creation

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The Blue Planet: Designed by a Loving Creator – The Daily Declaration

From the Daily Declaration

From its precise orbit to its life-giving atmosphere, Earth’s fine-tuning seems too perfect for chance. Explore ten remarkable features that make our planet uniquely suited for life.

When astronauts went into space for the first time, one of the first things they noticed was that the Earth had a beautiful blue glow when viewed from space. This is why the Earth is called the ‘blue planet’.

Despite discovering many hundreds of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers have not found a planet anything like the Earth.

Isaiah wrote that the Earth was deliberately designed to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18), and the psalmist wrote that the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord (Psalm 33:5). Modern discoveries have shown these statements to be wonderfully true.

Finely Tuned for Life

Some of the most important ways that the Earth is well designed for life are:

(1) It is the right distance from the Sun for producing the right amount of heat and light. The Earth also has a remarkably circular orbit, which means that the distance from the sun varies by only a tiny amount as the Earth circles the Sun. In contrast, all other known planets have elliptical orbits.

(2) It has a diameter for producing the right amount of gravity. If the Earth were much larger, then gravity would be too large, and we would feel very heavy. However, if the Earth were much smaller, then gravity would be too small and, like the moon walkers, we would find it difficult to grip the ground. The level of gravity is also just right for biological processes.

(3) It has a rate of spin for producing the right amount of night for sleeping and right amount of daylight for activities in the day. The rate of spin also produces stable weather and temperatures. If the length of day were much shorter, then there would be severe weather patterns all over the world. However, if the length of day were much longer, then the nights would be too cold and the days too hot.

(4) It has the right tilt for creating seasons. The Earth’s axis is tilted by around 23.5 degrees with respect to its orbit around the Sun. This tilt is high enough to produce distinctive seasons, but not so high that excessive temperatures occur around the world as the seasons change.

(5) It has a remarkably smooth surface. Even the highest mountains and deepest oceans represent tiny variations in height compared to the diameter of the Earth. In most places on Earth, the variations in height are around 0.01 per cent of the Earth’s diameter, which is an incredibly small variation. The smoothness of the Earth is one key reason why the Earth has such stable and mild weather.

(6) Its moon is an ideal size for producing the right tides. If the moon were much larger, then there would be huge tidal waves every day. However, if the moon were much smaller, then tides would not be enough for preventing coastal waters from becoming stagnant.

(7) It has the right amount of water. The oceans make up about 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, which is ideal for creating a weather system that brings abundant clean and fresh water to the land. The oceans also supply much seafood and help to create coastlines.

(8) The earth has abundant quantities of the right materials, such as metals, which are very useful for building and technology. Renewable materials like wood are also extremely important for human existence.

(9) It has the right atmosphere for supporting life. The 21 per cent oxygen is enough for breathing animals, but not so much that it causes poisoning or fires. The 78 per cent nitrogen is just right because, unlike other gases like carbon dioxide, it does not cause global warming.

(10) It has the right brightness of sky. The Earth’s atmosphere is such that light is scattered by air molecules, and this produces a beautiful blue colour right across the sky. In contrast, on places like the moon, the sky is black.

A Sky Made to Be Admired — and a Creator Who Cares

The Earth is so special that God even made billions of stars to shine light on the Earth during the night. This is why the Puritan writer Thomas Watson said that the Earth was bespangled with sun, moon and stars that the Earth’s beauty might be beheld and admired.

The vast universe does not mean the Earth is unimportant, but rather it shows the Earth to be supremely important.

When Isaac Newton studied the clockwork motion of the solar system, he concluded that it could not have been produced by chance. The Earth shows not only that there is a creator, but that the creator cares deeply for mankind.

He cares so much for the world that He allowed His Son to come into the world to seek and save lost sinners such as you and me.

The Wonders Of Breast Feeding

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Dr. Sarah Buckland-Reynolds writes:

The Wonders of Breastfeeding
Commemorating World Breastfeeding Week

While breastfeeding has been an instinct and ability to many women post-pregnancy for millennia, many are unaware of the biophysical wonder that this process entails. In an attempt to call attention to the benefits of breastfeeding, August 1–7 has been designated as World Breastfeeding Week: a campaign led by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The official theme for 2026 is: “Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life: Strengthen What Works”, emphasizing the link between long-term health and the practice of breastfeeding.

