December 1964
Dedicated to:
Literal or Natural Interpretation of the Bible Divine Design and Purpose in Nature A Young Earth A Universal Noachian Flood Christ as God and Man, Only Savior The Bible-Science Newsletter was published by the Bible-Science Association, Inc. -- Rev. Walter Lang,
Editor; Caldwell, Idaho
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THE VIRGIN
BIRTH
During this Christmas Season we
ask the question again about Virgin Birth, which is so essential to the
power of the Christmas story. Does science have anything like that ? We
recognize that the virgin birth is a miracle, that cannot be duplicated.
Still we do find something like virgin birth going on. In turkeys especially
they often produce new birds without fertilization of the egg by the male
sperm. They usually use radiation to accomplish this. They imagine that
there is a reservoir of fertilization in the egg that can be induced without
the male sperm. This is not the virgin birth of the Savior. But the same
God, who can allow this in nature, certainly also could bring Christ into
the world without the benefit of the male sperm, if He so desires.
Our faith does not rest on how to explain the virgin birth. What our faith at Christmas time rests on is that God became man, and chose this way. God became man because this was the only way that our sins could be taken away, creationism and the Christian approach is that God created the world perfect, man fell into sin, man and all of nature now do not improve but degenerate by themselves. Only when God sends His Son into the world to be perfect for us, to take away our sins, is there real improvement in this sin-cursed world. May then the great redemption of the Christ child, born of a virgin, be the joy of your Christmas celebration and this is our Christmas greeting to you.
ENLARGED ISSUE
We must apologize to the many correspondents
and to those who have sent us excellent articles for the Newsletter for
this issue. We have to keep everything else to a minimum to include the
essays from the Los Angeles Institute, and we plan to have our regular
features again in the January issue. We wish to thank the many people who
have written, and those who have sent in sizeable orders and sizeable donations.
It takes a great deal to publish this Newsletter and to help keep Creationism
before the people in the religious and educational world. The more support
we receive, the more we can reach out with the creation facts.
Since the present issue of the Bible-Science
Newsletter is four times the size and expense of others, and since it will
be sometime before we realize income from the sale of these essays in book
form, any special support given to the Newsletter at this time will be
doubly welcome.
LOS ANGELES
INSTITUTE
A MEMORABLE
EXPERIENCE
About 7,000 people heard the six
lecturers speaking on relations between Bible and Science, at the Bible-Science
Institute in the Los Angeles area, Nov. 9-12, 1964. Lectures were held
in five Lutheran Churches or parish halls. Lecturers addressed elementary
school children in large numbers. They spoke to high school students and
college students during the day, as well as to groups in the evenings.
As indicated in previous Bible-Science Newsletters, these lectures were held at 1st Lutheran Church in San Fernando; Em-maus First Lutheran Parish Hall in Alhamba; Zion Lutheran Parish Hall in Anaheim; Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Ingle-wood; Trinity Lutheran Church in San Diego. School children of the Christian Day Schools were reached at Alhambra, Inglewood, San Fernando, Anaheim, San Diego, and St. Paul's in Orange. The Lutheran High School in Los Angeles was served throughout the day Tuesday. Biola Institute in La Mirada was reached.
Dr. Walter E. Lammerts, geneticist, of Berkeley, Calif., spoke on mutations. Dr. Geo. Howe, biologist, of Westmont College, Santa Barbara, talked on how God created plants. Dr. Bolton Davidheiser. biologist at Biola Institute in Los Angeles, spoke on God and Biology. Wilbert Rusch, M. S., biologist at Concordia Junior College, Ann Arbor, Michigan, talked on the Christian and Science. Clifford Burdick, M.S., consulting geologist at Tuscon, Arizona, discussed Geology and the Bible. The Rev. Walter Lang of Caldwell, Idaho, editor of the Bible-Science Newsletter, explained Genesis One and Two.
Essays in
this issue
By special arrangement with the
printer, this issue of the Newsletter is being enlarged so that 2% essays
can be included complete. All the essays will be put into book form which
will be available at a cost of $1.50 (paper bound). The probable title
of the book will be "The Challenge of Creation." The other essays will
be printed next month before the book is printed. Usual material in this
Newsletter is being held to an absolute minimum to make it possible to
include these essays.
Press Conference
An elaborate press conference was
held Nov. 12 at Zion Lutheran Parish Hall in Anaheim, with representatives
of the large Dailies in the Los Angeles area asking questions regarding
creationism and evolutionism for a period of nearly two hours. Milt Brouhard
of the Los Angeles Times characterized the Institute as an effort to attack
the theory of evolution. Several of the women active in sponsoring the
Institute mentioned above, wrote scientific articles every week for the
science page of the Santa Ana Register for eight weeks. This was done to
demonstrate that the creation approach is best both for Christianity and
science. We intend to review these articles in a future issue of the Newsletter.
INQUIRIES...
Since this Institute has been held
and such a tremendous interest was in evidence, there have been inquiries
as to how similar Institutes can be held in other parts of the country.
Dr. G. Archer Weniger of San Francisco asked in his "Blu-Print" why such
an Institute could not be held in the San Francisco area. The Newsletter
is ready to serve in developing similar Institutes in other parts of the
country.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE
by CLIFFORD BURDICK
(Continued from November Issue)
At a recent meeting in December, 1963, of the American Geological Society, Norman Newell, paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, had this to say:
"Geology suffers from a great lack of data, and in such a situation any attractive theory that conies along is taken as gospel. That is the case with uniformitarianism. Geology students are taught that 'the present is the key to the past,' and too often they take it to mean nothing ever happened that is not happening now. But since the end of World War II, when a new generation moved in, we have gathered more data and we have begun to realize that there were many catastrophic events in the past, some of which happened just once." (Norman Newell Lecture delivered at The American Geological Society, New York City, December, 1963.)
The science writer who wrote up the meeting for Newsweek, December 23, 1963, had this observation to make, "Catastrophism is a fighting word among geologists. It is theory based on divine intervention, and its adherent hold that the history of the earth and the life on it were moved by a series of disasters inspired by God, the last one being Noah's Flood. It was the major line of thought for a few decades in the last century, but a vigorous counter attack by the naturalists against the supernaturalists eventually pushed it aside. But now many geologists believe the counterattack may have been all too vigorous. In their haste to reject the hand of God, they have passed over some solid evidence that could help improve their understanding of both geology and evolution. As a result, many were advising the rehabilitation of catastrophism, without recourse to a supernatural agent."
Here the editor calls a spade a spade, Young men, training in geology, have been led to believe that uniformitarianism, which is basic to geology, has been so well proved that it is merely axiomatic. It was well over a hundred years ago that Lyell sold the scientific world on uniformity, supposedly as demonstrated science, but now after the accumulation of scientific knowledge for a century, Newell and others admit that proof is lacking to make uniformity a universal law. How about the evidence in Lyell's time? It is now clear that the theory was proposed on philosophical grounds, as an antidote for Christianity and the Christian's Bible, and has little to substantiate it. Of course, many of the geological processes have taken place at a rate comparable to the present, but scientific data now concludes that most of the noteworthy activity took place in short periods of cataclysm. If so, geologic time must be greatly shortened.
Even a foremost nuclear geologist, a leader in the Scientific Affiliate, a Theistic scientific society, in arguing against the universal flood, said that he doubted that the Creator would interfere very much or very often in this world; that He would rather let things take their natural course according to fixed laws.
This well-known geologist and nuclear physicist may be tops in his profession, but in my humble opinion he has far to go to be tops in a knowledge of the Word of God. Why should men assign to the Almighty motives less worthy than they would assign to men? Would General Motors or Westinghouse build expensive laboratories and then go to Europe and let the laboratories run themselves? After the Lord created this world, which He says He created to be inhabited, would He not be interested in what He had made? Daniel told the Babylonian king that the Almighty rules in the affairs of men. He sets up kings and He removes them. The letter to the Colossians says that in Christ all things hold together. What else, I would like to know, keeps this world from blowing up in a giant nuclear holocaust? A vital part of faith is that Christ lives in His people and answers their prayers. ...
Christianity is the religion with an immanent God; it is the heathen religions which keep their gods out of reach. If for no other reason, this should make evolutionary science and uniformitarian geology suspect.
THE AGE OF
THE EARTH
Radioactive
Dating
One of the liveliest propositions
in geology today is, how old is the earth? When I first studied geology
the earth was supposed to be about 100,000,000 years, according to the
supposed rate of sedimentation, until Twenhofel proved there was no set
rate of sedimentation. Then, along came the nuclear physicists who told
us that the earth was actually at least 1.6 billion years old, sixteen
times its former assumed age, and now it has been stretched out to about
five billion years, ample time to evolve almost anything. The Creationists
have been caught off balance once more; so few have been equipped to argue
With the physicists and mathematicians that the tendency has been to either
accept the verdict of this new geochronometer or at least try to compromise
the Bible with radioactive datings, much as the churchmen did a generation
ago, when Darwin jolted the scientific and religious world with his "Origin
of Species."
The technique of radioactive age dating is accurate enough in theory, but there is just one catch. It too is based upon the assumption of the constancy in the past of the half-lives of the radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium, potassium, rubidium, Carbon-14, etc. In other words, we start out by assuming that for the past five billion years or so uranium has been decaying at the same rate as at present; a reasonable assumption the nuclear physicists tell us, but still an assumption. Arthur Holmes, the English geologist once told us, when you have to insert an assumption as one factor in an equation, you may as well guess at the end result in the first place. Such an equation just does not add up to good science.
But what evidence, if any, we are asked, do we have of the possible variability of nuclear disintegration? In the June 19. 1964 issue of Time magazine, in the science section appeared an article headed, "In a restless Universe, constants can vary." Then it described some discoveries by physicists at the Westinghouse Research laboratory in Pittsburgh. Heretofore, radioactive disintegration rates could not be changed by subjecting them to variations of heat, cold, pressure magnetism, etc. Therefore, it was assumed that the rate in nature has always been constant.
