Voyager 1 is on a “magnetic highway”

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Popular media reports that the Voyager 1 probe has left the solar system are premature, according to NASA. Back in December, NASA reported that Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977, had entered a region known as a “magnetic highway” that is a boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. The magnetic highway is a region where the magnetic field lines of the Sun meet the magnetic field lines of interstellar space, permitting charged particles to stream into and out of the solar system. Voyager scientists expect the spacecraft to cross this highway and enter interstellar space soon, but have seen no evidence for this crossing yet.

Update: xkcd comments on Voyager 1’s latest journey out of the solar system:

So far Voyager 1 has ‘left the Solar System’ by passing through the termination shock three times, the heliopause twice, and once each through the heliosheath, heliosphere, heliodrome, auroral discontinuity, Heaviside layer, trans-Neptunian panic zone, magnetogap, US Census Bureau Solar System statistical boundary, Kuiper gauntlet, Oort void, and crystal sphere holding the fixed stars.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 9

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8. 

Since becoming a Christian and living in an environment where your faith is tested every day, have you experienced doubt? If so, what has brought you through those doubts?

I have never had my faith tested in my work environment. Science is fully compatible with the Christian faith; in fact, modern science is not possible outside of the Christian framework (as will be discussed in future posts).

However, my faith has been tested numerous times by the increasingly secular humanist culture in America. Mostly that takes the form of concern over the state of the country and the world, material concerns, and worrying about the mortality of my loved ones and myself. What brings me through those doubts every time is: 1) remembering that ours is a fallen world, and realizing how fruitless it is to worry about things none of us can possibly change; and 2) trusting in God’s promises, that Christ will return, and the paradise we all long for will come. 

How hard is it to work in the field of academia in an anti-Christian environment from a faith perspective?

I can only speak from my own experience. It’s not difficult at all for me to conduct scientific research in my current environment. I’m not in a tenure-track position, so I don’t know how difficult it might be from the perspective of Christian faculty trying to gain tenure, e.g. if compromises have to be made. Personally, I find the academic environment—in the STEM part of campus, anyway—pleasant and comfortable, and have so far been able to ignore the anti-Christian sentiment that generally pervades most university campuses.

How do you recommend Christian students react to professors who are intolerant of their Christian faith?

It depends on how this intolerance manifests. If a professor merely expresses his/her own personal negative opinion of the Christian faith in the classroom, you could decide whether you want to use this as an opportunity to initiate a class discussion or just let it pass if you think it won’t interfere with your ability to succeed in the class. However, if a professor is actively discriminating against you on the basis of your faith, this is the time for formal action. If you are concerned that you are being harassed and/or punished by your professor (e.g. through grade reductions) because of your faith, then you should immediately take your concerns to the Office of the Student Ombuds.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 8

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7. 

What is the most important piece of knowledge you have come to learn about evolution since becoming a believer?

Darwin was a great scientist and pioneer in the field of biology. In that regard he is similar to Copernicus in the field of physics. Physicists honor Copernicus, but they also recognize and readily admit his shortcomings. He helped accomplish the first great paradigm shift that set science on its present course of discovery. What a great thing to do! But he was wrong about some important things; the Sun is not the center of the universe, and planets do not travel in perfectly circular orbits. We forgive Copernicus for his mistakes, because he did his work before the basic tools and higher mathematics of astronomy were developed. How could he be expected to get everything right four hundred years ago?

Darwin worked under similar limitations decades before the revolutionary discoveries of the Burgess Shale fossils and genes. So, once again, how could the great pioneer in the field of biology have gotten everything right all the way back in the mid 1860s? That would not be a fair expectation on the part of either supporters or detractors of Darwin.

The main principles of Darwinism are common descent, random mutation, natural selection, and gradualism. Each of these components is a necessary part of current evolutionary theory, which is important because people often confuse evolution theory for just one of these parts—the common descent of all animal life. It is true that common descent has all but been ‘proven,’ about as well as any scientific belief can be proven, and there can be little remaining doubt about it. But, the massive evidence in favor of common descent neither establishes the truth of evolution theory as a whole nor undercuts Christian beliefs. The most that can be said is that Darwin’s championing of this principle counts as a great success of the same magnitude as Copernicus’ heliocentric theory.

