Origins Quest
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  • The First Three Days of the Earth
    • Reconciling Science and the Bible >
      • Precise Science Confirms the Bible
      • Moses Foresaw Three Discoveries >
        • First Discovery >
          • Mass and Weight of Energy
          • Transformations and Materialization
          • Different Kinds of Rays and Materialization in Empty Space
          • Was Energy the Source of Material
        • Second Discovery
        • Third Discovery >
          • The First Light
          • Separating Light from Darkness
        • Early Ideas about the Beginning
        • An Up-to-Date Ancient Cosmology
        • The Confirmation
        • A Challenging Question
      • Cycles of Darkness and Light >
        • Teaching Children
        • The Idea the Word “Day” Expresses >
          • A Day Not The First Day
          • Not Literal 24-Hour Days
        • How Long Did the First Three Days Last?
        • Earth Rotation and the First Two Days
        • The Duration of the First Day
        • The First Three Cycles of Darkness and Light
      • Was There a Beginning? >
        • An Uncreated Unchanging Universe
        • Evidence for a Beginning >
          • Elements in the Stars
          • Natural Radiation from Space
          • Stars Consume Their Fuel
        • Cosmology and Relativity
        • Instability Determinism Uncertainty, Predestination >
          • Instability
          • Stability and Determinism
          • Predestination Indeterminacy Uncertainty
        • Einstein Science and Philosophy
        • Predestination versus Timely Intervention
    • Simple Elements and Morning Stars >
      • First Evening Energy and Particles >
        • The Energy of Different Kinds of Rays
        • The Most Energetic Rays
        • Natural Particle Production >
          • Simulating the Process
          • Particles from Darkness
        • Darkness in the Bible >
          • Why Darkness Comes First
          • Isaiah on Darkness and Light
      • First Morning-Simple Elements >
        • Doppler Shift Expansion and Cooling >
          • The Beginning of Nucleosynthesis
          • Four Forces
          • Forces Present in Empty Space
        • Nucleosynthesis >
          • The First Elements
          • The First Halt in Nuclei Production
          • Insufficient Complexity
        • The First Light Was Good >
          • The Immediate Cause of the First Light
          • Forming the Light
          • The Confirmation of Darkness and Light
    • Stars that Formed Complex Elements >
      • Second Evening-Expansion >
        • The Expanding Universe >
          • The Giant Atom that Exploded
          • Expansion Not a Big Bang Explosion
          • Expansion Preserves Order
        • Expanding Now But Later What? >
          • Expanding but Uncreated
          • Continuous Creation
          • The Cyclic Version of Continuous Creation
        • The Expanding Universe Prevails
      • Second Morning-Heavy Elements >
        • Heat and Light Make Heavy Elements >
          • Differences in Stellar Composition
          • Nuclear Binding Energy
        • Energy from Fusion and Fission >
          • The Proton-Proton Reaction
          • Nuclear Stability
        • Different Kinds of Fission
        • Burning Helium and Heavier Elements
    • Forming the Sun and Earth >
      • Third Evening-A Dusty Yellow Star >
        • Supernovas Begin the Third Evening
        • Extraterrestrial Water
        • Lighting the Sun
        • The Carbon to Oxygen Reaction
        • The Darkness of the Third Evening
      • Third Morning-The Earth Forms >
        • The Search for a Planet Suitable for Life
    • How Does God Create? >
      • Conditions at the Very Beginning >
        • Creation from Nothing
        • Can We Create Energy? >
          • God Works to Create Energy
          • The Work Necessary to Create the Universe
        • Denial of Creation
        • The Simplest Explanation
        • Creation in a Singularity >
          • Can We Investigate the Instant of Creation?
          • The First Light Has Fluctuations
      • The Next Three Days >
        • Structure in the Genesis Narrative >
          • Examples of Parallelism
          • Parallel Structure in the Creation Narrative
        • Day Four >
          • Not All Stars Formed on the Fourth Day
          • When Did the Stars and Sun Start to Shine?
          • Signs for Animals and People
      • What Is the Origin of the Universe?
    • Appendices >
      • Appendix A
      • Appendix B
  • Design or Luck?
    • Creative Design >
      • Darwin and Adaptive Variation >
        • Finches and Form Adaptation
        • Adaptive Behavior and Structure
        • Intelligence and Autonomy
      • Biological Structure and Reproduction
      • Adaptive Form
      • Darwin and Darwinism >
        • The Development of the Sciences
        • Contrasting Darwinism and Thermodynamics
        • Darwinism Today
      • The Limits of Automatic Design
    • Why Are Not All Darwinists Rich? >
      • Automatic Design: Artificial and Natural >
        • The Automatic Lens-Design Program
        • Company Top Secret
        • Comparing Evolution and Lens Design
        • My Colleagues Reacted
      • Conclusion-Darwinism Does Not Work >
        • Can Design Be Automatic?
        • Darwinism and Automatic Design
      • How Far Can Small Steps Take Us? >
        • Small Improvements Are Merely Engineering
        • The Vastness of Hyperspace
        • Primordial Alphabet Soup >
          • Wide Coding Overcomes Noise
          • DNA is a Natural Language
          • Common Ancestry
          • Accepted Words Span the Space
        • Is Creative Design Consistent with Darwinism? >
          • Engineering Design
          • A Challenge for Darwinists
    • Thermodynamics >
      • Thermodynamics Information and Creation >
        • The First Law of Thermodynamics
        • Physical Law Keeps Life from Starting by Itself
        • Spontaneous-assembly-by-random-action >
          • Random action cannot produce living beings
        • Prigogine’s Explanation of His Method
        • Reasons for Not Applying Thermodynamics
        • Does Crystallization Defeat the Second Law?
        • Does Gravity Organize Things?
        • The Second Law of Thermodynamics >
          • Entropy
          • Perpetual Motion
        • Information and Order >
          • Entropy Probability and Information
          • Multiplying Probability and Adding Entropy
          • Probability and Information
        • Structure Design Intelligence and Creativity >
          • Structure and Breakdown--Death and Decay
          • Perfection and Beauty
      • Earth-Sun Thermodynamics >
        • A Simple Example of a Thermodynamic Process
        • The Example Applied to the Sun and Earth
      • Another Error about Thermodynamics >
        • A Darwinist Argument about Thermodynamics
        • Sunlight and Earth Temperature
        • What Makes Sunlight Suitable?
      • The Night Sky Is Dark >
        • Olbers and his Paradox
        • A Black Forest and the Stars >
          • Seeing to the Far Limit of the Universe
          • The Limit of the Known Universe
          • Ordinary Darkness
      • A Planet Suitable for Life
      • The Thermodynamics of Life >
        • Living Organisms and Heat Engines >
          • The Thermodynamics of Life without Sunlight
        • Entropy Thermodynamics and Prigogine >
          • Darwinism and Thermodynamics
      • Thermodynamics and the Universe >
        • Formless and Dark but Energetic and Orderly >
          • Entropy and Penrose
        • Creative Agencies and Their Characteristics
    • Complex Order-Life-Intelligence >
      • Random Action and Complexity
      • Does Matter Organize Itself?
      • Complexity Can Be Specified
      • Information and Physical Laws
      • Did Our Life Begin Elsewhere?
      • Discovering Alien Life Will Change Nothing
      • Creative Design Suits the Universe for Life
    • The Quest Continues
  • Creationism that Scientists Can Accept
  • About
  • Contact
  • DVD
  • Booklet