But recently the Westinghouse engineers have staged a breakthrough and found at least one way to alter the decay rate. Although the variation was only about 3%, it is not the amount that's significant, but the fact. More ways of altering the decay rates may be found, and in larger percentages.
Iron (Fe) 57 exists in both excited and unexcited states. In the excited state, radiation occurs and the atom decays to the unexcited state with the emission of gamma rays. When Fe-57 in the unexcited state absorbs the gamma rays, it too becomes excited, then proceeds to the unexcited state an instant later.
Westinghouse physicists then surrounded
Fe-57 atoms with a blanket of iron atoms in the unexcited state. The excited
atoms decayed at the normal rate, emitting gamma rays that were absorbed
by the unexcited atoms, which became excited and as they in turn disintegrated,
their gamma rays reexcited the other atoms, thus lengthening the average
radioactve life of the original group by about 3% according to the report
of Dr. Lawrence M. Epstein.
The moral in this I think is that
it might be wise to delay giving up just yet in our confidence in the "sure
word of prophecy" to embrace some current popular theory that some scientists
proposes. Tomorrow it may be out of date.
Carbon-14 dating is based upon the theory of the constancy of production of Carbon-14 from nitrogen by means of cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere . The strength of cosmic radiation varies inversely as the strength of the magnetic field. The National Geographic Society says that analysis of iron in ancient bricks indicates that magnetism may have declined by about two-thirds over the past 2,000 years. The earth's magnetic field shields it from cosmic rays, the atomic nuclei that constantly flow in from outer space, and as magnetism declines in strength more rays will hit the earth. Carbon-14 results from the collision of cosmic rays with nitrogen atoms in the air. If the amount of Carbon-14 has varied due to changes in the magnetic field, and has not remained a reliable constant for measuring age, many estimates may be in error.
COSMIC RAYS
& RADIOACTIVE DATING
Here we see that the assumption
of uniformity was a mistake and the same goes for other radioactive computations.
For instance, it has been found that cosmic radiation also may cause variations
in the decay rate of radioactive metals, thus upsetting the age calculations.
This discrepancy was highlighted from age measurements of meteorites. From
this analysis iron meteorites appear to be hundreds of millions of years
old, while the stony meteorites by the same token, seem to be only tens
of millions of years old. Here is a mystery. Why should these objects which
fall out of the sky possess such widely divergent ages? Dr. Urey has offered
the explanation that the iron portion of the meteorites had been subjected
to more cosmic ray radiation than the stony parts, and thus had "aged"
faster. Sounds like a brewery or a winery. But I hope we don't miss the
tremendous implication of this theory. These high-energy cosmic rays are
powered by billions of electron volts and can penetrate 1,400 meters of
earth. If, for instance, at the time of the Flood or other period of cataclysm,
cosmic radiation was more intense, the radioactivity decays would have
been speeded up, thus giving an exaggerated appearance of age. Variation
in magnetic field could well explain variation in decay rates.
Sudden Birth
of an Immense Star
In June of this year the birth
of an immense star was described by Dr. George Herbig of Lick observatory
to a group of astronomers gathered at a convention at Flagstaff, Arizona.
This bright star FU Orionis was first catalogued in 1898, but within 120
days increased in brilliance many times greater than the sun. Uni-formitaranism
has become a joke among astronomers. But the remarkable part of the discovery
was not the sudden birth of a ninth-magnitude star, but was the sudden
appearance of a lithium line in the spectrum. Normally, Herbig said, it
would take 10 million years for a celestial body to synthesize lithium
as a byproduct of atomic fusion processes.
The outcome of this little skirmish between uniformity and cataclysm is worthy of close attention. If some nuclear physicist were to suddenly discover the lithium line without knowing the past history of the star, he would conclude that the star or the lithium in the sun was at least ten million years old, on the uniformitarian basis of atomic fusion; but the actual observations show that the lithium was formed in a matter of four months. With this we rest our case in favor of Catastrophism.
THE GRAND
CANYON STORY
Robert Sterling Yard once declared,
"The Grand Canyon is the colossus of canyons, by far the largest example
of stream erosion in the world, and according to Charles Dudley Warner,
"It is by common consent the most stupendous spectacle in the world." To
a geologist the Grand Canyon is even more meaningful, as Charles of Yale
remarked, "For eight days the writer had the greatest scientific pleasure
of his life in the geological wonderland, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado
River in Arizona. Truly such a geological insight into the structure of
the earth's outer shell is nowhere else to be had. It is a paradise for
the stratigrapher."
It may be well to point out that during the almost 5,000 feet descent from the rim at 7,000 feet elevation, one may observe most of the Paleozoic era usually estimated at nearly 400,000,000 years; the Proterozoic era, of almost equal time, and part of the Archeozoic of nearly the same length of time. The Mesozoic and Cenozoic Era are both missing at the Grand Canyon. As one listens to the story of the canyon as related by the Park naturalists, the feature most stressed seems to be the billion odd years of time exposed in the Grand Canyon, rather than the natural beauty.
The cliff-forming capping layer is the almost white Kaibab limestone member of the Permian formation, a marine rock containing many sea shells. The next Permian member is the Toroweap, little more than a talus slope. Next below the Toroweap comes the coconino sandstone member, about 300 feet thick, noted for its cross-bedding probably due to the wind-blown sand of dune origin. The keen observer will note that given horizons on the west side of the Bright Angel trail appear about 186 feet higher than on the east. The geologist will explain this discrepancy as due to a north and south fault line which forms the basis of Bright Angel Canyon Charles Schuchert collected and described animal tracks found in this formation and placed them in Peabody Museum at Yale University, among them an amphibian of the group Protopeda.
Next below the Coconino comes the reddish colored Hermit shale, forming another talus slope. The Hermit shale is underlain conformably by the thick Supai red lower member of the Permian formation, at this point some 850 feet in thickness. In a first glance at the canyon one is impressed with its gorgeous red color.
The supai is notable for cyclic sedimentation; that is, alternating strata of sandstone and shale, assumed to have been deposited in river flood plains. The fossils are of continental nature, but this cyclic sedimentation has always been somewhat of a puzzler for orthodox geology to explain - why a river at one time could deposit one type of sediment lithologically speaking, and at another time another type. A river can scarcely swing back and forth from one source area to another, with such clock-like regularity.
Evidence of
the Flood
Very recently I heard the oft-repeated
cliche for a university geologist, that the Bible is not a book of science,
and yet Genesis 8:1-3 perhaps gives a better explanation of cyclic sedimentation
than any of the university texts. The above scripture tells us how God
dried up the waters of the Flood by causing a strong wind to blow, which
caused the waters to dry up by "going and returning," as the margin explains.
The flood waters, far more expansive than any river, carried sediments
from one direction, from sources of supply of a certain type of rock, and
deposited it over big areas, as we see today in the vast Colorado plateau,
especially the Grand Canyon region. Then the wind of hurricane velocity
changed direction, and brought another type of sediment from some other
source area, where a different rock type lithologically existed. This type
of interbedding is very common all over the world; and here again Flood
geology has a distinct contribution to make.
The Missing
Formations
The Supai formation apparently
lies comfortably upon the Redwall, 550 feet of Mississippian limestone.
By conformably I mean that no apparent angular discordance exists between
the two formations that might suggest a time interval between the periods
of deposition. However, we are told that such a gap exists, a gap of perhaps
some 20,000,000 years of Pennsylvanian time, so deducted because of the
lack or non-existence of Pennsylvanian fossils.
As one descends deeper into the gash in the earth, he passes 550 feet of Redwall Mississippian limestone, dyed red by the verly-ing red Supai formation. This formation lies apparently conformably upon the Cambrian Mauv limestone. By conformably we mean that the two formations lie one upon the other like the leaves in a book, with no apparent angular discordance due to tilting of the strata and subsequent erosion, which one would expect if a time gap between episodes of erosion had taken place.
The Ordivican, Silurian, and Lower Devonian are missing at this place in the Canyon, in fact the first two are missing over most of Arizona. Let us contemplate the significance of such an awesome hiatus, of some 100,000,000 years. In our own lifetime we can measure the rise of certain lines and the sinking of others. Twenhofel remarked that there is hardly a place on earth that is really stable.
Instability
of Earth
The writer was recently invited
to visit a seismograph station. He had been watching the instrument scarcely
fifteen minutes before the instrument began to dance, as it recorded an
earth tremor. They stated that about a million intensities are recorded
every year. What are the chances therefore of the Colorado Plateau remaining
so motionless for 100,000,000 years that neither erosion nor deposition
took place? Is this logical geology?
But why, one asks, is such a long hiatus called for when there is little or no physical evidence to account for it? It is that a certain type of fossils are found in the Redwall stamping it as Mississippian, whereas the Cambrian Muav and Tapeats sandstone have Cambrian index fossils. But, if we have to depend on fossil evidence alone, we are sticking our necks out pretty far, for as we descended deeper into the canyon we reach the precambrian formations, where no fossils were supposed to have been found except algae. The writer however has been doing a research pro-blem at the geochronology laboratories at the University of Arizona concerning the recovery of fossil spores from the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon, and is the first to have recovered spores from the Canyon. One of the Precambrian formations in the canyon is the Hakati shale, a red rock. The first spore to come from the Hakati shale, and to the consternation of the department the first spore on pollen to come forth was one from the order of the pines. Pines in Precambrian time? Why not? Such a find should not be embarrassing to Creationists? The sedimentary series belong to the later Precambrian, but below them lies un-conformably the metamorphosed, contorted Vishnu Schist, of early Precambrian age. This may represent the destroyed and metamorphosed antediluvian mountains dating back to the time of Creation.
Footprints
On The Sands of Time
In spite of the numerous fossil
forms far larger than their living counterparts, reptiles to name just
one, it has been the standard museum practice to exhibit the evolutionary
line of horses from the tiny Eohippus to the modern horse, While they say
nothing concerning another fossil Perrissodactyl, the giant Oligocene Erontotherium
when stood eight feet in height. Degeneration through geologic time is
the story told by the fossils rather than from small ancestors to large
present-day forms. But we will confine our story now to dinosaur and man.