Editorial: Human milk, nutrition and infant development, volume II (Francisco Perez Cano, Frontiers in Nutrition and Metabolism, 16 March 2026). Breastfeeding is much more than just an instinct. This article explores the scientific marvels of breastfeeding, its benefits for both infants and mother, and the inadequacy of evolutionary explanations for its complexity.

Interesting Facts About Breastmilk
Comparing Humans with other Mammals

Mammals are defined by their ability to produce milk, and this trait is nearly universal across the class. There are about 6,500 recognized mammalian species, and virtually all of them produce milk to nourish their young. Among human populations in the USA, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that around 85% of babies are breastfed, but only 25% are exclusively breastfed through 6 months.

Breast milk is also one of the few foods in nature that can be described as nutritionally complete for the young of its kind. It contains proteins for growth, fats for brain development, carbohydrates for energy, vitamins and minerals for metabolic balance, and bioactive compounds that regulate immunity and digestion. This completeness underscores its role as the “gold standard” of infant nutrition.

While humans are among those classified as mammalian species given their lactation abilities, human breastmilk is distinct among mammals because it is specialized for slow, brain-centred growth rather than rapid physical development. It contains much less protein than cow’s milk, protecting infants’ kidneys while still meeting nutritional needs.

Its higher whey-to-casein ratio makes it easier to digest, and it delivers a full suite of immune factors (including antibodies, human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and living cells) that actively shape the infant’s microbiome and immune system. HMOs are a distinctive feature, as these complex sugars feed beneficial gut bacteria, block pathogens from binding to intestinal cells, and help train the immune system. In contrast, calves and lamb milk are denser in protein and fat, reflecting their need for fast growth and early mobility.

Another key difference lies in mineral bioavailability: although human milk has fewer minerals overall, they are absorbed more efficiently in human infants than those in cow’s milk. Human milk also contains tailored fatty acids such as DHA (docosahexaenoic acid: An omega-3 fatty acid critical for brain and eye development) and ARA (arachidonic acid: An omega-6 fatty acid that is essential for cell membrane structure, immune signaling, and growth, proportioned for optimal brain and eye development). In contrast, other mammals’ milk lacks active immune cells.

More Wonders of Human Breast Milk

One of the most astonishing features of breastfeeding is the breast’s ability to adjust both the volume and composition of milk according to the baby’s age, stage, and even health status. Scientific studies have shown that during feeding, tiny amounts of the baby’s saliva can flow back into the breast ducts. This process is known as retrograde milk flow, and it allows the mother’s body to “read” the infant’s immune status and tailor antibodies, white blood cells, and other protective factors in the milk.

Ongoing research into the unique properties of breastmilk continues to reveal new insights into just how important this production is for health. In a recent article titled: The human breast milk microbiome: a landscape review of its composition, origins, and impact on infant health (Rumiana Koynova-Tenchov), Archives of Microbiology. (22 June 2026), the unique microbiome systems from breastmilk, is described as “one of the earliest and most consequential sources of microbial colonization in the infant gut.” The consequences of missing these microbiomes are described as follows by the author:

“Disruptions to this microbial community have been associated with conditions such as infant colic, atopic disease, and obesity.”

These observations show that breastmilk is a highly responsive engineering architecture, as it signals the existence of a feedback loop between mother and child. While many animals produce milk, the adaptive immune tailoring through backflow is most clearly documented in humans. Although in animals, milk composition also changes across lactation stages, the fine-tuned immunological dialogue observed in human breastfeeding appears unique.

But how did such amazing engineering originate?

The Evolutionary Story of Breastmilk

From an evolutionary perspective, the story is that milk production originated in early synapsids (an ancient group of vertebrates thought to include all modern mammals and their extinct relatives defined by a distinctive skull feature: a single temporal opening behind the eye socket). According to the evolutionary timeline, this was over 200 million years ago. The theory goes that breastmilk production began as a skin secretion that kept eggs moist and protected, and that, over time, this secretion became nutritionally enriched, eventually evolving into true lactation. This adaptation is said to have allowed mammals to provide a consistent, internal food source, freeing them from dependence on external environments and giving their offspring a survival advantage.