Appendix B: Fixed or Established?

Some people reject the Bible as outdated and unscientific because they think it says that the Earth was created about 6 000 years ago. We have explained very carefully that this opinion is a misreading of the Genesis creation narrative. Another famous misreading is the idea that the Bible says that the Earth does not move.

​We know that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun, but ancient people did not know that the Earth moves. The motion is very smooth and steady, imperceptible to an untrained observer. For this reason people thought for thousands of years that the Earth was fixed, immovable, and the heavenly bodies revolved around it. Copernicus offered a contrary view as a mere theory, but Galileo recklessly championed the idea that the Earth moves.[i] The chief proponents of the fixed-Earth theory were actually followers of Aristotle, but they got their Pope and the Holy Office involved in their controversy with Galileo. They brought out verses in the Psalms that supposedly say that the Earth is fixed in place and cannot be moved.


[i] Hummel, Charles E., Chapter 5, “Galileo: Science and Theology,” The Galileo Connection (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1986), pp. 103–125.
​The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved (Psalm 93:1).

​Say among the nations, “The L
ORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity (Psalm 96:10).
The Hebrew word translated cannot be moved is מוט mowt, in the niphal or passive imperfect. It means: “shall not be shaken, moved, or overthrown.” The same word applies to people or mountains.
​[The wicked man] says to himself, “Nothing will shake me; I’ll always be happy and never have trouble” (Psalm 10:6).

​Those who trust in the L
ORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever (Psalm 125:1).
People can certainly be moved, and earthquakes can shake mountains. The psalmist does not say that the world is immobile but that nothing we can do can overthrow it. Likewise, the modern translation cited above does not say that the world is firmly fixed in place but that the world is firmly established. The Hebrew word is כּון kuwn. Elsewhere the same word applies to the Sun, the Moon, and the stars.
The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon (Psalm 74:16).