Giant Tracks
In the May, 1939 issue of Natural
History, published by the American Museum of Natural History in New York
City, appeared a most significant article by Roland T. Bird of the department
of vertebrate paleontology, entitled, "Thunder in his Footsteps." 13 On
a field trip through New Mexico, Mr. Bird had discovered some limestone
blocks in a river-bed in Texas, in which were impressed the footprints
of what appeared to be human bare feet. Yet he finally discounted the possibility
of the tracks being human in origin, for as he said, "It was ridiculous
to think that they were human footprints. They were too large." Actually
the tracks measured, from toe to heel, about eighteen inches, certainly
far too large for any modern man. We might wonder if Dr. Bird had read
in the Scripture, where it says, "There were giants in the earth in those
days."
Before sin, man had access to the tree of life, which contained certain food elements now lacking in the ground which the Almighty has cursed. Millennia of deficiency diets have weakened the human and animal bodies, as well as plants, and left the biological world predisposed to degenerative diseases. Medical science has done wonders in reducing and in some cases eliminating the incidence of infectious diseases, but the degenerative diseases such as cancer, and heart and arterial failures have increased by leaps and bounds.
Fresh from the tree of life, man was able to live some 900 years. Since the Flood we live in a different kind of world, in which the soluble soil minerals are being washed out to the sea, where earth's largest mammals seem to thrive, physically as well as mentally, according to the latest intelligence tests administered to the mammals of the sea.
In the newspapers of New Year's
day 1949 there appeared a syndicated feature article by Associated Press
writer. Joe Wing, entitled, "Man's Ancestors Possible Giants, New Theory
Says." The article then proceeds to elaborate on the comparatively recent
discovery of the remains of giants in Java, twice the size of a gorilla.
But these giants are still called "ape-man" found near Peking, China, where
the dispatch says a 100 pound "ape-man" was found. He is pictured with
an oversized jaw and an undersized brain, just to keep up the ape similarity.
14
The third and perhaps most startling
discovery was the petrified remains of a giant found in South Africa, and
reported by the world-renowned anthropologist, Robert Broom.
After this third giant find, Dr. Hary Shapiro, then head of the American Museum of Natural History, gave his blessings to a new theory recently propounded by Dr. Franz Weidenreich, 15 to the effect that man's ancestors were actually giants. "I believe," he pronounced, "that all these forms have to be ranged in the human line and that line leads back to giants, the farther back it is traced. In other words, the giants may be directly ancestral to man."
In the light of recent giant discoveries, Roland Bird's dismissal of the Glen Rose tracks, as being human because they were too large would seem to be premature to say the least., Dr. Bird's other argument was that the tracks could not be human, as "No man ever existed in the age of reptiles." Here Mr. Bird departs from the principles of Baconian inductive science, and reverts to middle-age authoritarianism, that is deductive reasoning, the type that condemned Galileo to death for maintaining that the earth is round.
Mr. Bird at first admitted that the tracks were apparently human, as he put it, "Perfect in every detail," Mr. Ryals, the guide, soon dug and showed to Dr. Bird one of the giant human tracks in places in the river bed in close association with dinosaur tracks. Then Ryals added, "There used to be a whole trail of them up above the fourth crossing, before the river washed them out." The writer personally interviewed a farmer who had lived near that location, Charles Moss, who also confirmed this account of the whole trail of giant human tracks above the fourth crossing, about a mile upstream from the dinosaur tracks, which the American Museum dug out and shipped to New York.
On a recent trip to the Paluxy River site, another farmer who had lived beside the river most of his life, showed us three more series of human tracks still visible but deeply eroded, and he showed us one place where he had dug up a human track and a dinosaur track in one block of limestone about three feet in diameter. It so happened that Dr. Ernest Booth of Loma Linda University was present, and he corroborated the tracks and identified them as definitely human. The size and stride were almost identical with the tracks once discovered at the White Sands National Park, New Mexico.
Some have doubted the authenticity of the tracks because of rumors that they may be carvings, the time-honored loop-hole for doubters. However it would have been most difficult to carve a series of fifteen or twenty tracks in the river bed, mostly covered with running water. The human tracks were apparently as genuine as the dinosaur tracks. Without naming names, the head paleontologists of the western universities have provisionally identified the tracks as having been made by human beings, even though found in Cretaceous rocks.
WHITE SANDS
TRACKS
In White Sands National Monument,
near Alamogordo, New Mexico lie some 175 acres of alabaster white as snow-like
sand dunes, slowly advancing toward Alamogordo. This gypsum probably was
precipitated as the arid winds dried up an inland sea. As this muddy sediment
was beginning to harden, some prehistoric giant apparently walked across
this drying lake bed, leaving a series of tracks made by sandalled feet.
From the booklet, entitled, "The Story of the Great White Sands," 16 distributed at the National Monument, a government trapper reported that he had found "human tracks of unbelievable size" imprinted in the gypsum rock on the west side of White Sands. At his suggestion a party was made up to investigate. Mr. Wright served as guide. C. Fred Arthur, supervisor of the Lincoln National Forest, Edgar Cadwallader and one of his sons from Mountain Park, and the writer made up the party."
"As Mr. Wright had reported, there were 13 human tracks crossing a narrow swag, pretty well out between the mountains and the sands. Each track was approximately 22 inches long and from 8 to 10 inches wide. It was the consensus that the track were made by a human being, for the print was perfect and even the instep plainly marked. However, not one of the group cared to venture a guess as to when the tracks were made or how they became their tremendous size. It is one of the unsolved mysteries of the Great White Sands." The extreme size of the tracks may be explained by sandals. No toe marks are visible, but this may be due to erosion from blowing gypsum. However the tracks were apparently made by a biped using a walking stick, for occasional stick point impressions were visible. The stride was from four to five feet, similar to that of the tracks found in the bed of the Paluxy River, Glen Rose, Texas. Furthermore, the size and shape of the feet were similar.
MEXICAN TRACKS
The writer has been shown barefoot
tracks of apparently human origin along the Mayo river, near San Bernardo,
in Sonora, Mexico, by one of the chiefs of the Mayo Indian tribe. The first
impression was that of a carving, but there are tell-tale marks that can
always be applied to differentiate. When a human being or any animal with
sufficient weight to make an impression in the soft sand or mud steps in
the wet material, one of two things happens. (1) If the mud is soft, it
will ooze up around the feet and toes, leaving a ridge. 2) If the ground
is more solidified so that a shallower impression is made, the insole is
depressed under the weight, and a crack appears along the outline of the
foot or other weight that makes the impression. In the case of the Mexican
tracks, cracks were visible beside the heel mark. The size of the track
was about the same as the Glen Rose tracks.
NORTHERN ARIZONA
TRACKS
Rumors had been floating out from
the Hopi Indian Reservation for some time concerning the existence of human
tracks in the Cretaceous limestone of the reservation, until we could no
longer resist the temptation to investigate. We found a guide, an Indian
by name of Washington, who conducted us to the site of the tracks about
ten miles from the nearest village. The Indians told us that formerly many
more tracks were visible, but drifting sand had covered most of them, leaving
about one acres still bare enough to see tracks.
In this area we found a perfect three-toed dinosaur track, and within a few feet from it the impression of a three-toed wading bird, which was not supposed to have existed in the Cretaceous period. A short distance from these tracks could be seen faint but still visible shallow impressions of what appeared to be heel marks and toe marks, made by feet of ordinary size according to our standards. Erosion had so nearly obliterated the tracks that we would not care to make any claims for them; however the Hopi Indians have always called them "man tracks."
About two hundred miles to the West of the Hopi Reservation, near Ashfork, are many flagstone quarries where some animal tracks have been found, and the writer has conversed with those who claim they have seen perfect tracks made by bare feet, but smaller than the Glen Rose tracks. The formation appears to belong to the Permian. Some of these animal tracks on sandstone slabs were seen for years in the museum of an educational institution in the great southwest. The accompanying shoe impressions appeared in one of these slabs, similar to the one we had seen in the Hopi Reservation.
CONCLUSION
The standard reaction to these
exhibits from paleontologists is the deductive one; man did not exist in
the Cretaceous, much less Permian. True Baconian inductive science would
reply; Let the evidence speak for itself, and let chips fall where they
may.
In a recent issue of the "Brewery Gulch Gazette" 17 published in Tombstone, Arizona is an account of a very important archeolog-ical find by Fred Drake of Benson, Arizona, while on a geophysical survey for a British-American oil company. It consisted of two ribs, parts of a skull, and right foot of a human being. A piece of Palm belonging to the genus Chrysolidcarpus Moncotyledae was found lying a-cross the remains of the foot, thus causing the ankle to be sprained, and the appearance of swelling and dislocated bone was plainly visible. This is to indicate that the owner of the foot was pinned to the earth by the falling of the tree which was found in a petrified condition.
Drake told the News that according to Dr. Ludendorff of Vienna University and Dr. Page, Hansen and Seaborg of Rice and Oxford Universities, this discovery, called Monocanthropodoe Huachucanunsis, becomes the oldest human fossil remains yet found because it was found in Cretaceous or early, Cenozoic formations, so identical by the presence of such foramininfera as Cuneoline pavonia and Lituola Mautiloides.
Of course an overthrust was suggested to explain this association, but how much more evidence will the scientific world need before they accept the fact that the whole gamut of life was contemporaneous in the antediluvian world, as it is today ?
Once more will I refer to the first results from my own research in fossil paleontology in the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon, where beautiful pine spores were recovered from the Triassic of the Petrified Forest and also from the Precambrian Hakati shale. Heretofore, only low forms of algae were supposed to have existed in the Precambrian. Slowly but surely these millions and even billions of years are being compressed into terms that even a Bible student can comprehend. The geologic column is about to suffer a major collapse like the giant stars, when the beneficent Creator may again be accorded the honor due to His Holy Name.
REFERENCES
CITED
1. Smith, David C., Wall Street
Journal, June 18, 1964
2. Lyell, Charles, Principles of
Geology, vol. 3, p. 1-6
3. Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species
1859.
4. Huxley, Thomas - quoted in "Evolution
at the Bar," Phillip Mauro, 1922
5. Huxley, Julian, From speech,
delivered at Chicago, 1959, Darwin Centennial.