Evolutionary literature also tries to explain the divergence in milk composition among mammals as having arisen through natural selection acting on offspring survival strategies. Human milk is said to have evolved to support slow growth, prolonged dependency, and intensive brain development, reflecting evolutionary pressures favouring long-term survival and cognitive capacity in a species with extended childhood. For other mammals, evolutionary literature teaches that milk composition diverged as a direct response to ecological pressures and life-history strategies, with each lineage optimizing lactation for its young’s developmental priorities.

However, in the context of the complexities of breastmilk, these evolutionary explanations raise many unanswered questions and concerns, including:

How does appealing to selection pressures account for the origins of breastmilk? (The fact is: There can be no selection without there being something to select from.)

How could the complexity and universality of milk across mammals have arisen by chance?

The precise tailoring of milk composition to each species’ developmental needs is far more reasonably interpreted as evidence of purposeful creation rather than evolutionary trial and error.

Benefits for Mothers

As much as breastfeeding is beneficial for infants, the benefits to the mother should not be overlooked, as it profoundly impacts maternal health. Among the benefits include the release of oxytocin during nursing stimulates uterine contractions, which helps the uterus return to its pre-pregnancy size and reducing postpartum bleeding. The energy demands of milk production contribute to gradual weight loss, aiding mothers in regaining their pre-pregnancy body composition.

Long-term benefits are equally significant. Women who breastfeed, especially beyond age 30, show reduced risks of breast and ovarian cancers. The protective effect is thought to arise from hormonal regulation and reduced lifetime exposure to estrogen. Breastfeeding also lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, making it a preventive health measure for mothers as well as a nurturing act for infants.

Breastfeeding and Sustainability

Given the mutual benefits between mother and child, the 2026 theme of World Breastfeeding Day is appropriate, emphasizing sustainability. After all, in addition to its biological benefits, breastfeeding is a natural, renewable resource requiring no additional packaging, no transportation, and no industrial processing.  In a world grappling with resource scarcity, and health inequities, breastfeeding therefore stands out as a practice that surpasses synthetic options in both quality and sustainability. While some mothers face constraints in breastfeeding and must rely on alternatives, we also celebrate the fact that breastmilk offers a template for continuous improvement of alternatives available.

Blessings in the Bosom

It is amazing that scientists continue to discover new benefits of breastfeeding as an age-old practice. In breastfeeding we see God’s providence embodied, as the adaptive intelligence of breast milk, its completeness, and its protective power testify to divine wisdom.

As we celebrate World Breastfeeding Week 2026, we are invited to marvel at this gift, to strengthen the systems that support it, and to honour the God who designed it. Breastfeeding is indeed a glimpse of divine love expressed through the bond between mother and child.

The Prettiest Sea Slugs Use Crystals in Their Skin as ‘Pixels’ of Colour

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Nature05 April 2026

From sciencealert.com

The Prettiest Sea Slugs Use Crystals in Their Skin as 'Pixels' of ColorNudibranchs such as Chromodoris annae stand out for their vibrant colors and varied shapes. (SirWat/iStock/Getty Images)

Nudibranchs are the jewels of the underwater world.

That’s not just a nice metaphor: Scientists have now discovered that the vibrant colors of sartorial sea slugs really are made up of thousands of tiny crystals embedded in their skin.

Biologists had long assumed that the eye-catching colorways sported by nudibranchs arise from pigment, the same way a toucan’s beak packs in its many hues, for instance.

But with a background in materials science rather than biology, researcher Samuel Humphrey of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces suspected that there was a lot more to these multi-colored molluscs than meets the eye.

By taking a closer look at six different species of nudibranchs, Humphrey and his collaborators have confirmed that pigments are not the only ‘paints’ in a nudibranchs’ pallet.

