pretty much any science that doesn't apparently confirm their interpretation of Genesis. So naturally, they got pretty annoyed at this one too.
Why?
Please note: there are several instances of objectionable language in this episode of Cosmos.
... Oh. Wait, what?
Okay, okay, I'm kidding around. Yes, the AiG article does that, which confused me for a bit but I think what they're referring to is Halley repeatedly saying "Hell's bells!" Objectionable language indeed, AiG.
Their objections to the episode are based on a few things, most notably the idea presented in the episode that ignoring scientific curiosity in favour of "God did it" is a bad idea and is unscientific. I'm not sure why this seems to annoy them so much, I thought this was basically the creationist's position for science that doesn't counter their viewpoint.
Lest anyone get the idea that a Creator could have provided humans with trustworthy knowledge about our origins, Tyson—lifting an infant from a basket—opens this episode of Cosmos declaring,
We were born into a mystery, one that has haunted us for at least as long as we’ve been human. We awakened on this tiny world beneath a blanket of stars like an abandoned baby left on a doorstep without a note to explain where we came from, who we are, how our universe came to be, and with no idea how to end our cosmic isolation. We’ve had to figure it all out for ourselves.How to go to the moon was something we had to figure out for ourselves. That’s where the “truth” of this statement ends. Doing so had nothing to do with scientifically discovering our origins. Like the overall Cosmos theme, the remainder of this opening is a metaphysical declaration grounded in an atheistic philosophy.
It did actually help us discover our origins. Without studies on the moon, including going there, we probably wouldn't have been able to confirm that the moon is primarily made of the same stuff as the earth, and that the moon was almost certainly formed from the debris when another planet crashed into the earth 4 or so billion years ago. That's not really that relevant, but it's an interesting story and goes to show how much observational science and historical science really are two sides of the exact same coin.God created Adam and Eve with intelligence. With God-given intelligence, humans have sought to understand the present and the past, to learn about the earth and what lies beyond. But when it comes to learning about our origins, we cannot test and observe the past. We must rely on a historical record from an eyewitness to accurately understand “where we came from.”
God our Creator has not left us without His testimony concerning our origins. He told us what He did, how long it took, and about how long ago He did it. He created all things—including living things that reproduce after their kinds—in six days (Exodus 20:11; Genesis chapters one and two). By examining the interlocking genealogical information and history in the Bible, we learn that God created the heavens and the earth and all kinds of life about 6,000 years ago.
One minor wee problem with this. Firstly, God didn't leave Adam with the bible, and God didn't write the bible. While yes, the bible does claim to be the divinely inspired word of God, Moses was the guy who actually wrote it down (Or so tradition says). So God didn't really leave us with his testimony, he maybe left Moses with it and we've only got Moses's word to go on, and he didn't even do that for a few thousand years according to creationist chronology.
The other problem is, remember the mantra of science? Question everything? That thing you were going on about in your first review? This still includes the bible.
Creationists like to pretend that the bible has amazing scientific knowledge, but all that they point at is stuff that could be kinda conceived as a justification for it after discoveries were found by science. The bible refers to the earth hanging on nothing in Job 26:7 and this is used as evidence that the writers of the bible knew the world was hanging in space on nothing (Ignoring the fact that other parts of the bible, including Job, refer to the earth sitting on pillars) but this was only used as justification for this discovery after we'd already found this fact out for ourselves. Regardless of if you believe that the bible is God's testimony of how the world works, we didn't figure out how the world works until we began questioning it and making observations for outselves.
The episode rightly debunks superstitions about comets presaging disasters. The episode explains how Edmund Halley used the laws of motion and gravity, mathematically described by Isaac Newton, to accurately predict the return of Halley’s comet every 76 years. The episode reminds us that knowing the laws of motion and gravity made space exploration possible. But then it concludes using the opening metaphor, “The baby in the basket is ready to walk and to know the cosmos.” It ties scientific progress to the notion that science has shown God to be a superfluous invention, a “First Cause” we no longer need to explain our origins or our significance.