6. Muller, Herman J. Quoted from
speech delivered American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chicago,
1959
7. Simpson, George Gaylord, The
Non-Prevalence of Humanoids, Science, Feb. 21, 1964
8. Rodgers and Dunbar, "Principles
of Stratigraphy." 1957
9. Miller, Hugh, Testimony of the
Rocks, 1857
10. Robert Oppenheimer, Fred Hoyle,
Matthews, Greenstein, Fowler, Theory of Gravitational Collapse of Stars
- lectures delivered at Dallas, Texas
11. Newell, Norman, Lecture delivered
at American Geological Society, New York City, Dec. 1963.
12. Herbig, George, Lick Observatory,
California, Lecture delivered at Flagstaff, Arizona, 1963
13. Bird Roland "Thunder in His
Footsteps," Natural History, May 1939
14. Wing, Joe, "Man's Ancestors
Possibly Giants." Associated Press Jan. 1, 1949
15. Weidenreich, Franz, "Man, Apes,
and Giants."
17. Daker, Fred, Brewery Gulch
Gazette, Tombstone, Arizona.
Shall We Start
A Legal Fund?
Mrs. Jean Sumrall and Mrs. Neil
Segraves in Los Angeles have been quite successful with the California
Board of Education in obtaining two determinations that are favorable to
giving creationism an equal chance in our state schools. As the result
of their work the Board in California has ruled that: (1) the use of Bible
as history or literature is not prohibited in the state schools; only the
use of it in worship is prohibited; (2) the teaching of macro-evolution
as a doctrine is prohibited to the same extent as the use of the Bible
as worship.
These ladies are prepared to institute a suit to prove that macro-evolution is being taught as a doctrine in our state schools and demand that textbooks be rewritten. They are confident they have an air-tight case, since they have been working on the case with lawyers for quite some time. They have hesitated some because they wonder where the new textbooks would come from if the suit were won. Others have assured them the courts would give the schools time to prepare such textbooks. And they have hesitated because it takes money.
For this reason we ask the question
of our readers as to whether they feel it would be wise to institute a
fund for legal action on this matter. If it were established, it could
be established through this Newsletter, administered by the Board of Directors
of the Bible-Science Association, Inc. There may be other areas
that would want to institute similar suits and possibly all of this could
be coordinated. Let us hear from you on this matter.
GENESIS ONE AND TWO
by Walter Lang
So often, when people discover that we are specializing in Bible and Science relationships they say we are fighting the idea that man came from a monkey. But they are really out of date. It is not popular, even among evolutionists, any longer, to say that man came from a monkey. They would rather speak of some common ancestor for both the monkey and man. Sometimes they speak of seaweed. Sometimes they point to the Dolphin since this is supposed to be one of the most intelligent of animals.
But this change in procedure illustrates how much change there is in scientific circles and in scientific theories. A few years ago Newton's theories were predominant. They have now been replaced by Einstein's theory of relativity. We are told the average life of a scientific theory is 15 years. It seems rather rash to build one's life on theories that change every 15 years.
Rather than study Genesis One and Two verse by verse, a topical study is better. Such topics as Time, God, Different Words for Creation, the Heavens, the Earth, Water, God's and Man's Word, Light, After Its Kind, Plants, God's Goodness, Animals, Man, Two Creation Accounts, the Garden of Eden, and the Institution of Marriage will be considered.
I. TIME
Time strikes us at the very beginning
of the Bible when we have the time word "In the Beginning." Is this a beginning
6,000 years ago; 10,000; 50,000; millions; or billions of years ago? Most
people in the educated world today talk in terms of four to five billion
years.
Science has found unusual clocks
which determine time right in nature. In man's mind there is a natural
arousal center. If we want to arise at 5:00 a.m., we can make up our mind
to this and usually will awaken at this time.
There is the 17-year locust, the
Cicada. It stays in the ground for exactly 17 years. Right on time it crawls
out of the hole, fastens its claws On a trunk of a tree, branch, or leaf.
Then it waits a while and soon everything it needs to fly is there. The
next morning it begins a great noise. The female egg is placed deep in
the branches. The female dies. The male continues his noise for a while
and he dies. The eggs hatch in six or seven weeks. The tiny locusts drop
to the ground, dig rapidly in the earth, remain there exactly another 17
years and continues the cycle. They have a time mechanism built in them.
Nature also reveals that as things approach the speed of light, time slows down. A person could go to the star Sirius, nine light years away we are told, all he would need would be a sack lunch, even if the round trip would be 18 years, for to him the time would seem to be no more than one day. But all his friends would be 18 years older. Even in science Time is not a fixed thing. So when people speak of things many million light-years away, this is also relative.
"In the Beginning"
The very first word in the Bible
is "In the Beginning," in the Hebrew: "Bereshith." This word shows the
world had a beginning. From ancient times people have tried to make matter
eternal. This is especially what people are attempting to do today when
they speak so glibly of matter being millions and billions of years old.
But the first word in the Bible sets itself as squarely against modern
attempts to make matter eternal as it did against the attempts of ancient
philosophers and religions to do the same thing. We can say matter is immortal.
The Bible speaks of a new heavens and a new earth and that could be our
present earth and heaven restored. We know as Christians that our bodies
will rise again as fleshly bodies. But, even though matter can be immortal,
this first word of the Bible shows it cannot be eternal. It had a beginning.
Dating Age
of the Earth
Even though we do insist on a young
earth, we cannot exactly date its age. There is a possibility there were
lapses in the genalogies of Genesis 5 and 11. However we do believe that
all the formations and phenomena that we observe could have been produced
within six thousand years. But if some believe it was seven thousand years,
ten thousand years, we cannot gainsay them. We must insist however on a
young earth.
The word "In the Beginning" also demonstrates that we are dealing with history. There are many who claim the first eleven chapters of Genesis teach good spiritual lessons, but are not factual, are not truly historical. But this word "In the Beginning" points out we are dealing with factual history.
The Word "Day"
The most controversial word in
Genesis One and Two is the word "Day." We hold for the position that this
is a solar day. There is a possibility it was not exactly a 24-hour day.
Even as Velikovsky in his "Worlds in Collison." indicates that possibly
the year was 360 days long before Hezekiah's time, and 365 1/4 days long
afterwards, so there could be some variation in the time of a solar day.
Today it is 24 hours. Even though we allow this variation, it does not
mean that we speak in terms of a day being a week or a thousand years or
anything like that, and particularly not a million years, as this word
"day" comes to us in Genesis One and Two.
We also allow there is a possibility that the day might mean something else than a natural day or a solar day in Gen. 1:5 when it says, "And God called the light Day." And in Gen. 2:2. 3 when it speaks of the seventh day, this does not have the designation of "evening and morning." And Gen. 2:4 says that when God made the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, "in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." This might refer to the entire process of creation. Then we have the problem of how the first three days of creation could be solar days, when the sun, moon, and stars were not yet made.
Even in Gen. 1:5 and Gen. 2:4 the word day could mean a natural or solar day, something very close to if not exactly like our 24 hour day.
But in the other references, for the six days of creation, as we have it in Gen. l:5b; 1:8; 1:13; 1:19; 1:23; 1:31 we have no choice as Biblical scholars, following the rules of interpretation the Bible gives us. There are four compelling reasons why we must consider these days as natural days, as solar days, very close to our 24-hour day, if not exactly the same. They are:
1 -- The natural meaning of the word "day" is that of a natural day, a solar day. And we always take a word in its natural meaning in the Bible, unless the context forces us to do otherwise.
2 -- We have the designation "evening and morning." This is the Hebrew's way of saying about the same as our 24-hours. They began their day in the evening whereas we usually think of the day beginning in the morning. This means that Moses clearly wanted us to consider these as natural or solar days.
3 -- We have the designation "first," "second," "third," "fourth," "fifth," "sixth," and even "seventh." And whenever the word "day" in the Bible is used with such a cardinal number, it always means a natural day; what we think of when we speak of a 24-hour day. Since these cardinal numbers are used here, we are forced to think of a natural day.
4 -- We have Ex. 20:11; "For in six days the Lord made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." The entire purpose of Moses' statement here is to show that the seventh day of the week, a natural or a solar day, a day like our 24-hour day, was to be observed by the Jews for the purpose of rest and worship. And to back that up Moses says, under inspiration, that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The entire argumentation would lose its force, if these were not natural or solar days, such as we have in our week of seven days.
Sometimes people quote Ps. 90:4 or 2 Pet. 3:8, which seems to be Peter's quotation of Psalm 90. There it speaks of a day of the Lord being a thousand years and a thousand years being as one day. People use this to show the word "day" in Gen. 1 could be a long period of time. Suppose we would allow that and have Moses and Peter say it this way: "A long period of time is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a long period of time." Can't you see the entire force of argumentation both in Psalm 90 and 2 Pet. 3 would be lost! Even in these passages the word "day" must mean a natural day, a solar day, like our 24-hour day if the argumentation is to mean anything.
Henry Morris, one of the authors of "The Genesis Flood," and the author of "Twilight of Evolution," (which is now available at a reasonable figure in paperback) wrote an essay in June 1963, for the meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, entitled "No Compromise." In this he demonstrated that to ascribe a thousand years or a million years to each of the six days of creation does not really harmonize the Bible and the theory of macro-evolution. The way the macro-evolutionists develop the world does not bear any resemblance to the order of the days we have in Genesis One and Two. The macro-evolutionists despise the Christians who try to harmonize. They challenge the Christians to go all the way and to make the first eleven chapters no more than a myth, a legend, teaching spiritual lessons and that is all. And, unfortunately, many nominal Christians do just that. But this illustrates we either accept what the Bible says or what macro-evolution says. There is no possibility of compromise between them.
Velikovsky's
Book
At this point may I call your attention
to an interesting theory of Immanuel Velikovsky, who wrote "The Worlds
in Collision" in 1950. His two theories were that during the time of Moses
a comet of great size came close to the earth, bringing on great catastrophic
changes similar to those during the flood, and later became the planet
Venus. His other theory is that during Hezekiah's time, when the dial went
back some degrees, this was due to Mars coming close to both Venus and
Earth and slowing up the Earth, so that the year became somewhat longer.
