CREATION-EVOLUTION ENCYCLOPEDIA

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SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF MATTER - 1

Scientists know that evolutionary theories of the origin of matter and stars are not true. They discuss the counter-evidence among themselves, and tell why the theory is unworkable. Evolutionary theory is a myth. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

CONTENT: Scientists Speak about the Origin of Matter: 1

Introduction: Scientists consider the evolutionary theory to be a foolish concept
The Atomic Gaps: A special reason why the Big Bang could not produce the heavier elements
Wrong Elements: The Big Bang could not have produced the elements in our planets
Supernova: Star explosions do not occur often enough
Population III Stars Missing: The theoretical "first stars" are not there
Calculations Are Too Close: The theory requires calculations within extremely narrow limits

This material is excerpted from the book, ORIGIN OF MATTER. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists. You will have a better understanding of the following statements by scientists if you will also read the web page, Origin of Matter.

INTRODUCTION

Many scientists recognize two facts: (1) There is no real evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, and (2) there is very definite evidence against it. But, complicating the matter, there a strong effort is being made by the establishment to muffle opposition. The following statements will provide you with a better understanding of this.

"The Big Bang is pure presumption. There are no physical principles from which it can be deduced that all of the matter in the universe would ever gather together in one location or an explosion would occur if the theoretical aggregation did take place . .

"Theorists have great difficulty in constructing any self-consistent account of the conditions existing at the time of the hypothetical Big Bang. Attempts at mathematical treatment usually lead to concentration of the entire mass of the universe at a point.

" `The central thesis of Big Bang cosmology,' says Joseph Silk, `is that about 20 billion years ago, any two points in the observable universe were arbitrarily close together. The density of matter at this moment was infinite.'

"This concept of infinite density is not scientific. It is an idea from the realm of the supernatural, as most scientists realize when they meet infinities in other physical contexts. Richard Feynman puts it in this manner:

" `If we get infinity [when we calculate], how can we ever say that this agrees with nature?' This point alone is enough to invalidate the Big Bang theory in all its various forms."—*Dewey B. Larson, The Universe of Motion (1984), p. 415.

"The naive view implies that the universe suddenly came into existence and found a complete system of physical laws waiting to be obeyed."—*W.H. McCrea, "Cosmology after Half a Century," Science, Vol. 160, June 1968, p. 1297.

"Probably the strongest argument against a big bang is that when we come to the universe in total and the large number of complex condensed objects in it [stars, planets, etc.], the theory is able to explain so little."—*G. Burbidge, "Was There Really A Big Bang?" in Nature, 233:36-40.

"This persistent weakness has haunted the big bang theory ever since the 1930's. It can probably be understood most easily by thinking of what happens when a bomb explodes. After detonation, fragments are thrown into the air, moving with essentially uniform motion. As is well-known in physics, uniform motion is inert, capable in itself of doing nothing. It is only when the fragments of a bomb strike a target—a building for example—that anything happens . . But in a big bang there are not targets at all, because the whole universe takes part in the explosion. There is nothing for the expanded material to hit against, and after sufficient expansion, the whole affair should go dead."—*Fred Hoyle, "The Big Bang in Astronomy," in New Scientist, 92 (1981), pp. 521, 523.

THE ATOMIC GAPS

The initial Big Bang explosion is said to have produced hydrogen and helium, which, through later explosions, changed into the heavier elements. But the atomic gaps would forbid this from occurring.

"In the sequence of atomic weight, numbers 5 and 8 are vacant. That is, there is no stable atom of mass 5 or mass 8 . . The question then is: How can the build-up of elements by neutron capture get by these gaps? The process could not go beyond helium 4 and even if it spanned this gap it would be stopped again at mass 8 . . This basic objection to Gamow's theory is a great disappointment in view of the promise and philosophical attractiveness of the idea." —*William A. Fowler, quoted in Creation Science, p. 90 [California Institute of Technology].

"There is no accepted theory as to how the hot gas clouds of hydrogen and helium arising out of the big bang condensed into galaxies, stars and planets. It would seem that the possibility of such a condensation is similar to the probability for all of the air in a room to collect in one corner—just by random motion of the molecules."—H.M. Morris, W.W. Boardman, and R. F. Koontz, Science and Creation (1971), p. 89.

WRONG ELEMENTS

Why is our earth and the other planets full of the heavier elements, whereas the stars are not? This is a mystery the Big Bang theory cannot explain.

"Apart from hydrogen and helium, all other elements are extremely rare, all over the universe. In the sun they [the heavier elements] amount to only about one percent of the total mass . . The contrast [of the sun's light elements with the heavy ones found on earth] brings out two important points.