But, Darwin, just like Copernicus, got some things wrong. The fossil evidence does not support gradualism. In the words of one of the most respected biologists of modern times, Niles Eldredge, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City: “The fossil record we were told to find for the past 120 years does not exist.”

It was Darwin who told biologists what to expect in the fossil record, and this mistake was a significant failure on his part.

In fact, the fossil evidence contradicts Darwin so badly, it compelled Eldridge and his more famous partner, Stephen Jay Gould, to offer something they called ‘punctuated equilibrium’ as an alternative to strict Darwinism. There are other serious problems with Darwinism (the mathematics of random mutations doesn’t work and there is a fatal lack of empirical evidence for natural selection), but, for the sake of brevity, it is enough to say that without gradualism Darwinism is seriously undone. In other words, Darwin was wrong about at least one major thing.

In light of this, the most important thing any scientist can come to learn about evolution is that biologists are generally incapable of saying the following words: “Darwin was wrong.”

Physicists can say without hesitation that there were times when “Galileo was wrong, Newton was wrong, and Einstein was wrong.” In spite of their mistakes, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein are still considered giants in the field of physics. Why can’t biologists make the same and obviously true statement about Darwin? I believe it is because strict Darwinism has become anti-Christian gospel, and many biologists are betraying science by promoting and defending this dogma.

Would the discovery of intelligent life on another planet disprove the existence of God?

Why would God be limited to creating one group of beings with souls in just one part of a vast universe? While the Bible is addressed to and concerned about the conscious beings inhabiting the Earth, there is nothing in the Bible that says that life was created only on Earth. “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2). See here and here for further discussion.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 7

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6. 

What was the most difficult specific objection to faith (particularly Christianity) that you had to get past? / What was the biggest stumbling block to faith that you had to overcome? / For new believers, how do you get past the line of ‘the Bible is just a story’ into faith? I’ve accepted that there is a God, but I’m struggling with accepting Jesus.

As a scientist, I know that the opening book of the Bible is confirmed by science: the Genesis account of creation makes at least 26 statements that are testable by modern science. These statements are not only consistent with our current scientific understanding, but, amazingly, in the correct order. This could not be the result of some lucky guesses. The most reasonable explanation is that it is not ‘just a story,’ but was divinely inspired. Many other stories of the Bible are likewise confirmed by archeology and historical accounts.

But what about the claims about Jesus in the Gospels? I sympathize with new believers who are struggling to accept Jesus, because I’ve been there. I initially had great difficulty believing the Gospels are true, that Jesus really was the Son of God, and that he was sent to Earth to pay for our sins and reconcile us with God. But I was able to reason my way to accepting the truth of the Gospels.

There were two main things that led me to accept Jesus and become Christian. The first was the observation that everything I value in this world is a product, either directly or indirectly, of the Christian faith: science, prosperity, and freedom. History demonstrates that without Christianity there would be no individual rights to protect people against abuses of power, no modern science to raise humankind out of ignorance, and no free market economy (Weber called it rational capitalism) to free billions from abject poverty. Other things, such as widespread literacy, the end of the worldwide slave-trade, and the sense of optimism that invigorates much of humanity, is the result of Christianity as well. As I observe events around the world and throughout history, it is obvious to me that the Christian faith generally acts as a brake against humanity’s worst tendencies and as the inspiration for people to consistently rise above their base nature. As a scientist, I had to acknowledge that there must be something real about the beliefs and faith that motivate people to behave in these extraordinarily good and productive ways.

This doesn’t prove the central claims of Christianity, but it should nonetheless give us great confidence in their truth. It is somewhat the same way that we know the fundamental assumptions of high school geometry are true. (I know that sounds weird, but stay with me.) Euclidean geometry is based on ten basic ideas (five postulates and five common notions) that can never be proven to be true—we just accept them to make the mathematics work. But, we don’t accept them blindly or in the face of evidence to the contrary. We are confident of their truth, because whatever we try to do in plane geometry based on those postulates works out in useful ways. Likewise, we can observe that whatever people try to do in this world based on the principles of the Christian faith tends to work out more often than not in wonderful ways.

The second thing that led me to believe was that the Christian faith is the only faith/philosophy that explains evil. If you accept that there is evil in the world, the Christian explanation is not only the only one that makes sense, it’s the only one that offers hope of eventually overcoming evil.