He quoted myths, legend and accounts of tribes all over the world to point
out that before Moses' time they all knew of only four planets and afterwards
they all knew of five. And before Hezekiah's time they all had a year of
360 days and afterwards all had a year of 365 1/4 days as we have it. It
is interesting to observe that at that time, in 1960, Velikovsky also predicted
a magnetic field beyond the earth, radio signals from Jupiter, and that
Mars was very hot. This has all been confirmed lately. All of this is no
more than a theory and many of Velikovsky's methods leave much to be desired,
but it points out the possibility of catastrophes to explain our geological
formations, rather than these vast periods of time.
II.
GOD
Before discussing the matter of
"God" in the first two chapters of Genesis it is well to consider various
theories on creation.
Theories of
Creation
First we have theistic evolution.
Such who accept this often believe in the Trinity and in the virgin birth,
but they believe God operated by evolution. They make the "day" a long
period of time.
Then we have the progressive creation theory. It says at times God created, when vertical progress in living organisms was called for. Otherwise there was evolutionary development. These also believe in the millions of years and that Genesis "days" were long periods of time.
Then there is the gap theory. It was first promoted by Chalmers and made popular by Scofield, who put it into his Bible. It believes that when Gen. 1:2 says "without form and void . . . darkness," this refers to something evil. It believes God made one world. When the angels fell and became devils, the theory holds this world was destroyed. After that God made the heavens and earth as we have it recorded in Genesis One and Two. This theory accepts literal interpretation, verbal inspiration, the Trinity; all the fundamental doctrines. This theory believes the stars were present from a previous world and a cloud cover was removed on the fourth day so they could be seen.
There are those who believe the first eleven chapters of Genesis are merely poetical and not true history. They teach spiritual lessons. They believe the world itself came into being by straight macro-evolution. They believe the Genesis accounts were taken over from Babylonian mythologies and others.
All people holding these theories want to believe in God and consider themselves Christians. If they are accused of making matter eternal rather than God, they deny it vehemently. But is their concept of God the same as we find it in the first two chapters of the Bible, not to say anything of the rest of the Bible?
God of
"Elohim"
The word for God, which is used
31 times in Genesis One, and 45 times in Genesis One
and Two is "Elohim" which is a plural word. Yet it is always used
with a singular verb. For Christians this poses no problem as they find
the Trinity in this word. God does not reveal the Trinity in nature but
only in the Bible, even the very first chapter.
Spirit
There is the word for "Spirit"
in verse 3. This is clearly a reference to the third person in the Trinity.
It says the Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters. There are
some who feel this is no more than the breath of God, since the word for
"Spirit," "ruach" comes from a derivation meaning "breath." Knowing how
much reference to the Trinity there is in this chapter, we find here a
reference to the third person in the Trinity. "God Said" - Jesus
We find a reference to the second
person in the Trinity in "and God Said," which is "wajamar" in the original.
This is used ten times in Genesis One. When we compare John 1 in the New
Testament we learn the Word of God is that One Who tabernacled among us,
and for that reason we think of the Word of God as Jesus. So we find a
reference to Jesus in this expression "and God said."
"Let Us Make
Man"
A reference to the Trinity is found
again in v. 26 when it says "Let us make man." Although this is considered
by some to be no more than the majestic plural, we feel, in the light of
everything else we find in the first chapter, that here we have a reference
to the Trinity.
"Create" in
Gen. 1:27
The fact that the word "create"
is used in Gen. 1:27 three times might also be reference to the Trinity.
This verse is more poetry than the rest of the chapter. After Moses tells
us that God had reached the climax of creation and made man, he sings about
it.
Also the use of the words "ended," "rested," and "rested" in Genesis 2: 1,2,3 might be a reference to the Trinity.
"Without Form
and Void . . . Darkness."
The use of these words in Gen.
1:2, which in the original are "tohu wabohu . . . koshek," has puzzled
many people. They seem on the surface to be a reference to evil. Is 49:19
uses the first two words to refer to the waste and desolate places of Israel
which shall be inhabited. We have the use of the word "and God saw it was
good" six times in this first chapter, and v. 31 we have the remark "and
God saw that it was very good." We could hardly find anything evil in these
words in the light of these statements. So we look for another meaning.
Considering the strong emphasis on the Trinity in these two chapters, we
feel these words rather show the need of the work of the Trinity.
First we consider the word "without form." We feel this shows the need for the Father, who put form into the primordial substance.
Then we think of the word "void" or something that has no life. We find the Spirit brooding on the face of the waters and imparting substance or life. We feel here we see the need of the work of the third person in the Trinity, the Spirit, whose special task it is to impart life.
Then we think of the word "darkness."
Since it says clearly that "God said, let there be light and there was
light," v. 3, it is clear that the second person in the Trinity, Jesus,
the Word of God, in "God said" is the one who created light. The expression
"darkness" would indicate the need for the work of the second person in
the Trinity.
Thus these words; without form,
void . . . darkness; do not imply anything evil but rather show the need
of the work of all three persons of the Trinity in creating the world.
Some feel this would be dragging the Trinity into these chapters and the Trinity is not there as we have outlined. We like to refer to John 5:39 where Jesus tells the Pharisees that they were studying the Old Testament but were not finding real life because they were not finding Him. This would point out that we should find Jesus more, not less, in the Old Testament. And if we are to find Jesus more, we must find the Trinity more, because Jesus and the Trinity are bound up with each other. This is the reason we believe that God wants us to find the Trinity more, not less in the Old Testament.
The use of the word "God" or "Lord God" in the first two chapters shows that Moses wanted to find God more than anything else in creation. He was showing that not the mythological heroes of the ancients made the world, neither was matter eternal and to be worshipped as the ancients did. But God made the world and only God, the Triune God, is to be worshipped. We even have the covenant name for God "Lord," "Jehovah," used 14 times with "God" or "Elohim" in the second chapter. Thus the word "God" is used 45 times and the word "Lord" is used 14 times. This proves that matter is not eternal but is a product of the mind of God. We are not to worship matter, as we do when we make matter millions of years and even billions of years old. We are not to make matter eternal but only God is eternal.
III. DIFFERENT
WORDS FOR CREATE
What Darwin
Should Have Known
Now we want to turn to the different
words for "create and "make" stated in these first two chapters. If Darwin
had known the significance of the different kinds of words used, he might
never have written his book "The Origin of the Species." He thought the
Bible taught that all species were made fixed at the beginning and that
no variety has been possible since. This was a current scientific theory
and taught by theologians as a Bible teaching. Then he discovered strong
evidences of change and variation in his five-year trip around the world.
This made him feel the Bible was wrong and he gave up the Bible. Then he
jumped to another wrong conclusion. Because he could find demonstrated
variation and change from species to species, he felt there must be change
from kind to kind. But for this he had no evidence, only speculation. And
on that speculation he developed his theories of evolution which have had
such a profound influence on intellectual society ever since.
The Bible does allow variation and change. Not all species were made during creation week, just as they are now. In fact, not everything need have been made out of nothing. We must be careful not to make current scientific theory Bible teaching. We must be careful not to say any more than the Bible says. And, when we study the various words for "create," "make," etc. we find the Bible is not as inflexible as we first might have thought.
"Create"
This word definitely means to make
something out of nothing. It is found in Gen. 1:1, 21, three times in v.
27, in Gen. 2:3-4, where we have sort of a title for the second creation
account. The word is always used of God in the Bible. It seems rather clearly
to mean that at least the primordial substances were completely made from
God's mind, out of nothing. Then it speaks of the "whale" being "created,"
when animal life first is introduced. And it speaks of man being "created,"
when man was given a soul. The word is "bara" in the original.
"Brooded"
The word our King James has translated
"moved" is "merkepheth," "brooded." The word seems to mean that it was
the Spirit Who imparted life and substance to the primordial material.
A new element is present but one which works with material already there.
Thus we see that not everything necessarily has to be made completely out
of nothing.
"Let There
Be"
We have this in "let there be light,"
v. 3; in "let there be a firmament" in v. 6; in "Let the waters be gathered
together under the heaven," v. 9. After it we have "and it was so." The
Bible here does not rule out that God could have made light from substance
already formed; or the water or the sea or the firmament. The original
here is "jehi."
"Appear"
The expression "let the dry land
appear," is in v. 9. This is "teraeh" in the original. Again we do not
have to insist that God made dry land completely out of nothing. Land may
have been there and then appeared out of the sea. There is a difference
between "dry land" and earth."
"Bring Forth"
We have the word "bring forth,"
Gen. 1:11, 12, 20, 24 speaking of grass, herb, tree, waters, animals, fishes.
God could, according to this word, have used substances from earth and
water to make these plants and creatures. This is permissible in the words
and their use. In fact, when it says the earth and the waters did bring
forth, we are almost compelled to believe that God did make plants, fishes,
and animals out of substances already made. It did however, take the Word
of God to take these substances and make plants, animals, fishes. They
did not come spontaneously, of themselves. The original word is "telzea."
"Make"
This word speaks in v. 7, of the
firmament in 16 of the two great lights in 25, of the beast of the earth,
in 26 of man. In ch. 2:2 is stated that God rested from all he had "made."
The word is used of everything God had done in the six days. In 2:3 we
find that God rested from all He had created and "made." There the word
seems to be used synonymously with "create." Gen. 1:31 says God saw everything
He had made and it was very good. Gen. 2:4 speaks of the day in which the
Lord made earth and heavens. Gen. 2:9 says God "made to grow out of the
ground every tree that was pleasant." This would point to God "making things
grow out of substance He had already made. Gen. 2:18 says God would "make"
a helpmeet for for Adam. Man was formed out of the dust of the ground and
this is called "making." Whether we claim that "create" and "make" are
used interchangeably or not, at least we cannot be dogmatic and say that
God made everything in the first six days completely out of nothing. The
original for "make" is "asah."
"Form"
This word is used of man in Gen.