That's not really what it's saying. What it's also trying to do is debunk the "God of the gaps" fallacy, and you'd think that creationists would agree with that idea. The God of the gaps is an ever-shrinking God, as we fill more of the gaps and it's certainly not a very Christian belief to keep just trying to shoe-horn God in wherever we don't have an answer yet.
Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey’s third episode encourages scientifically minded people to reject God as Creator and His relevance to our lives. It also implies—as did episode two—that humans are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Tyson states, “We hunger for significance. For signs that our personal existence is of special meaning to the universe. To that end we are all to eager to deceive ourselves and others. To discern a sacred image in a grilled cheese sandwich or find a divine warning in a comet.”
Human beings do not find truth in cheese sandwiches, astrological portents, or the entrails of sacrificed animals—though superstitious people have attempted such nonsense for millennia. Over the years many Christians, just like other people, have deceived themselves with superstitions. But biblical revelation is not superstition.
He isn't saying it is, but you're mostly agreeing with him here anyway. But like I pointed out in my previous blog entry, he isn't saying is that we aren't important or that we're insignificant. On the contrary, Cosmos, both the new version and Carl Sagan's original make a large point of the fact that, as far as we're aware, we're the only thing in the cosmos that has the ability to discover the cosmos. Certainly the only thing on Earth so far. That makes us very important. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
The Bible’s history is internally consistent and corresponds to parallels recorded in secular history. On matters where the Bible’s history is relevant to scientific matters, the Bible’s science is completely trustworthy. For this reason, the Bible is a reliable litmus test by which to gauge scientific ideas. (Read more about the way the science in the Bible is accurate and practical in “Can Bible-Based Predictions Lead to Scientific Discoveries?” and the numerous resources linked at the end of that article.)
Oh boy. You're gonna make me read another article and debunk that, aren't you? *sigh* Well, I guess I better. But first, I just wanna look at that first sentence. It's been pointed out that the order of Genesis 1 and 2 is slightly different. In Genesis 1, the animals are made before Adam, in Genesis 2, the animals are made to keep Adam company. Now, in the interest of fairness, AiG does counter this claim, but there are a number of other internal inconsistencies. But regardless, internal consistency is important, yes, but it's not the be-all and end-all of a well formed hypothesis. As Richard Feynmann pointed out, you can have the most brilliant, well formed, articulate and logical idea in science ever but if it doesn't match with nature, it's worthless. So, we need to look at whether or not the Bible matches with secular history.
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| Tuatara somehow survived a flood? |
Now, creationists like to claim that Noah's flood literally happened. This is one of those "hey, we're not backing down on this" things. But does it match with secular history? Well, there's a utterly huge, resounding, no. There is absolutely no physical evidence anywhere in nature that matches a worldwide flood. We see plenty of local floods all over the place, but never one single global flood of Noah. Nor could it happen. They've never presented a good hypothesis for where the water comes from, nor how the animals could possibly have survived in an utterly barren, desolate wasteland after the flood and then spread out into geographical areas that only make sense when evolution is considered (Why is the tuatara the only living sphendon and is only found in New Zealand? How did it get there from Mt Ararat? Why didn't any rats, cats or dogs follow them?). There are other historical events predicted by the bible that are not recorded in secular history too, such as the Exodus.
But that's enough about that. Let's have a quick wee look at the link.
I'm going to be brief to avoid getting too far off topic, but the link's claim is basically trying to refute a claim by Dr Tyson in another interview that 'there is no example of someone reading their scripture and saying “I
have a prediction about the world that no one knows yet because this
gave me insight let’s go test this prediction and have that theory turn
out to be correct.”'
Naturally, because AiG, and others, are trying to pretend they're being scientific, this is a claim they don't like so they give a few examples of apparent bible-based scientific predictions.