I finally realized it came down to accepting Christ or accepting that nothing matters. I chose the former, partly on the basis of reason and partly on hope. I’ll admit, the day I was baptized I felt like a bit of a fraud, because I wasn’t feeling it deep down inside. My intellect had come to terms with the commitment, but my heart hadn’t. So, I accepted Jesus on faith. Contrary to what atheists claim, it wasn’t the sort of faith that insists you proceed in the absence of knowledge or in spite of evidence to the contrary. Rather, it was the sort of faith C. S. Lewis described when he said we hold onto a belief we have accepted through reason in spite of our transitory emotions.

Now, some years after my conversion, I no longer feel like a fraud. I have fully embraced my identity in Christ, and my faith has been internalized to the point that it has given me a degree of peace in my life and guidance through all the confusion. I know my faith is real, because it has sustained me through some very difficult times.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 6

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5. 

What’s the most common scientific argument you encounter against Christianity? How have you responded?

The most common scientific arguments against Christianity are the following:

1. The six days of creation are completely contrary to modern science.

This is false. See here for a thorough explanation of this.

2. Evolution explains everything and makes God ‘unnecessary.’

The first part of this statement is false; the second part is an extremely weak and silly argument. First, Darwinism in all of its forms has not provided answers for the most fundamental biological questions of all: how did life originate, what caused the tremendous explosion of life forms in the Cambrian explosion, why do different phyla of animal life share common genes, what is human consciousness, and where does human consciousness come from? Modern biologists who make grand pronouncements about God end up sounding like teenagers who discover where their mom and dad keep the car keys and the credit cards and then declare that their parents are no longer necessary. They are also like kids in their immature conviction that they know everything. They once confidently declared that they knew how life started: huge amounts of time in which nearly infinite random combinations of chemicals occurred solved the problem of the origins of life on Earth. Then the fossil evidence destroyed that argument by showing that life arose almost immediately after water formed on the Earth; there was no long period of time for random processes to work their magic (it really was a case of magical thinking all along).

Then the Darwinists said, well, never mind that we really don’t have an explanation for the origins of life; once life started, it developed and diversified without any supernatural help. According to evolutionary theory the various phyla of the animal kingdom all evolved separately according to the laws of random mutation and natural selection. That claim turned out not to be true either.

Sean B. Carroll is a current Darwinist biologist at the forefront of a new field of study known as evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom, he announces the startling discovery that animal life forms as different as mammals and insects share interchangeable genes, something that Darwinists always believed was impossible:

[T]he prevailing view of the architects and adherents of Modern Synthesis was that the process of random mutation and selection would so alter DNA and protein sequences that only closely related species would bear homologous genes. … Virtually everything I have described … has been discovered in the past twenty years. … The insights provided by these discoveries … [have] forced biologists to rethink completely their picture of how forms evolve. (p. 285, emphasis added)

In other words, Darwinists (“the architects and adherents of Modern Synthesis”) are “completely” wrong about how life developed on Earth. With a track record like this, biologists should be humble enough not to make grand pronouncements that God does not exist or is unnecessary.

3. The idea of a creator god doesn’t provide any final or satisfying answer, because the question remains ‘who or what made God?’

This is more of a philosophical question with scientific overtones and implications.

Whether atheists like it or not (and they don’t), big bang theory necessitates the inclusion of the supernatural in all philosophical and scientific discussions about the origins of the universe and life. Something outside and greater than (super-) the universe (nature) must have caused it to come into being. Taking this logic one step further, there must be something outside our universe that has, as an inherent quality, the power to exist. In other words, at the bottom of everything is something or ‘someone’ that was not made by something else. We can’t understand this power or the nature of the thing that holds it, but we are living proof that it ‘exists’ in some unfathomable manner.

Rather than argue about the unknowable, we should pose the most obvious question worth asking, “Is this entity that possesses the power to exist conscious or unconscious?” These two alternatives seem to exhaust the possibilities and be mutually exclusive. If you can think of another possibility, let me know.

If one prefers to believe that the creative power behind the universe is unconscious, then the fundamental entity would be some form of eternal material universe based on equally eternal natural laws. Since we are reasonably sure this universe is not eternal, we would be forced to fall back on notions such as the multiverse. Because of the limitations of science, these ideas will never be anything more than unprovable speculation forever consigned to the realms of philosophy, science fiction, or anti-Christian dogma.