1:27, "man was formed out of the dust of the ground. Gen. 1:19 says that
every beast of the field was formed out of the ground. This word seems
to imply something more than "let there be" or "make" or "bring forth."
God took more pains in forming man, and even animals. Men claim because
human beings are similar to monkeys or frogs, man descended from them.
Similarity is no real proof for that. But here we can see why God possibly
made animals similar to man, since both were "formed." There can be other
reasons for similarity than that this be proof man descended from animals.
The original here is "yatzar."
"Build"
We have one more word, "build,"
Gen. 2:22 used only of the making of Eve. King James version says "make"
here.
Throughout Genesis One and Two the best and most exalted things are made last. We find man is made last and is the crown of creation. We find woman made after Adam and not formed from the dust of the ground, but built from the rib of Adam, even though she also goes back to dust when she dies. There is a glory in her that Adam does not have. Paul in 1 Cor. 11:7 says "woman is the glory of man." Woman is the final glory of creation, more beautiful and lovable than man. God has given some of his greatest blessings to womanhood.
The word "build," which is "bin"
in the original, indicates again that God took primordial substances and
made other things out of them. Here he made woman out of a rib. But suppose
we tried to make a woman out of a rib. It still takes the Word of God to
do this.
(Continued on page 6)
We should allow that God took substances to make other creations. We should also allow that there can be development from species to species within the kind.
IV. THE HEAVENS
Dark Nebulae
Recently I heard of a report Dr.
Werner Von Braun gave to a graduating class at an Iowa school in 1964.
He told how much we have learned about space, about the heavens. We are
now talking about four hundred billion stars. They seem to us vast distances
away. We speak of vast galaxies of stars. We are in the Milky Way galaxy
containing many stars millions of miles away, we are told. And there are
supposed to be many more galaxies farther away than the Milky Way.
Recently men have discovered what they think are Dark Nebulae. They find dark stretches in their telescopes first believed to be empty space, now believed to be a galaxy or world where there is no light. They speculate our universe was first a dark nebulae, and some find an explanation of "without form and void . . . darkness."
Gamow's Big-Bang
Theory
We are urged to believe there was
a great explosion which gave birth to our universe. This is based on observations
which seemed to indicate our universe is expanding. Recently, scientists
have found a star "Sirius" which they believe has collapsed. In December
1963, leading scientists assembled in Dallas and proposed the collapse
theory, the opposite of Gamow's Big-Bang theory.
Steady-State
Theory
Fred Hoyle proposed another theory
where things are constantly being created without any reason or explanation.
Suddenly they are there. He still does not want to accept a Creator.
Reihmanian
Space Theory
Some mathematicians from Harvard
have proposed a theory that would make all the stars no more than fifteen
light days apart. This is based on a non-Euclidian form of mathematics.
All these theories show how uncertain scientists are about space, how it was formed, how it is maintained. It demonstrates we should be prepared for vast changes in thinking and theories as more evidence comes in.
"Heavens"
and "Firmament"
Genesis One and Two always uses
the word "heavens," "sham-aim," in the plural. It is found eleven times
in the two chapters; nine times in chapter one and twice in chapter two.
In 2 Cor. 12 St. Paul says he is caught up to the third heaven. The first
heaven might be the sky above us, the second might be space, the third,
the spiritual heaven. If space seems infinite "to us now, how much more
glorious must not the third heaven be?
The word "firmament" is used eight times in the first chapter. Four times it is used with the second day. It is used alone and speaks of that which separates the waters above from those beneath. Four times it is said together with the fourth day, when the constellations were made; the sun, moon, stars. Does it refer to the sky above us or all of space? It seems to be used both ways. When it speaks of the fourth day it seems to refer to space, because the constellations are placed in it. In 2:19 we find the birds flying through it and this makes us think of the sky above us.
There is much about the heavens we do not know even with our telescopes and space exploration. Stars and space are not eternal, nor practically so. They had a beginning and will have an ending. There will be a new heaven and earth, 2 Pet. 3.
V. EARTH
Rocks
One of the strongest arguments
for an old earth, as used by the scientists today, has been the argument
from rocks. They claim rocks are billions of years old. They base their
proof on fossils. The fossil people, however, claim their fossils are so
old because of the age of the rocks. Thus we have an argument in a circle,
a begging of the question, which has been carried on for a number of generations.
Recently this bad argumentation has been saved from ridicule by radioactive dating. This is supposed to prove conclusively the earth is millions and billions of years old. It is claimed this dating process can't be changed. But they do not know what appearance of age the Lord might have put into tilings at the beginning, and they are discovering the rate of emission in this process is not as constant as they once insisted it was.
"Earth" or
"haretz"
In the first two chapters we have
the word "haretz" or "earth" from the thought of "being firm." It is contrasted
to the heavens. In v. 10 the dry land is "earth" over against "seas." The
earth brings forth grass, herbs, living creatures, trees, cattle, creeping
things, beasts as in v. 11, 25-28. We have "heavens and earth" in 2:1.
We have this again in 2:4 when the second creation account is begun. In
2:5 the earth brings forth plants and grows them. A mist comes from the
earth in 2:6 to water everything rather than rain. The word "earth" is
used 16 times in the first chapter distinguishing it from heavens, from
waters.
"Ground"
Besides the word for "dry land"
which we have in v. 9, which is the "earth" in a narrower sense, especially
as it brings forth herbs, seeds, trees, fowls, cattle, creeping things,
wild beasts, we have the word "ground" or "adamah." We have this in 2:5,
7, 9, 19. Man was made out of the dust of the ground. God the Lord made
every tree grow out of the ground, including the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil and the tree of life. God formed every beast out of the
ground. It is used four times in chapter 2. The word "Adam" comes from
it.
"Dust"
Another word connected with "earth,"
is "dust," or "aphar" in the original. 2:7 says man was made out of the
dust of the ground. 3:19 says man would return to dust from whence he came
as a punishment for sin. We return to dust when we die, but our bodies
are raised again on the last day.
We see the vast contrast in the way the Bible presents the creation of the Earth out of nothing, at the beginning; how it pictures waters beneath, and how the earth comes out of the water, how it is composed of dry land, ground, and dust in contrast to the picture coming to the modern mind today, which thinks of a big explosion, of gases forming, of rocks millions of years old. The modern mind is more concerned With the so-called great age of the earth than it is with its productivity and does not want to know that it came from God. The Bible sanctifies our research and sets our mind on the right track. We are better scientists, as well as better Christians, when we build on what Scripture says.
VI. THE WATERS
AND FISH
"Swarm"
2 Pet. 3:15 speaks of the world
in old time standing in and out of water. There is much about water in
the first chapter of Genesis. Some claim this is because Palestine was
a dry country, and the author of Genesis was concerned about water as a
personal matter. It is much deeper than that. Water perhaps should have
a greater place in our scientific research than it has.
The word "swarm" in 1:20 "bring forth abundantly," "yish-retzu" in the original, indicates there are many fish in the seas and the waters of the sea produced fish by the Word of God. The variety and abundance of fish in the sea, as we discover today, is remarkable. Water is not dead, but living. Some say we have not even begun to tap the food in the sea, especially when we think of algae.
Fishes and
Birds
In connection with water and seas
we find the creation of whales, fishes, birds. One wonders why "create"
is used with whales in 1:21, the same word "bara" we have in 1:1. But here
is the first reference to animal life. God has to make something out of
nothing to create this first evidence of animal life.
Why were fishes and birds made on the same day? They are somewhat alike in their structure. They both adapt remarkably to environment.
The Grunion
The grunion is a fish which lays
its eggs in the sand exactly at the right month, the right day, the right
hour. It must be very exact or the tides would destroy it or its eggs.
This did not occur by chance. God determines this and wonderfully adapts
the grunion to its environment and needs. The migratory powers of birds
are most remarkable. The homing instinct of the pigeon is amazing. The
Pacific Golden Plover has a remarkable ability to find its way from Alaska
to Hawaii, even though it never has been over the route before. The Arctic
Tern can find its way from one pole to another, making a tremendous flight
of over 22,000 miles.
The Flood
Henry Morris and John Whitcomb
in their book "The Genesis Flood" feel the statement about waters above
and beneath in 1:7 and the earth standing in and out of the water in 2
Pet. 3:5 means that before the Flood there literally were many more waters
above us than now. These shielded out harmful radiation and made the climate
of the world much more ideal. The ground was watered from a mist. This
meant there were fewer storms than we have now, or perhaps none. They feel
the world was much more ideal before the Flood than afterwards. It appears
that it was too good for man, so at the time of the Flood only eight righteous
people were left in the world. God sent the Flood, and since the flood
the world has been a much rougher place in which to live. There is a possibility
that mountain ranges, the extremes of climate, the storms, as well as the
rainbow, did not exist before the flood.
Constitution
of Water
Since water is so important in
the first two chapters of the Bible, it is well that we remind ourselves
of the properties of water It is composed of two parts of hydrogen and
one part of oxygen. It freezes only on top, so that fish and other forms
of sea life can live underneath and is the only substance in nature having
this quality. It forms snow and the snow flake. There are no two snow-flakes
alike. Think of what a blessing snow is. We see the glorious providence
and handiwork of a Designer, of God, of a mind, in the blessing of water.
No wonder that Jesus tells the Samaritan woman in John 4 that He is the
Water of life. As water is a blessing, Jesus is even a greater blessing
for us in His eternal salvation.
VII. GOD'S
WORD AND MAN'S WORD
Now we turn to the use of "Word"
in these first two chapters, as in the ten times we have "And God said."
Science has learned much about speech, the mouth, the ear, sound waves,
and how we communicate thought. It tells us how sound waves are reproduced,
and how they are received in the ear. It tells us about the wonders of
the inner ear, about the cochlea, about the tiny bones that remain the
same size from birth on. It tells us how wonderfully we produce speech.
It tells us something about the speed of sound as compared to the speed
of light.
Yet it cannot give us the origin of speech. It cannot tell us about the greatest speech of all, the Word of God which gives us the salvation of Christ. It cannot tell us how Christ can be the Word of God as stated in John 1. It claims man's speech and thought are the development of the grunts of animals. This sounds more like a theory, like a game, than reality.