The first is the apparent lack of transitional forms, and the lack of species evolving into different species. Now, see, there's a few problems here. Firstly, Darwin predicted a rarity of transitional forms, so this isn't a bible-based prediction if Darwin made it first. Secondly, the theory of evolution predicts that we only see new sub-species and sub-"kinds" emerging, never something completely unrelated to a previous form of life. Dogs cannot evolve into cats, carrots cannot evolve into elephants. You're just trying to hijack the claims of evolution.
But the biggest problem is that we have transitional fossils. So this prediction has turned up false.
The second "prediction" is that junk DNA would have uses. As this article points out, we've known that for a long time, but it's still less useful than creationists would have you believe. The second prediction also comments on how someone made a prediction based on the biblical idea that all humans descend from Adam and Eve, that Neanderthal would be more closely related to humans than previously thought, specifically, that some of us have some DNA in them. In 2010, this prediction was somewhat confirmed, when it was found that people of European descent did indeed have some Neanderthal DNA. So is this a biblical prediction come true? Well, kinda. Yes, they did expect it, but the article overstates how surprised evolutionary biologists were. We've known that Neanderthals are humans are quite closely related for a while, but Neanderthals are not physically identical to modern humans and do indeed look very different. Most of the surprise was due to the idea that palaeontologists didn't think H. sapiens would find Neanderthals attractive enough to mate with. Apparently not.
The third prediction claims that creationist Russ Humprey's predicted the size of Neptune and Uranus's magnetic fields based on creationist logic. As this article mentions towards the end, he basically formulated his theory in a way that it was extremely difficult for it to not make a prediction. To be brief, he figured that God must have made Neptune and Uranus with some magnetic field 6000 years ago, it's decayed exponentially since then and thus, he can figure out what that magnetic field is now. The problem lies in the fact that he can pretty much make up whatever value for the initial magnetic field strength of those planets that he likes.
It then claims that creationists predicted that we should see carbon dating work on things that are apparently millions of years old, when all the C-14 should have long since gone. This is true, we do see this sometimes in things like coal and so forth. This is usually because, C-14 can be made by C-12 being bombarded by neutrons. These neutrons can come from underground uranium and, indeed, we do often see this in coal and oil veins near uranium deposits. The other source, according to the NCSE, is likely simple background radiation in the lab.
It's also interesting that they claim that we can detect C-14 in fossilised dinosaur bones. But... you can't use carbon dating on fossilised bones, where the bones have been entirely replaced by minerals because, to quote potholer54, "OI! YOU CAN'T CARBON DATE THAT! THERE'S NO F#@*ING CARBON IN IT!"
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| Legit photo of Hittite buildings |
The last part of the third prediction is that archaeologists discovered the Hittites based on accounts of the bibles. Well, okay, we'll give you those ones. But as I mentioned, we've also seen no discovery of a swarm of Hebrew slaves leaving Egypt some 4000 odd years ago, as predicted by the bible. This isn't too surprising though. Much of the latter old testament is indeed a fairly decent history book. There's stuff in it that didn't happen, stuff that's an embellishment but to find some things that are true is no surprise.
The next prediction is that Fliersman discovered legionnaires' disease based on a very in Ecclesiastes stating that there's nothing new under the sun. That seems like an extremely vague prediction to me, so I'm not sure why they're using it. But that's an odd one. We discover new strains of bacteria and germs all the time.
It also makes this comment:
Liberty University microbiologist Dr. Andrew Fabich reminds us that whether we are speaking of Koch’s postulates that govern the identification of infectious diseases or the consistency of physical laws that govern the magnetic fields of planets, nothing in science would be predictable or reproducible were it not for the laws of nature established by God. He says, “The evolutionary worldview has no philosophical basis for why science works because they don’t start with biblical presuppositions. The scientific method works because an orderly, lawful, unchanging God created an orderly, predictable, and repeatable cosmos (Genesis 1–2) governed by the laws of nature. Without these features, we cannot know anything about nature—ergo, evolutionists have random, chaotic, unverifiable events that don’t follow any patterns.”