I find these unconscious alternatives not only emotionally and intellectually unsatisfying, but truly terrifying. Atheists generally take this idea just one baby-step further by grandly pronouncing that all we have is this one life, and we should courageously accept the truth and live that life to the fullest. But, why bother? According to them, all of humankind will be exterminated and nothing anyone does, feels, or learns will have any lasting significance. As bad as that sounds, the reality of an eternal universe is actually far worse.

One of the most annoying things about atheists who make this argument about ‘who made God’ is their inability to take an idea all the way to its most logical conclusion. Consider for a moment the two most fundamental aspects of their eternal material universe:

  1. Another word for eternal is infinite (in time).
  2. In the unconscious eternal material universe, everything would happen according to the laws of probability.

Put these two things together and the result is total weirdness that offends reason.

We don’t know what the exact probability of you existing in an eternal material world is, but we do know it is some positive non-zero value, because you exist. So, what is the probability that you could exist twice? According to the mathematics of probability, you can calculate that by multiplying the probability you will exist by itself. Well, a positive number multiplied by a positive number is … a positive number. In other words, you could exist in two or more places at the same time, and you will definitely exist again given an infinite amount of time. But it gets more complicated than that because an infinite amount of anything plays havoc with our sense of reality.

If the universe is eternal, you have already lived an infinite number of lives. You have already lived each of these lives an infinite number of times. Each life was lived and then completely lost—no memories, no lasting achievements, no personal growth, no enduring love. There is only an endless and pointless repetition. Really! I can imagine no more terrifying prospect than this utter and endless lack of purpose.

Science is ultimately incapable of proving anything either way. So, I chose for non-scientific but rational reasons to hope that the creative power behind the universe is conscious. That is the only chance we have for meaning, purpose, and love.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 5

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. 

What was it about Christianity that made you feel hostile towards it before you read the Bible?

There were three childhood experiences that I think set the stage for the hostility that would manifest later. The first was an experience with some overtly Christian children in my elementary school. They belonged to a denomination that didn’t allow participation in any of the holiday celebrations at my school or celebration of birthdays at home. As a kid whose entire kid-existence revolved around holidays and birthdays, this got me thinking that Christianity must be pretty dismal.

The second was one of the TV shows my brother and I were allowed to watch. (Even though my parents weren’t religious, they carefully scrutinized everything we watched on TV.) The show was called Little House on the Prairie, and most of the characters were good, moral, church-going people. But I remember thinking these people were fairly wimpy when it came to dealing with the jerks and evil-doers who would appear in their community from time to time. Because of this, in my mind, Christianity came to be associated with weakness.

The third experience was with a friend of mine, who would occasionally lecture me that hers was the only true church and everyone who didn’t belong to her denomination would not go to heaven. I remember thinking, if God is that picky about his believers, he must be rather petty.

If those had been the only influences, I doubt I would have felt as hostile towards Christianity as I did later on. I strongly believe my hostile feelings were further influenced by popular culture and public schooling, both of which were already becoming aggressively humanist and propagandizing by the time I was a teenager. When I was about 16 or 17, I had also developed an interest in Objectivism, a philosophy that has some good principles, but is extremely hostile towards religion. This hostility is based on a very flawed and myopic view of religion, particularly Christianity. Foolishly, I believed some of the claims of Objectivists without investigating them for myself.

What is your colleagues’ biggest reason for thinking the Gospel is not worth believing?

There are lots of reasons many educated people reject the Gospel, but in my estimation the two biggest reasons are that they: (1) find Christianity philosophically weak or trivial; and (2) they don’t want any restrictions imposed on them.

With regard to (1), the problem is that many of them have not studied scripture in depth, and instead rely on myths and Christian stereotypes to form their opinions. Unfortunately, some Christians have fed the stereotype of Christianity as un-scientific and anti-intellectual, and this has tainted scripture by association. As Nobel laureate George P. Thomson once said, just about every physicist would’ve accepted the idea of God by now if the Bible hadn’t unfortunately mentioned it a long time ago and made the idea seem old-fashioned.