[David
’s dynasty] will be established for ever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky (Psalm 89:37).

​… I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place
(Psalm 8:3).
Established or set in place does not mean fixed and immobile. Anyone with seeing eyes can confirm that every night the Moon is among a new group of stars. Galileo’s accusers knew that the Moon moves. They could have deduced that the Bible does not contradict the idea that the Earth moves. They should have been fair with Galileo, but they were not. Clearly they were out to condemn Galileo, and their motives beclouded their Bible interpretation.

Claudius Ptolemaeus (also known as Ptolemy, Alexandrian astronomer, after 83–161) developed a model of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, all revolving around the Earth. Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish astronomer, 1473–1543) developed the theory that the Earth goes around the Sun. He replaced the geocentric Ptolemaic system with the heliocentric system 90 years before the Catholics condemned Galileo. A Lutheran pastor named Andreas Osiander (German theologian, 1498–1552) helped to publish De Revolutionibus orbium caelestium (About the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in a Lutheran press in the year of Copernicus’ death, 1543. The Copernican theory might never have found wide acceptance at the time, because there was deadly opposition. Osiander found a way to mitigate the confrontation with the traditionalists. It was probably he who wrote an anonymous preface to the work of Copernicus. In it the book only claimed to present a new hypothesis. The author of the preface admitted that reason and mathematics were insufficient to distinguish between different theories regarding the relative motions of the planets and Sun. An author with a hawkish attitude would immediately have pointed out that observation is able to distinguish between the theories, and that observation was on the side of his favorite theory. Osiander didn’t do that. He showed how the traditionalists explained the apparent retrograde motion of Venus at superior conjunction with an epicycle. Then he pointed out that the epicycle would make the light from Venus four times as intense and the subtended solid angle sixteen times greater, at aphelion (farthest excursion from the Sun) than at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). Without then making much of this clear observational proof that Venus does not move in epicycles, Osiander returned to the position that the new theory was only offered as a hypothesis that has certain computational advantages for the calculation in advance of the position of Venus in the sky at certain dates.

The preface enabled Copernicus’ book to escape for years the Index of prohibited books. Essentially the preface says, “Nobody is really saying that the Earth goes around the Sun. It is just easier to calculate the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets if one uses the theoretical idea that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun. Of course, the calculations fit the observations very nicely.”

Such wisdom is needed today in a current confrontation between science and religion. What is gained by twitting religious people about scientific data regarding the age of the universe? The American Physical Society has a commission concerned with public acceptance and appreciation of physics, yet others in the Society have taken it upon themselves to “answer” creationists. There is a large body of belief among the general public that the Genesis account of creation is literally true. Centuries of scientific study have not kept people from admiring the beauty and poetry of Moses’ narrative. Some people hope to win friends for their cause by offending the religious beliefs of others. The friends they win will be few if the majority holds those religious beliefs.

Copernicus had all the planets in circular orbits, probably with epicycles that were also circular, as corrections. It was Johannes Kepler (German astronomer and natural philosopher, 1571–1630) who deduced from the data of Tycho Brahe (Danish astronomer, 1564–1601) the law that planets sweep out equal areas in equal times. The area swept out is the area between two lines radiating from the Sun, bounded on the outside by the planet’s orbit. The two lines are lines from the Sun to the planet when the planet is in the starting and later in the ending position. This law holds true for a circular orbit when the planet moves with constant orbital speed. But it also holds true for an elliptical orbit with the Sun at one of the two foci of the ellipse. Today this fact is well known, but Newton had to invent calculus to derive the orbit from Kepler’s law. Newton tried for many years to fit the planetary data into circular orbits before giving up and trying elliptical orbits. All the planetary orbits in the solar system are elliptical. Saturn’s is the closest to a circle. There is no physical law governing the location of the empty focus of the ellipse, and in fact the empty foci are scattered in different directions around the Sun.

Halley’s Comet is in a long, thin elliptical orbit with the closest approach to the Sun within the Earth’s orbit, but the farthest point from the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. When the comet is close to the Sun the Sun’s gravity is strong and makes the comet move fast. It comes into sight near the orbit of Jupiter, whips around the Sun in a matter of months, and drops out of sight as it passes Jupiter again. Then it spends 74 years in the deep freeze between Jupiter and Pluto before coming back. The area Halley’s Comet sweeps out most of the time is bounded by long lines, and in several months it moves only a short distance along its orbit. When close to the Sun the lines are short, so the path around the orbit from appearance to disappearance must be long to sweep out the same area in the same time interval.