Sorry, but that seems rather backwards to me. How can we make any sort of scientific prediction if there's potentially supernatural events coming to mess with the laws of nature? Yes, scientists assume that the laws of nature are unchanging, but we make that assumption because, as far as we can tell, the laws of nature have never changed, and as he rightly points out, if it weren't for this assumption, science would be useless. We've got no reason to believe they might change. This is really just a straw-man on the creationists' part there.
The article next claims that creationist's prediction that vestigial organs aren't useless. Well yeah, we knew that one too. Vestigial doesn't mean useless, it means a carry-over from our evolutionary heritage that has lost most of its purpose. The appendix has a use, yes, but it's not what it used to do and it's usually better out than in.
It then claims that Pasteur discovered the law of biogenesis, and his disproof of spontaneous generation based on biblical predictions. Somehow, I doubt that. Spontaneous generation was on its way out when Pasteur did his experiments, he really just put the final nails in the coffin. In fact, spontaneous generation had been being challenged by experiments for 200 years, so the claim by Answers in Genesis that "these discoveries at a time when evolutionary
claims about life-from-lifelessness and millions-of-years required for
evolution were becoming widely accepted" is flat-out wrong, and is linked to the straw-man argument that spontaneous generation has anything to do with the modern theory of abiogenesis.
The next claim is based on how, for ages, doctors wouldn't wash their hands... ever really, especially between handling corpses and delivering babies and once they did start, newborn death rates plummeted. AiG claims that Leviticus says you should wash your hands under running water after you go to the toilet and so on. Well yeah, it says that, but, especially 3000 or so years ago, these probably would've already been decently obvious. The people who washed their hands got sick less often, so it made sense as a rule. But this isn't a bible-based prediction as per Dr Tyson's quote. The people who discovered hand-washing in the modern era didn't discover it by reading the bible.
Hokay. I think I'm done reading that article now. The last claim is another one along the same lines. Something was discovered, the bible says something similar, but that's not a bible-based prediction as per Dr Tyson's quote. The only predictions that really fit the criteria are maybe the Neanderthal DNA one (But like I said, this wasn't a huge surprise to evolutionary biologists, despite what AiG says) and the discovery of the Hittites, which isn't a huge scientific discovery.
Back to Cosmos! The review goes on to talk about how God loves us all and we're not insignificant even though, again, that isn't what Dr Tyson was saying. It continues to talk about how the bible doesn't support superstitious omens like what people believed about comets. Unless it's a rainbow. Rainbows are possibly omens.
Comets are small, icy rocks that orbit the sun. Only a few miles across, comets are made of ices of substances like water, methane, and ammonia mixed with dark particles of “dust.” Comets spend much of their time far from the sun where it is very cold. Spewing evaporating gases and dust as they approach the hot sun, comets can put on quite a show. The gases glow, ionized by the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The comet’s tail is created as solar wind and radiation push the gas and dust away from the sun.
Once a comet’s course is mapped, astronomers can predict when and where in the sky it will be most visible and when—assuming it survives its passage near the sun—it is likely to return. This is true because, like the planets, comets are held by the gravity of the sun. Like the planets, they fall toward the sun following an elliptical path due to their orbital momentum. These concepts are presented accurately in the Cosmos episode. Then the episode ventures into the imaginary realm of the Oort cloud.
Hooray! Real science! Buuuut Cosmos is about to mention the Oort cloud again, so creationists need to get on their denialist hats once more.
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| Dr Tyson shows Halley's comet |
I already mentioned the Oort cloud in my first Answering Genesis blog entry, so I won't go into details again. The Oort cloud is not a guess, it's based on solid maths, like what AiG mentions in the second paragraph and, despite the fact that it isn't observable yet, we've got a pretty good idea of what it should be like based on our observations of comets and our understanding of how they can break apart. And again, even if it turns out the Oort cloud isn't the right hypothesis, it's still far, far more likely that there's another source of comets that we just haven't discovered yet, than it is that the solar system is only 6000 years old.