Today it is claimed that all matter is made out of three building blocks; proton, electron, and neutron. They are held together in a wonderful way, even as the stars and the planets are held together in space. There must be an outside force holding all this together and keeping it in place. Scientists used to say this was a cosmic ray, until they have learned more of these cosmic rays coming in from outer space. We Christians feel this is the Word of God, Christ Col. 1:1 says that Christ holds all things together; in Him all things "consist," or are held together. Heb. 1:3 says all things are upheld by the Word of His power.
Even as God's Word is remarkable and powerful so is the speech of man. God talked with Adam and Eve and we have no indication He did this with the animals. Man's superiority is much in his speech similar to the Word of God.
The greatest Word we have is not the Word that made and keeps the world, the word we have in our speech, but the word we have in the Bible, whose center is Christ. It not only creates and upholds, but it recreates, after we resist. God's greatest power is in the Bible. Christ is the center of the Bible and science. Science finds its highest position only in Christ. The Word of God is very Important in creation, in man, and in our salvation in Christ.
VIII. LIGHT
Light is the first thing made after
heaven and earth were created, 1:3. The Sun, Moon, and Stars are light
bearers, The distinction between day and night is connected with light,
which rules the day.
Sometimes scientists speak of the wave theory, when they try to analyze light, with light as a series of waves. They speak of the quantum theory, making light a series of jumps. It seems light has both qualities. But we really do not know. We do know light is vital. Already, through the laser ray, we are beginning to use the power of light, even as we use the power of gasoline, steam, electricity, nuclear energy.
Henry Morris in the Creation Research Annual for 1964 says that if we would take away the sun, which transmits much energy to the world by its light, we would have enough energy in the earth to keep it going for three days. Light is energy and gives us energy.
In 1956 Aime Michel, a Frenchman, published a book, called "The Truth About Flying Saucers." He found people having seen flying saucers already in 1870. He feels there is substance to them, and that their power is light power. He feels our present means of trying to conquer space is too expensive and that we will possibly have to find a power derived from light, before we can effectively conquer space.
Genesis One shows that light is the work of Jesus, the Word of God. Light is the first thing created of an orderly nature. Water might have existed before but not with form or substance. Light seems to be essential. Light could be a combination of substances, because "let there be light" in 1:3 allows this.
"Light Holders"
The constellations made in 1:14-18;
the sun, moon, and stars, are not called "lights," "oroth," but "light-holders"
"moroth." God made light separate from the sun, moon, and stars. Now that
they are made they are a source of light for us.
IX. AFTER
ITS KIND
What is a
Kind
Scientists challenge people such
as the creationist biologist, Frank Marsh, to define "kind," for science
does not have this classification. He says it is that which will not cross.
He distinguishes between species and kind.
The word "kind" or "min" is used
ten times in Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24 for herbs, grasses, fruit trees, birds,
fishes, cattle, creeping things, beasts whales and man.
Scientists have developed many species and are classifying more and more. Because we can demonstrate a development from some species to another they claim proof of development from what we call kind to kind. They do not distinguish carefully.
Elaborate charts have been developed to show how a small, three-toed horse evolved into the present many types of horses. This does not prove evolution. It only proves that species can develop within the kind. You might be able to prove the development of the horse, but not a development from a horse to a cow. There were only seven horses coming out of the ark. All the rest of the species of horses developed out of these seven.
Mendel's Laws
If Darwin had known Mendel's laws
he might never have written his "Origin of the Species." Mendel was a priest
living at the time of Darwin, who studied the laws of interbreeding. He
worked with sweet peas. He discovered laws showing there is 25% possibility
in one direction, 25% possibility in another and 50% in another. He found
the law of recessive genes. In spite of the many advances which have been
made in the science Of genetics since his time, especially in learning
about the genes, chromosomes, RNA and DNA factors, these laws still stand.
These laws also demonstrate there is a law of the lower limit. This means
that one can produce change so far, and that is as far as one can go, even
within the kind. For example, the sugar content of the sugar beet was increased
40% from 1870-1900. Since that time no more sugar content could be added.
This is as far as the scientists could go. The same thing is true of hybrid
corn. Today they are no longer able to produce hybrid corn giving greater
yield. They have reached their limit.
Another remarkable statement of Genesis One and Two is that the original diet was a vegetable one. Some feel that animals could hardly be changed so much by the fall of man, giving them teeth and stomachs they did not have before. But sin brought on vast changes. We are not told that permission was given to man to eat meat until Gen. 9:3, after the flood.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden was a test, the simplest test God could give Adam and Eve and they did not keep the test. The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life were in the center of the Garden, in a sort of natural Temple, where Adam and Eve were to worship.
X. GOD'S GOODNESS
One of the arguments in the Bible-Science
field is whether faith in the millions of years and in the development
of man from lower forms reduces a moral standard. The proponents of Theistic
Evolution and Progressive Creation deny this. They claim they are as good
Christians as anyone. Yet, these same people do not believe the world was
made perfect, do not hold that sin changed everything.
One of the arguments of the modern mind is that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are poetical and not true historically or scientifically. They allow for mistakes in the accounts. They lose the spiritual power of these chapters, for it depends on the chapters being perfect. Six times we have the word "and God saw that it was good," in chapter one, with the last time the statement being "very good." This means the world was made perfect, without mistake. The world was not a gradual development.
Then came the fall of man. Sin entered the world. Everything was changed. Even the animals changed and elements of nature. Unless we know and recognize this we lose our sense of the power of sin. We do not have the complete dependence on Christ we must have.
The expression "and God saw that it was good" is used twice on the third day and not at all on the second. Some believe the work of the second day did not become completed until the water and the land were separated, as we have it recorded in the first part of the third day. For this reason, perhaps, Moses waited with this expression until the middle of the third day.
XII. ANIMALS
Animals are much like men to be
good companions for men. This does not make them man's ancestors.
They were made on the sixth day.
Cattle, domesticated animals; beasts, wild animals, and creeping things
are distinguished. The Bible does not claim to be exhaustive. These distinctions
are not "kinds" but only general divisions for hearers and readers.
Animals are made out of the dust of the ground 1:24, where it says the earth brought them forth; 1:25 where it says they were made out of earth; 2:19 where it says they were made out of the ground, even as Adam was.
Animals Named
God, no doubt, made the animals
male and female from the beginning. When Adam named all of them, he could
see how he was missing something. We find a general rule in the order of
creation. First, heaven and earth to prepare for light and sky. Then light
and sky to prepare for planets, along with water. Then planets and trees
as food for animal life. Then fishes, birds, animals. Then man was made,
with everything having been prepared for him. Imagine God making man, without
having made food for him to eat or air for him to breathe. Man was made
much higher than animals.
XIII. MAN
Wonderfully
Made
Man is wonderfully made. Think
of the eye. It is better than any camera focusing automatically, giving
color and motion. The nerves in the eye carry information to the brain.
The most expensive camera cannot equal our eye.
The ear has an outer and inner
ear, tranferring air waves to liquid waves. The cochlea reproduces at least
2500 shades of sound.
The heart pumps 12 pints of blood through hundreds of thousands of miles of blood vessels every minute. In one day it pumps enough to fill a large gasoline truck to overflowing. In a life-time of 70 years it pumps enough blood to fill a string of tank cars fifty miles long. It beats two and one-half million times without a shutdown for repairs. The Bible account of creation satisfies reason much better than to explain this by chance.
The Soul
The strange fact is that the Hebrew
word for "soul" "nephesh" is used both for the soul of man and for life-principle
in animals. Many say that the soul is part of the body and neither soul
or body will rise. But God separates soul and body in Matt. 10:28, and
both will be united on the last day. The soul or spirit of man cannot be
explained by the test tube of science or by science's psychology. We must
judge the use of the word "soul" or "nephesh" by the context.
Image of God
1:27 says Man was made in the image
of God. Because of Eph. 4:24 and Col. 3:10 we think that the image of God
was the holiness of God and the knowledge of God. Adam and Eve lost this
when they fell into sin. We regain it through Christ and have it perfectly
in heaven.
Man is made last of all. He is the crown of creation. The world exists for the sake of man. Man in perfection worked hard. He ruled over the world. Today his rule is not as great as it was then.
Institution
of Marriage
The last part of chapter two gives
the institution of marriage. Woman was made, given to man, became one of
his own, flesh of his flesh. Moses under inspiration says that a man shall
leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall
be one flesh. Jesus uses this in Matt. 19 to show that marriage should
be between one man and one woman and should be for life.
Woman was not taken from the head to lord it over man, or from the feet to be in subjection in an abject way. But she was taken from the side, to show she is equal to man. She is subject to him for the sake of order, not because of inferiority.
There is such an intimate relationship in marriage because husband and wife become one flesh. This makes for the greatest of earthly happiness. If worldly pleasures were sinful then the institution of marriage would be sinful. But it was conceived in perfection.
Woman is here placed on a pedestal. This is the great thing that distinguishes the Christian religion from a heathen one. Christianity makes woman subject to man for the sake of order, and then places her on a pedestal and gives her honor and reverence no other religion gives. She has a glory man does not have.
XIV. TWO CREATION
ACCOUNTS
There are striking differences
between the creation account in Gen. 1:1 - 2:3 and that of Gen. 2:4 - 25.
The word "God," is used exclusively in the first and the word "Lord God"
only in the second. The second gives details of the creation of Eve not
found in the first. The love of God in creating the garden of Eden is only
in the second.
The use of the word "jahve" or
"Jehovah" which our King James translates "Lord" is found first in Gen.
2:4. It refers to the covenant God, the God of love.
We find some difficulty in having everything made in the sixth day as the second account describes it. This means God made animals on the sixth day, creeping things, man, the Garden of Eden naming the animals, placing Adam into a deep sleep, creating woman and instituting marriage.
In the first account the word "blessing" refers to reproduction, in the second it refers to other blessings.
In the first account, the word "day" generally means about 24 hours a solar day. Gen. 2:4 could mean that, but it could also mean a broader day, the day when the Lord made heavens and earth.