As for (2), I think even the most intelligent and educated people don’t object to the Gospel on purely logical grounds. Believing the Gospel means taking a narrow path in life, and few people enjoy having restrictions placed on them, particularly if those restrictions seem arbitrary. I think (2) is actually the root of most people’s objection to the Christian faith (or just about any religion)—it certainly was the root of mine. And, in my case, the ‘logical’ reasons for rejecting Christianity were mostly after-the-fact rationalizations.

Questions from Christian Students, Part 4

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Sarah was recently invited, along with two other scientists, to take part in a panel discussion for a group of mostly Christian students. After the main discussion, students were invited to submit questions via text message; there was very little time to address them, so only a few were answered. The questions were quite good, so over the next few weeks, Surak and Sarah will answer most of them here. All of the questions are listed in the Intro to this series. See also: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3. 

You mentioned the big bang.  In your interpretation, does the big bang coincide with the moment of creation? / How does scientific proof of the big bang line up with the biblical teaching of creationism?

The scientific theory of the big bang is in every way consistent with the Genesis account of creation. These two very different ways of understanding the origin of the universe agree on all of the basics:

  • The universe had a beginning.
  • The universe was created out of nothing (nothing material).
  • What came before the big bang is scientifically unknowable.
  • There was no matter in the universe just after creation.
  • Something scientifically inexplicable happened just after the big bang. Physicists believe that something unusual (and so far unexplained) happened, and they call this one-time event ‘inflation.’ In scripture this one-time act of God is a miracle.
  • After this one-time event, light came into existence.
  • Darkness was created as something more than just the absence of light—in science this phenomenon is studied as dark matter and dark energy.
  • Our universe is constructed out of what scientists call fluids and the Bible calls ‘waters’ (ancient Hebrew vocabulary was very limited—about 3000 words—and didn’t have a different word for fluids).
  • The stars and galaxies were formed after light appeared.
  • The Earth was formed after stars first appeared.
  • Bodies of water and continents formed on Earth.
  • Life almost immediately came into existence after these bodies of water formed.
  • There was a progression in life forms.
  • When the atmosphere became oxygen-rich it became transparent, which made the Sun, Moon, and stars visible from the Earth’s surface for the first time.
  • Life first developed in water and eventually spread to dry land.
  • Winged insects appeared.
  • Dinosaurs lived (in the ancient Hebrew of Gen. 1:21 they are called e·thninm e·gdlim—the reptiles great).
  • Other winged creatures besides insects appear.
  • Mammals appear.
  • Hominids appear.
  • Conscious man appears.

When convincing evidence for the big bang was presented in the 1960s, newspaper headlines declared that the Bible had been vindicated1.

However, we must be careful not to overstate what science has done or is capable of doing. Science has not and cannot ‘prove’ that the big bang occurred. There is nothing in any branch of science that has been proven once and for all. Anyone searching for finality in understanding will be disappointed with science. Scientists have found evidence of the big bang that is so compelling that the theory is now accepted by most in the scientific community. But like every other theory in science it has gaps and unanswered questions.

Most important of all, science is the study of our material universe. It cannot directly address questions about what may or may not be outside the universe. The existence of God is therefore not scientifically provable or disprovable. What has been accomplished since the discovery of relativity, particle physics, and the big bang is the overthrow of the false argument that science and scripture are incompatible. That is enough.

—–

[1] Several newspapers reported on astronomical observations, presented at the Royal Astronomical Society’s February 1961 meeting, that appeared to rule out steady-state theory. The Evening Standard published an article with the headline “‘How it all began’ fits in with Bible story” (Peter Fairley, 10 February 1961), and the Evening News and Star featured an article headlined, “The Bible was right,” (Evening News Science Reporter, 10 February 1961).

Ancient martian flood channels revealed in 3D

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Ancient martian water channels revealed in 3D by the SHARAD instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Sapienza University of Rome/Smithsonian Institution/USGS]

Ancient martian water channels buried beneath the volcanic region, Elysium Planitia, are revealed in 3D by the SHARAD radar instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Sapienza University of Rome/Smithsonian Institution/USGS]


A team of scientists has used data from the SHARAD radar instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft to create 3D maps of buried water channels on Mars, and in the process discovered that the channels are twice as deep as previously thought. The channels were carved out billions of years ago by an ancient megaflood, but have since been covered by lava from volcanic activity. Radar allows scientists to penetrate the layers of lava to obtain information about the depth of the channels underneath. More details about this discovery at the Smithsonian blog.

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