Even though Martin Luther (German theologian and religious reformer, 1483–1546), explicitly rejected Copernicus, he created an atmosphere in which conventional interpretations of old texts could be challenged. That is the atmosphere in which science thrives. Several of the southern states of Europe, those that border on the Mediterranean, notably Spain, France, and Italy, reacted to the Reformation with the Inquisition, which spread to Central and South America. Galileo had the extreme bad luck to be born in the south. His was one of the few bright scientific southern lights in the development of physics. In the north we may trace the development of celestial mechanics and modern physics through Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Newton; and the post-revolutionary, post-Catholic Pierre-Simon Laplace (French astronomer and mathematician, 1749–1827).

Pope Urban VIII condemned Galileo in 1633. Later the Pope commuted the sentence to house arrest for the rest of his life, because Galileo recanted. Galileo lived only 8 more years. Karol Wojtyła (1920–2005) was elected pope on 16 October 1978. Soon after his installation as Pope John Paul II, he ordered the Holy Office (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) to give Galileo a retrial. The Holy Office took 13 years to carry out this order. On 31 October 1992 they acquitted Galileo, after 359 years of house arrest. Even if Galileo had been able to appeal his case immediately to those who judged him in the new trial, he would have died in house arrest before acquittal.

Medieval people were wrong about many things. They were just as wrong about science as they were about interpreting the Bible. Nothing is gained by holding the errors of the past against the people of the present. Let’s simply go on, and find ways of coming together instead of rejecting people out of hand for their world view.
Design or Luck?
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  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • The First Three Days of the Earth
    • Reconciling Science and the Bible >
      • Precise Science Confirms the Bible
      • Moses Foresaw Three Discoveries >
        • First Discovery >
          • Mass and Weight of Energy
          • Transformations and Materialization
          • Different Kinds of Rays and Materialization in Empty Space
          • Was Energy the Source of Material
        • Second Discovery
        • Third Discovery >
          • The First Light
          • Separating Light from Darkness
        • Early Ideas about the Beginning
        • An Up-to-Date Ancient Cosmology
        • The Confirmation
        • A Challenging Question
      • Cycles of Darkness and Light >
        • Teaching Children
        • The Idea the Word “Day” Expresses >
          • A Day Not The First Day
          • Not Literal 24-Hour Days
        • How Long Did the First Three Days Last?
        • Earth Rotation and the First Two Days
        • The Duration of the First Day
        • The First Three Cycles of Darkness and Light
      • Was There a Beginning? >
        • An Uncreated Unchanging Universe
        • Evidence for a Beginning >
          • Elements in the Stars
          • Natural Radiation from Space
          • Stars Consume Their Fuel
        • Cosmology and Relativity
        • Instability Determinism Uncertainty, Predestination >
          • Instability
          • Stability and Determinism
          • Predestination Indeterminacy Uncertainty
        • Einstein Science and Philosophy
        • Predestination versus Timely Intervention
    • Simple Elements and Morning Stars >
      • First Evening Energy and Particles >
        • The Energy of Different Kinds of Rays
        • The Most Energetic Rays
        • Natural Particle Production >
          • Simulating the Process
          • Particles from Darkness
        • Darkness in the Bible >
          • Why Darkness Comes First
          • Isaiah on Darkness and Light
      • First Morning-Simple Elements >
        • Doppler Shift Expansion and Cooling >
          • The Beginning of Nucleosynthesis
          • Four Forces
          • Forces Present in Empty Space
        • Nucleosynthesis >
          • The First Elements
          • The First Halt in Nuclei Production
          • Insufficient Complexity
        • The First Light Was Good >
          • The Immediate Cause of the First Light
          • Forming the Light
          • The Confirmation of Darkness and Light
    • Stars that Formed Complex Elements >
      • Second Evening-Expansion >
        • The Expanding Universe >
          • The Giant Atom that Exploded
          • Expansion Not a Big Bang Explosion
          • Expansion Preserves Order
        • Expanding Now But Later What? >
          • Expanding but Uncreated
          • Continuous Creation
          • The Cyclic Version of Continuous Creation
        • The Expanding Universe Prevails
      • Second Morning-Heavy Elements >
        • Heat and Light Make Heavy Elements >
          • Differences in Stellar Composition