“We were surprised to find that nudibranchs use structural colors,” Humphrey says.

“Using this elegant color generation mechanism, these beautiful animals are able to generate an astounding array of colors from a single material.”

The Prettiest Sea Slugs Use Crystals in Their Skin as Pixels of Color
Hypselodoris bullockii and a highly-magnified view of the ‘pixels’ that make up its color. (Randi Ang/Moment Open/Getty Images. Inlay: Samuel Humphrey/MPI of Colloids and Interfaces)

Structural color is an effect of light reflecting off microscopic structures of a material. It’s seen in insects, chameleons, plants, seaweeds, and even oil slicks and bubbles.

Pigments, on the other hand, produce color by absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting others, based on the chemical composition of the material, rather than its structure.

Yet, many colorful effects are achieved by combining pigment with structural color.

A male peacock’s tail, for instance, is pigmented brown, but because of the way microscopic structures in the feathers interfere with light, we see iridescent blues, greens, and purples, made all the more vibrant by their dull brown base.

In nudibranchs, it turns out, the structural color is formed mainly by nanocrystals of guanine molecules. The way these crystals are arranged, their length and angles, determines the particular color seen on a nudibranch’s skin.

The Prettiest Sea Slugs Use Crystals in Their Skin as Pixels of Color
Digital microscope images showing structurally colored granules in H. tryoni, skirt (B), H. bullockii mantle (C), C. annae skirt (D), C. willani mantle (E), S. neapolitana ceras (F), and B. stephanieae ceras (G). (Humphrey et al., PNAS, 2026)

But usually, structural color is associated with iridescence, like the glitter of a butterfly’s wing or the sparkle of a jellyfish’s tentacle.

Part of the reason it’s so surprising that nudibranchs use structural color at all is that their markings often appear matte, flat, and bold – the qualities we usually associate with pigment-based color.

Humphrey and team found an answer to this as well.

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In a nudibranch’s skin, the guanine nanocrystals are stacked in layers within individual ‘pixels’ dotted across the surface.

If all the crystals within those pixels were neatly ordered and exactly identical, we would see an iridescent effect, but a degree of randomness in each pixel’s nanostructure helps to ‘flatten’ the color.

“They therefore reflect light of the same colors in very different directions, so that the colors do not shimmer like those of butterflies, but appear matte,” says Humphrey.

The guanine crystals allow nudibranchs to display bold, bright colors across the entire visible spectrum with just a few ‘tweaks’ of that structure between species.

Related: Scientists Recreate Rare Pigment Behind Octopus ‘Superpowers’

The discovery could explain how this family of animals have managed to evolve such a dazzling diversity of colors and patterns among themselves – and it could inspire new materials for human use, too.

“We often draw inspiration from nature when developing new materials and techniques,” says physicist Silvia Vignolini, also from Max Planck.

“It might be possible to develop sustainable colors based on the same principles which are used by nudibranchs.”

As if we could ever be as well-dressed as a nudibranch.

The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Earth’s Inner Core “Fine Tuned” for Life

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The more we find out about the earth, the more it is clear that it is very cleverly designed for the purpose of supporting life.

From Creation Evolution Headlines:

Earth’s Core Is Fine-Tuned for Surface Habitability

New simulations of the Earth’s core
indicate extremely precise conditions
for its formation, exposing flaws in
cosmological evolutionary theory

Magnetic Miracles
Earth’s Inner Core and the Glory of God

by Sarah Buckland-Reynolds, PhD

A landmark study by four UK scientists, published this month in Nature Communications, unveils yet another striking geoscience discovery that points to fine-tuned design and challenges long-held evolutionary assumptions.

Constraining Earth’s core composition from inner core nucleation (Wilson et al, Nature Communications, 4 Sept 2025).

As it turns out, this latest example of fine-tuned design was beneath our feet all along: within the Earth’s inner core.

The Research

Researchers, Wilson et al from the University of Oxford, Leeds, and University College London, simulated the conditions required for Earth’s solid inner core to form, resulting in it’s present structure, temperature and magnetism. After testing numerous combinations of elements, the team found that core nucleation and crystallization would only occur with precisely 3.8% carbon in its makeup; otherwise, Earth’s core would have remained molten.