Not only has the Oort cloud never been seen by any stretch of astronomical science, studies suggest that the stock of material in the mythical cloud—supposedly leftovers from the formation of the planets—would have been destroyed by collisions with each other before they could ever have been nudged out of their nest and sent hurtling toward the sun.
Really? You're gonna send me to another article? I'm trying to review your review of Cosmos here, not read half your website. Oh well. But at least I can cover this briefly, because the article linked doesn't cite any sources. I think it's supposed to, it has links to footnotes, but no actual footnotes so I think the website is just playing up. It's possible, yes, that they could have been, but based on what Dr Tyson said in cosmos, each comet is about as far from each other as Earth is from Saturn, so these collisions seem extremely unlikely to me.
Making a mockery of Newton’s study of biblical chronology by placing it on par with his curiosity about alchemy and saying he was obsessed with finding secret codes in the Bible, Tyson implies those who have faith in a Creator are medieval throwbacks. At the time Newton lived, he says, “the world was very different. Everyone looked at the perfection of the clockwork motions of the planets in the sky and could only understand it as the work of a master clockmaker. How else to explain it? There was only one way such a thing could come about in their imagination. Only one answer for them: God. For reasons beyond our understanding God just created the solar system that way. But this explanation was the closing of a door. It doesn’t lead to other questions.”
I think AiG is confused here. A lot of Newton's study of biblical chronology is not about the chronology of the past, it was about the chronology of the future. Namely, when the second coming will be; something even the bible says you cannot predict. You guys are just getting offended for the sake of getting offended here.
As for the rest of the statement, yes, it is the closing of a door. It's not an answer to the question, because if you answer "why is the solar system the way it is?" with "because God made it that way", the next obvious and logical question is "why and how did God make it that way?"
Creationists, especially Answers in Genesis, claim to be all for science (provided it doesn't contradict their world-view) but this really goes to show how much they aren't. "God did it" isn't an answer, because even if you believe God did it, you must logically then ask how. If you don't, you're not doing science. Secular scientists simply skip the "God did it" part of the problem.
Then Tyson concludes that even though Newton had “one foot still in the middle ages,” his “laws of gravity and motion reveal how the sun held distant worlds captive. His laws swept away the need for a master Clockmaker to explain the precision and beauty of the solar system. Gravity is the clockmaker.”
Both Johann Kepler, who discerned the laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton were Bible-believing men. Like most of their contemporaries,3 they had a biblical worldview that equipped them to trust that an all-powerful Creator, who had created all things in an orderly fashion, would have designed this universe to be consistently governed by natural laws. They set out to discover what those natural laws were. Far from having their scientific curiosity squelched, believing in a Creator did not “close the door” on their curiosity to explore “other questions.” On the contrary, then as now creation scientists understand there is no conflict between science and biblical faith (see “Can Bible-Based Predictions Lead to Scientific Discoveries?”).
This is true, they were both Christians, and they both believed that God created the world, but again, this is the key difference. They didn't let their belief in God stop their scientific curiosity. Most Christians accept the scientific understanding of our origins. To them, and myself, and to men like Newton and Kepler, science is simply the way to answer the question of how God did it. Answers in Genesis don't want to answer that question. They want to close their minds and simply believe that God did it like that for some reason and we don't need to know how.
The science of how our origins came about is not a matter of belief or faith, despite what creationists like Answers in Genesis want you to think. It is all based on testable, observable, predictable and verifiable models. It doesn't have all the answers yet, and likely never will. But it's a hell of a lot more accurate than anything Answers in Genesis have come up with yet.
Discovering how something works—the natural laws that govern its behavior—is not the same as discovering its origin. The physical universe and the natural laws that govern it still need an origin. God in the Bible tells us that He made all things over a six-day period about 6,000 years ago. Newton and others describe how that creation functions. Knowing how the universe works doesn’t write God out of existence but rather glorifies Him as its Creator. Tyson’s universe still needs a clockmaker. Thanks to the history God provided in His Word, we can know who the Clockmaker is and know that we are each very significant to Him.
And I'm going to finish this blog entry with the words of Carl Sagan himself
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