Many say there are two opposing
accounts. Some say Moses wrote one and another writer the other later.
We are sure Moses wrote all of it. Jesus indicates this in the New Testament.
There is no real conflict between the two accounts. The second account
is more concerned with man and things concerning him than the first is.
The Garden of Eden probably was
somewhere in the Middle East, connected with the Tigres and Euphrates rivers
we know today. The fall of man, the curse, their being driven out, the
flood, all could have changed geography greatly, making it difficult to
find today. We must consider the Garden as historically true and basic
for our hope and our salvation.
CONCLUSION
The two chapters of Genesis considered
contradict none of the facts of science, but give that which helps the
scientists, keeps them from wasting time, gives them solid foundation,
makes them better scientists. Above all, it shows the need of Jesus and
leads us to His salvation. It should be considered as perfect, as historic,
as factual. This also makes us better Christians and better theologians.
May this discussion assist in making the readers better scientists and
better Christians.
SCIENCE and the BIBLE
by Wilbert Rusch
1) WHAT SCIENCE
IS
As with so many words we use today,
it is not certain that the precise meaning of the term 'science' is always
understood. I remember attending a graduate seminar where the whole period
was devoted to arriving at a consensus of what the word 'science' really
meant, and there was much discussion with considerable disagreement. The
word 'science' is derived from the Latin 'scire' meaning 'to know.' It
is believed that the first public use of the word was perhaps in the title
"The British Association for the Advancement of Science," founded in 1831.
The word 'science' implies the collective human knowledge in any field
of study, but is ordinarily applied to any organized field of study investigated
by the scientific method, and to any practical application of the body
of facts obtained by such investigatlon. Since we are forced into an increasing
specialization of endeavor science is today divided into a number of fields,
each of which is known as a 'science.' Many agree that the natural sciences,
parts of psychology, and such parts of the social sciences as anthropology,
some sociology, and some economics are true sciences.
DIFFERENT
FIELDS OF SCIENCE
It might also be well to point
out the relation between the various fields of science. The natural sciences
deal with that body of knowledge concerned with matter; matter in the very
small, as in the basic particles that make up the atoms, ranging all the
way to matter in the very large, that which collectively we call the universe.
The natural sciences are subdivided into physical sciences and biological
sciences. Some will call for a third subdivision, the earth sciences, while
others will consider them as belonging to the physical sciences. Each of
these major groups is then further subdivided. For example, the physical
sciences are represented by physics and chemistry; the biological sciences
by botany and zoology; and the earth sciences by geology and geography,
and possibly astronomy.
All of these subdivisions today run into each other. It has become increasingly difficult to teach biology without a basic knowledge of some physics and chemistry; astronomy while out in space, still deals with the basic laws of physics; and geology is becoming increasingly tied up with physics and chemistry. Of the three major groups, the physical sciences have the advantage that they are characterized by a relatively large number of verifiable explanations called hypotheses as well as some hypotheses which have not been verified. The biological and earth sciences are characterized by very few verifiable hypotheses with mostly hypotheses which have not and cannot, by their very nature be verified.
SCIENTIFIC
AGES
For the last one hundred and fifty
years, we of the Western world have been living in various scientific ages.
For example, prior to about 1890, we were in the mechanical age; this was
followed by the electrical age, and since 1942, we have been living in
the atomic age. Today, particularly in America, science in all its phases
has become a mighty factor in our personal lives.
In these cold war times, we are depending on our technological lead to keep the peace for us just as we used it to bring victory in the last world war. Our high standard of living with its many material comforts is at least in part, due to the tremendous strides made in scientific investigations. Through science, we are better able to nourish our bodies, till the soil, combat disease, and house and clothe ourselves. Through the application of scientific discoveries, we are saved much of the past manual labor of man. We can travel extensively, thanks to automobiles, boats, railroads & planes. We are able to find the time to amuse ourselves due to the shortened hours of the work week, and what is more, we have the energy to enjoy them due to decreasing physical effort required in our work day.
One natural result of all these benefits is that the average American tends to listen to the voice of science as to the voice of authority. This becomes noticeable when we consider a favored device of the advertiser on commercials that are part of many television programs. We have all come to look upon the white coat as signifying a doctor or scientist engaged in research, therefore when a man wearing a white coat appears on the television screen reporting the results of impartial testing we are to be convinced learned men of "science" are talking and the viewer goes out to the nearest store to buy the product. I imagine that the widespread use of this technique is an indication of the extent to which the average man bows down before the voice of science.
This development was probably what impelled Anthony Standen to write his rather well-known work, SCIENCE IS A SACRED COW, which urges caution in such bowing down before science. SCIENTIFIC METHOD The basic philosophy of science seems to be embodied in the concept of the scientific method. The philosopher Francis Bacon in his NOVUM ORGANUM described that at an early date in the following manner; "There remains a simple experiment which if taken as it comes, is called accident; if sought for, experiment.
The true method of experience first lights the candle and then by means of the candle shows the way, commencing as it does with the experience duly ordered and digested, not bungling nor erratic, and from it deducing axioms, from establishing axioms, again new experiments." Today the scientific method is considered to be composed of the following elements: First, recognition of a phenomenon that requires explanation; second, the mustering of all available data concerning the phenomenon; third, experimental observation, which usually requires quantitative measurements; fourth, the development of a hypothesis by inductive reasoning, this being the working basis for further ex-perimentaion. After sufficient experiments have been carried out to be statistically valid, the hypothesis may elevated to the status of a theory. Often a theory that withstands the test of time is called a law, which in the past was considered to be the ultimate or absolute finality. Of necessity, in recent years, the failure of a number of time-honored laws to hold has almost led to the abandonment of this concept of the absolute.
SCIENCE AS
A PROFESSION
An interesting sidelight on scientific
investigation is the shift in personnel that has taken place in the last
hundred years. Today, we usually think of the scientist as being a professional
worker, associated with a university, a hospital or commercial laboratory
which, in turn, may either be associated with a specific industrial complex
or freelance; or, he might be on the staff of a philanthropic research
center such as the Rockefeller Foundation. This was not always the status
of the scientist. In the past, the scientist was more often an amateur.
If he had to be employed, science was his hobby. If he was independently
wealthy, he could play at science full-time. This meant that in many cases
the scientific advancement was carried on primarily by the nobility and
the wealthy.
SCIENCE BY
AMATEURS
I doubt whether many are aware
of the fact that Darwin studied theology, and his only earned degree was
the B.D. His family was wealthy enough that he never worked for salary,
and he could study and write at his leisure. This was also the case with
Linnaeus, who could afford to travel over the whole of Europe. Lavoisier,
the father of modern chemistry, was a French politician who held many public
offices prior to the French Revolution. Interestingly enough, he lost his
head in that holocaust to the accompaniment of cries of "The republic needs
no scientists." Loewenhoek, the father of microbiology, was a draper and
the janitor of the Delft town hall. Cope and Marsh, noted vertebrate paleontologists
of the 1870's and after, were independently wealthy and devoted themselves
to fossil hunting as a full-time hobby.
Benjamin Franklin was a statesman, as was Thomas Jefferson, but Franklin had a profound interest in the field of applied physics, while Jefferson was involved in early American paleontology. In fact, he was responsible for the first American fossils arriving at French Museums. Hutton, famous in geology, was a doctor, as was Thomas Huxley the champion of Darwin. Malthus, who stated the Malthusian population principles, was a clergyman. Mendel, who laid the foundation for genetics, was an Austrian monk.
In Victorian days, many microscopic discoveries were made by amateurs. As I worked in a number of university museums in the fields of entomology and dendrology, I was often struck by the large numbers of collections that were made by amateurs. Also, a number of today's learned societies had their beginnings as amateur organizations.
PURE &
APPLIED SCIENCE
I might close this section by pointing
out that one finds frequent mention of the terms "pure" and "applied" science.
Pure science implies scientific investigation proper, without any thought
of financial return, but having as its aim simply the acquisition of additional
knowledge of our environment. Industries that have research laboratories
are also engaged in pure science, but the aim is always some process of
product that will yield financial returns. Applied science is the term
given to such professions as medicine, engineering, aeronautics and electronics.
These professions utilize the findings of pure science. The university
laboratories are more likely to be engaged in pure research, while the
commercial laboratories are engaged primarily in applied research.
2) SOME LIMITATIONS
OF SCIENCE
Over 1900 years ago, Pilate asked
the question "What is truth?" Philosophers for many centuries before and
after Pilate have been asking out of their uncertainty: "To what degree
of certainty can we know any thing?" However, there have always been those
who were dogmatic and, out of their own reasoning, knew the ultimate answer.
In his day, Francis Bacon recognized the existence of two extremes in his
NOVUM ORGANUM when he said, "There are those who have taken upon them to
lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood,"
and he also said, "There are those on the other hand who have taken a contrary
course and asserted that absoutely nothing can be known." But he adds,
"The more ancient of the Greeks whose writings have been lost, took up
with better judgement a position between these two extremes— between
the presumption of pronouncing on everything and the despair of comprehending
anything."
Things haven't changed much through the centuries, since reading of late scientific literature represents all three positions. Unfortunately, many of those written on the elementary and popular levels hold more to the dogmatic, "everything's settled" approach. Unfortunate because it is at this level that young people first are acquainted with scientific literature and here that their ideas are first formed. A man of the stature of James B. Conant has written that he regards all scientific theories as highly provisional, 1 however, I do not feel that his statement is representative of the position expressed by popular science writers today. Of course, it is possible that I have been reading the wrong books and magazines.
One of the causes of the strife between science and Biblical theory is based on the philosophy that the methodology of science is sufficient in itself to solve all of man's problems and to answer all his questions. This is, however, stepping from science to scientism. Teaching this approach in effect establishes a rival religion, and in essence promotes atheism. A few examples of this attitude follow:
John Tyndall was a famous Irish physicist of the late 1800's In 1874, at Belfast, Ireland, as president of the British Association, he delivered a rather famous address where he stated that science alone was competent to deal with all of man's problems.
1 James B. Conant, SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1951. P. 28
(Continued in Next Issue)
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