Comparative simulations showed that no other elemental mix could sustain a stable magnetic field, leaving the planet vulnerable to solar wind and charged particles—potentially even stripping away its atmosphere. Despite beginning from evolutionary assumptions of an initially molten core—and acknowledging unaccounted complexities—Wilson et al.’s research nonetheless points powerfully to fine-tuned design and raises fresh challenges to long-standing evolutionary views on Earth’s core formation.

The Core of the Matter: Functionality Beyond the Depths

Research into the Earth’s core is highly relevant, as the role of its size, state and composition is known to directly impact Earth’s habitability. Research on Earth’s core is vital, since its size, state, and composition directly affect the planet’s habitability. Earth’s magnetic field—essential for preserving the atmosphere, deflecting harmful solar wind, and guiding migratory species—depends on the core’s composition, which drives convection in the outer core.

According to cosmological evolutionary theory, Earth’s core began in a molten state, due to radioactive heating. Yet for the inner core to crystallize, a precise mechanism was required. To address this, the researchers drew on seismology and melting-point data, which indicate that the core is less dense than pure iron. This suggested that Earth’s present magnetic strength depends on a mixture of elements.  The authors acknowledged, however, that multiple possible combinations remain consistent with traditional constraints, leaving some ambiguity.] However, their research found that of all simulated possibilities, only a 3.8% carbon composition (with a supercooling temperature of 266K) could account for the processes of nucleation and the estimated present size of the Earth’s core.

Even without challenging the unobservable assumption of an initially molten core, this article demonstrates that the very existence of the solid inner core requires a finely tuned chemical composition for today’s geophysical processes to function. Although the Scriptures are not clear about the solid vs. molten state of the Earth’s core at creation, this discovery shows that a precise composition of the core would have been necessary to give rise to the magnetic properties of Earth that life relies on. In an evolutionary framework, the question arises: How did nature “know” the amount of each element required for the core to produce the thermal profile necessary for Earth’s magnetism?

Read the rest of the article here

The Challenge of Iron For Life

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An amazing article about iron- both essential to life and toxic, sequestered in the core of the Earth, but needed at the surface

From crev.info

How Iron Fortifies the Earth and Life – CEH

2 minutes

March 29, 2025 | David F. Coppedge

This article about the element iron
and its design was published in
Evolution News on 25 Jan 2022

No Iron, No Life: Intelligent Design in Iron Availability

by David F. Coppedge
January 25, 2022

As an exercise, count the number of lucky breaks that had to occur for the evolutionary story to work.

Life relies on iron, but it is toxic, too. And it’s hard to get this scarce resource where it’s needed. Here is another case of fine-tuning that adds to the many Goldilocks “just right” conditions for life on our planet.

The Biophysics of Iron

Evolution News has reported on the gentle handling of iron by enzymes in cells, such as this discussion by Dr. Howard Glicksman, in which he describes the delicate interplay of iron and oxygen in hemoglobin that makes our blood red. He tells how specialized enzymes control acquisition, transport, and control of iron. Indeed, the building blocks of hemoglobin that incorporate iron, called heme molecules, are toxic within cells and also must be carefully handled, as this article relates.

Just how carefully can be seen in two animations of the CcsBA enzyme from research at Washington University at St. Louis. The enzyme molds itself around a heme (pictured green, with an orange iron atom at its center), preparing and assembling it for transport. It took the research team three decades to figure this out, and this is just the bacterial version!

As fascinating as these irreducibly complex systems are individually, they assume that iron will be available in the environment. How did that happen?

The Geophysics of Iron

Iron availability on the earth must be finely tuned. Iron in the Earth’s core, though abundant, will not be of any help to plant life on the surface or to ocean life. We observe that iron is abundant in crustal minerals, as seen in the colorful iron oxides that bestow reddish colors on many desert walls (and the planet Mars). Iron is also abundant in olivine, which can be delivered from the mantle by volcanoes. In a recent article, Evolution News described how “meteoric dust” from the solar system can gently rain iron onto the oceans for photosynthetic microbes like diatoms to use. But how did iron become finely tuned as to quantity and availability?