          • Nuclear Binding Energy
        • Energy from Fusion and Fission >
          • The Proton-Proton Reaction
          • Nuclear Stability
        • Different Kinds of Fission
        • Burning Helium and Heavier Elements
    • Forming the Sun and Earth >
      • Third Evening-A Dusty Yellow Star >
        • Supernovas Begin the Third Evening
        • Extraterrestrial Water
        • Lighting the Sun
        • The Carbon to Oxygen Reaction
        • The Darkness of the Third Evening
      • Third Morning-The Earth Forms >
        • The Search for a Planet Suitable for Life
    • How Does God Create? >
      • Conditions at the Very Beginning >
        • Creation from Nothing
        • Can We Create Energy? >
          • God Works to Create Energy
          • The Work Necessary to Create the Universe
        • Denial of Creation
        • The Simplest Explanation
        • Creation in a Singularity >
          • Can We Investigate the Instant of Creation?
          • The First Light Has Fluctuations
      • The Next Three Days >
        • Structure in the Genesis Narrative >
          • Examples of Parallelism
          • Parallel Structure in the Creation Narrative
        • Day Four >
          • Not All Stars Formed on the Fourth Day
          • When Did the Stars and Sun Start to Shine?
          • Signs for Animals and People
      • What Is the Origin of the Universe?
    • Appendices >
      • Appendix A
      • Appendix B
  • Design or Luck?
    • Creative Design >
      • Darwin and Adaptive Variation >
        • Finches and Form Adaptation
        • Adaptive Behavior and Structure
        • Intelligence and Autonomy
      • Biological Structure and Reproduction
      • Adaptive Form
      • Darwin and Darwinism >
        • The Development of the Sciences
        • Contrasting Darwinism and Thermodynamics
        • Darwinism Today
      • The Limits of Automatic Design
    • Why Are Not All Darwinists Rich? >
      • Automatic Design: Artificial and Natural >
        • The Automatic Lens-Design Program
        • Company Top Secret
        • Comparing Evolution and Lens Design
        • My Colleagues Reacted
      • Conclusion-Darwinism Does Not Work >
        • Can Design Be Automatic?
        • Darwinism and Automatic Design
      • How Far Can Small Steps Take Us? >
        • Small Improvements Are Merely Engineering
        • The Vastness of Hyperspace
        • Primordial Alphabet Soup >
          • Wide Coding Overcomes Noise
          • DNA is a Natural Language
          • Common Ancestry
          • Accepted Words Span the Space
        • Is Creative Design Consistent with Darwinism? >
          • Engineering Design
          • A Challenge for Darwinists
    • Thermodynamics >
      • Thermodynamics Information and Creation >
        • The First Law of Thermodynamics
        • Physical Law Keeps Life from Starting by Itself
        • Spontaneous-assembly-by-random-action >
          • Random action cannot produce living beings
        • Prigogine’s Explanation of His Method
        • Reasons for Not Applying Thermodynamics
        • Does Crystallization Defeat the Second Law?
        • Does Gravity Organize Things?
        • The Second Law of Thermodynamics >
          • Entropy
          • Perpetual Motion
        • Information and Order >
          • Entropy Probability and Information
          • Multiplying Probability and Adding Entropy
          • Probability and Information
        • Structure Design Intelligence and Creativity >
          • Structure and Breakdown--Death and Decay
          • Perfection and Beauty
      • Earth-Sun Thermodynamics >
        • A Simple Example of a Thermodynamic Process
        • The Example Applied to the Sun and Earth
      • Another Error about Thermodynamics >
        • A Darwinist Argument about Thermodynamics
        • Sunlight and Earth Temperature
        • What Makes Sunlight Suitable?
      • The Night Sky Is Dark >
        • Olbers and his Paradox
        • A Black Forest and the Stars >
          • Seeing to the Far Limit of the Universe
          • The Limit of the Known Universe
          • Ordinary Darkness
      • A Planet Suitable for Life
      • The Thermodynamics of Life >
        • Living Organisms and Heat Engines >
          • The Thermodynamics of Life without Sunlight
        • Entropy Thermodynamics and Prigogine >
          • Darwinism and Thermodynamics
      • Thermodynamics and the Universe >
        • Formless and Dark but Energetic and Orderly >
          • Entropy and Penrose
        • Creative Agencies and Their Characteristics
    • Complex Order-Life-Intelligence >
      • Random Action and Complexity
      • Does Matter Organize Itself?
      • Complexity Can Be Specified
      • Information and Physical Laws
      • Did Our Life Begin Elsewhere?
      • Discovering Alien Life Will Change Nothing
      • Creative Design Suits the Universe for Life
    • The Quest Continues
  • Creationism that Scientists Can Accept
  • About
  • Contact
  • DVD
  • Booklet