"First, we see that material torn from the sun would not be at all suitable for the formation of the planets as we know them. Its composition would be hopelessly wrong. And our second point in this contrast is that it is the sun that is normal and the earth that is the freak. The interstellar gas and most of the stars are composed of material like the sun, not like the earth. You must understand that, cosmically speaking, the room you are now sitting in is made of the wrong stuff. You yourself are a rarity. You are a cosmic collector's piece." —*Fred C. Hoyle, Harper's Magazine, April 1951, p. 64.

SUPERNOVA

When large stars explode, they are termed supernovas. Theorists tell us that supernova explosions of Population III stars produced the stars we now have. Yet it is a scientific fact that supernova explosions rarely occur.

"A supernova explodes in an average galaxy only once every 100 years or so."—*Reader's Digest Book of Facts (1987), p. 394.

"In a typical nova explosion, the star loses only about a hundred-thousandth part of its matter. The matter it throws off is a shell of glowing gases that expands outward into space . .

"A supernova throws off as much as 10 percent of its matter when it explodes. Supernovae and novae differ so much in the percentage of matter thrown off that scientists believe the two probably develop differently. A supernova may increase in brightness as much as a billion times in few days. Astronomers believe that about 14 supernova explosions have taken place in the Milky Way during the past 2,000 years. The Crab Nebula, a huge cloud of dust and gas in the Milky Way, is the remains of a supernova seen in A.D. 1054. Super-novae are also rare in other galaxies."—*World Book Encyclopedia (1971), p. N-431.

"The explosion named Supernova 1987A in February 1987 was the first reasonably close one since the invention of the telescope. [The telescope was invented in 1609; that super-nova occurred in 1604.] . . [Astronomers] estimate that one goes off somewhere in the Milky Way every 50 to 100 years."—*Roberta Conlan, Frontiers of Time (1991), p. 34.

"Although supernovae may provide enough matter to form some new stars, whether there are enough of them to significantly forestall the [eventual] extinction of the galaxies seems doubtful. In the Milky Way, for instance, stars massive enough to go supernova make up a scant 4 percent of the galaxy's stars and contain only 11 percent of its total stellar mass. Many galaxies may be similarly proportioned. Ellipticals, for example, much like the globular clusters at the Milky Way's outer edges, tend to consist of less massive, slower-burning, and hence, older bodies . . Galaxies are basically dependent on their original supply of gas."—*Op. cit., 71.

POPULATION-III STARS MISSING

The Big Bang theory requires the existence of a theoretical "Population III star," yet no such stars exist. (A "Population III star" is theorized to have hydrogen, helium, and essentially no other elements.)

"Are there any stars older than Population-II? There should be, if our ideas about the early history of the universe are correct. The immediate result of the Big Bang is hydrogen and helium with very little, if any, production of heavier elements. To provide the chemical composition observed in Population-II objects requires a previous generation of stars to perform the necessary nucleosynthesis. Such primordial `Population-III' stars would contain vanishingly small abundances of heavy elements."—*"Where is Population III?" Sky and Telescope, 64:19 (1982) [Nucleosynthesis"=production of heavier elements by nuclear fusion].

"There appears to be no observation evidence for the existence of true Population III stars in our Galaxy which formed in the denser regions of space, such as the Virgo cluster."—*J. G. Hills, "Where Are the Population III Stars?" Astrophysical Journal, 258: L67 (1982).

CALCULATIONS ARE TOO CLOSE

Few non-mathematicians realize how narrowly the calculations have been made to arrive at a theoretical Big Bang. (Yet, as we learn from other statements by scientists, the theory is still a failure. There is too much it does not explain.)

"If the fireball had expanded only .1 percent faster, the present rate of expansion would have been 3 x 103 times as great. Had the initial expansion rate been .1 percent less, then the Universe would have expanded to only 3 x 10-6 of its present radius before collapsing. At this maximum radius the density of ordinary matter would have been 10-2 gm / cm3, over 1016 times as great as the present mass density. No stars could have formed in such a Universe, for it would not have existed long enough to form stars."—*R. H. Dicke, Gravitation and the Universe (1969), p. 62.

"The alleged big bang would never have led to an expanding universe at all; rather it would all have collapsed into a black hole."—Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1982, p. 198 [referring to *St. Peter's calculation].

"It seems, for instance, that altering the rate of expansion at the Big Bang very marginally would have made our universe fall to bits too fast or undergo recollapse too quickly for Life to stand a chance of evolving. Persuading expanding gases to form themselves into galaxies of stars and planets requires an adjustment of gravitational and explosive forces quite as delicate as that between the two halves of a pencil in balance on a razor's edge.

". . Even as matters stand, it is hard to see how galaxies could have formed in a universe which is flying apart so fast—and an early speed increase by one thousandth would quickly have led to a thousandfold increase. Again, very slight reductions in the smoothness with which matter is distributed . . would apparently have multiplied the primeval heat billions of times with disastrous effects."—J. Leslie, Cosmology, Probability, and the Need to explain Life," in N. Rescher, (ed.), Scientific Explanation and Understanding (1983), pp. 53-54.

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