To continue reading, click here.

Darwin’s Blunder Lives On

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From Creation Evolution Headlines

David F. Coppedge writes

Darwin’s Blunder Lives On

A major journal publishes a paper
claiming that natural selection is
like human engineering

Darwin’s blunder was criticised by scientists in his own day. He likened natural selection to artificial selection: i.e., human breeding of plants and animals. The two concepts could not be farther apart. They are opposites. Now, three guys print the same blunder out in the open with shameless bravado.

Weinberg’s Law: an expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

What farmers and ranchers do as they try to produce better tomatoes or stronger horses has nothing to do with Darwin’s theory. Breeders have foresight. They have intentionality. They set a goal, and can gauge the success of their efforts by measurable results. Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law has none of the above.

Charley specifically denounced any role for foresight, intentionality, or purpose in the operation of natural selection (NS). NS was to be a blind, unguided mechanical process all the way down. Darwin’s own “intention” was to rid biology of any role for a Creator God or designer of any kind. And yet he repeatedly used a fallacious argument from analogy for support, claiming that natural selection is like artificial selection. He was still claiming this in 1876 in the 6th edition of Origin of Species, 17 years after the 1st edition.

Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature’s power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest. [Origin, 6th ed., ch. 4, p85]

Ah, the fittest. Yes, that was the purpose of the blind watchmaker: increasing an organism’s “fitness” (whatever that is). Please re-read our entry, “Fitness for Dummies” to recall that fitness is a slippery, undefinable tautological term that can mean anything the evolutionist wants it to mean. But why would a blind process even know or care about the definition of fitness? Stuff Happens; that’s fitness in a nutshell. Anyone who stuffs that idea into his skull has it in a nut shell.

Darwin never saw his own fallacy. He should have known better, having been a pigeon fancier and a friend of breeders. He should have known that the outlandish varieties produced by breeders, like poodles and dachshunds and pouter pigeons would never have arisen naturally—indeed, they could not survive in the wild. But Charley reasoned that if breeders could accentuate small variations to those extremes, couldn’t Nature accomplish much more, given millions of years? “I can see no limit,” he said. That’s because his eyes were closed, and he was daydreaming in his imagination.

Summing up, Darwin thought (illogically) that if human intelligence can accentuate variations for a purpose, why couldn’t blind nature accentuate variations for no purpose at all? He reasoned that Nature is just like a thinking, rational breeder, that purpose is just like chance, that foresight is like blindness, and that intention is like aimlessness.

He didn’t get it. In his new book Darwin’s Bluff, Robert Shedinger quotes from Darwin’s own correspondence how he persisted in this fallacy to his dying day.

Darwin’s disciples today still sweep on to the same grand fallacy. Here is a spectacular example printed by Nature yesterday.

Engineering is evolution: a perspective on design processes to engineer biology (Nature Communications, 29 April 2024). These three Darwinians (Simeon D. Castle, Michiel Stock and and Thomas E. Gorochowski) do a one-up on Darwin. Not only is evolution like breeding, they assert; it’s like engineering! Indeed, they say, engineering is evolution! The paper is open access, so go ahead: watch them sweep on to the grand fallacy.

Read the rest of the article here

Apollo Astronaut Doubts Consensus Age of Moon

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How Old Is The Moon?

From Creation Evolution Headlines

It started when he was told the same
moon rock had two vastly different ages

How old is the moon? Is it 4.6 billion years old, as consensus geologists insist, and as textbooks uncritically teach?

The Apollo astronauts were given extensive training in geology so that they would know what rocks on the moon were significant. This was true for Brigadier General Charles M. Duke (USAF), the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 16 who became the 10th man to walk on the moon. One of his geology trainers was Harrison Schmitt, a PhD geologist, who would fly on the final mission, Apollo 17 (see 14 Dec 2022). Apollo 16 (April 16-27, 1972) was the only mission to study the lunar highlands in the Descartes region, with its elevation 7,400 feet higher than the Sea of Tranquillity explored by Apollo 11. (Charlie Duke was also the CapCom, or capsule communicator, for Apollo 11.)

During their three extensive extra-vehicular activities (EVAs), including 16.6 miles of drives on the lunar rover, Charlie Duke and Mission Commander John Young collected 209 pounds of lunar samples.

Moonrock, by Alan Bean, depicts John Young and Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) collecting lunar samples. Used by permission from Alan Bean (Apollo 12 astronaut).

On April 6, during an interview before an audience of nearly a thousand people, Duke related a strange thing that the experts said about one of the lunar rocks he collected.

I picked up a rock on the moon, and it was about the size of my hand. And on one end it dated 3.9 billion years. On this end it dated 1.6 billion years. So there was two billion years between six inches! [audience laughter]. And, something was wrong here, somewhere!

Duke went on to say that he “began to doubt a little bit,” but not to the point of disbelieving evolution. At the time, he was a non-Christian, thoroughly preoccupied with his own career success within the NASA community. It was only later, when he became a Christ follower after seeing the dramatic change in his wife Dotty’s conversion, that his earlier doubts about that rock made sense. “I became a believer, and I went from an evolutionist to a creationist.”

At age 88, Charlie Duke is the youngest of four surviving Apollo astronauts among the 12 men who walked on the moon. Another Apollo astronaut who was a young-earth creationist and Christ follower was Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin (1930-1991).

Creation Or Evolution

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I have been thinking this week about two stories of how we arrived in the world. The first theory is evolution, which says that we are just a product of random chemical reactions over a very long period of time. The second story is that of creation as described in the very first chapter of Genesis.

This is not the place to say whether one of these stories is factually correct, or whether we can blend the two together in some way. I do want to consider some of the ramifications of these stories and the results of believing one or the other.

As we read the familiar words of Genesis 1, we discover that God is greater than the world, the sun and moon, the stars and bigger than everything all put together. Science tells us that the universe is unimaginably huge and more complex than we can imagine, but God is bigger than all of this.

At each stage of the process, God describes the creation as good, until the last day when He makes the first people and He describes it as “very good.” It is as if everything is made for the purpose of supporting human beings.

The Bible teaches that we are created for a purpose and that we are the pinnacle of God’s creative activity.

On the other hand, evolution tells us that everything is random, from the birth of our planet (an insignificant lump of rock on the edge of an average galaxy), to the production of individual human beings (you are just a random arrangement of DNA, and it determines your life).

So we get to a place of despair because there is no reason for us to exist. There is no future because in the end the whole universe will just run out of energy.

From that depressing explanation of life, we reap a harvest of depression, purposelessness, sexual anarchy and lawlessness.

God made you for a purpose. He has a plan for your life and a destiny for you in eternity.

Praise God!

Creation.com:What’s a billion years between friends?

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by 

Published: 9 December 2021 (GMT+10)
commons.wikimedia.orgstar

The extinction of the dinosaurs is typically said to have been about 65 million years ago (mya),1 but 66 mya has also been suggested.2 During my dinosaur presentations I inform the audience, but I don’t amend my slides. After all, what’s a million years (in this case around 1.5 %)?!

In other public talks, I discuss the big bang timeline, starting ~13.8 billion years ago. This is more than one billion years off from the age of the universe taught in the mid-nineteen nineties, of some 15 billion years (actually 8%).3 But what’s a billion years?!

The Bible’s timeline is unchanging (e.g. 1 Peter 1:25), like its Author; ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8). The word of God reliably teaches a creation around 4,000 BC. Therefore, building your worldview on Scripture is a sure thing—your source does not keep changing. Not so with an evolutionary view, where new discoveries often seem to throw the prevailing (long age) view, for the timing of this or that aspect of history, under the proverbial bus. No need to worry though, for adherents can simply alter some previously believed interpretations in order to keep the narrative alive. Three recent examples of this are given below.

1. How can a star be older than the universe?

A spanner has been thrown in the works for those who believe the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Why? Apparently there are stars over 14 billion years old. You might wonder, “If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, how can a star be more than 14 billion years old?”4

 

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