Monthly Archives: November 2018

How Do You Get An Ice Age?

Here’s a fact that may surprise you: secular scientists have no good explanation for the ice age. They have theories, but none work. “It’s a killer,” says one scientist. “It’s maddening,” adds another.

The most common theory, the one you’ll probably find if you look it up, is the astronomical (or Milankovitch) theory. It is that a very slow and very slight change in the Earth’s orbit dramatically changed the climate on Earth. In the 1970s scientists measured chemical variations in layers of deep arctic ice, assigned dates to those layers, and claimed the dates matched astronomical cycles. Under this theory there were about 50 ice ages in the last 2.5 million years, with the most recent peaking around 20,000 years ago.

Jake Herbert, a scientist with the Institute for Creation Research, has written several articles in Acts and Facts that destroy this theory. (I lean on his articles heavily in this post, and if you haven’t yet subscribed to that wonderful (and free!) magazine, I encourage you to do so at icr.org.) Herbert notes that the dates scientists now ascribe to those chemical variations no longer match the astronomical cycles. In other words, the calendar foundation of the astronomical theory has been ripped out from under it.

Herbert notes a second problem – even if the cycles still matched, why did the climate change so severely? Noted astronomer Fred Hoyle mocked the astronomical theory:

If I were to assert that a glacial condition could be induced in a room liberally supplied during winter with charged night storage heaters simply by taking an ice cube into the room, the proposition would be no more unlikely than the Milankovitch theory.

The heavens operate like a precise clock. Computers today can model the distance of the Earth from the Sun going back thousands or (using secular deep-time assumptions) even millions of years. They find no significant deviation.

I think most scientists are willing to overlook the mismatch in the cycles, and the failure of computers to simulate an ice age, because they have no better hypothesis. But here’s a fact that kills all astronomical theories. None of them can explain ice miles thick.

The glaciers were two miles or higher in many places, including much of North America. The seas worldwide dropped almost 400 feet. No theory based solely on decreasing sunlight can explain this. If the Earth simply got colder, evaporation would slow, and snowfall would subside. You don’t get ice two miles high. So how do you get an ice age?

The answer is in the Bible. The Bible tells us there was a great Flood, the Flood of Noah, thousands of years ago (I like the estimate of 3300 BC for the Flood). Genesis 7:11 tells us “the fountains of the great deep burst forth.” I think this refers to both volcanoes and underground oceans. The whole Earth was flooded, and tsunamis wiped out all land life not in the Ark. Continents crashed into each other like freight trains, and the collisions built the mountains we see today. Particles from smoldering volcanoes blocked sunlight for perhaps three to five hundred years, and hot lava heated the oceans worldwide to a warm bath. You had reduced sunlight and warm water for hundreds of years. Think of a giant El Niño. Hundreds of years of reduced sunlight and warm oceans are the only explanation for ice two miles high.

The Flood was a real event. In my post Memories of the Flood, I describe the flood memories of cultures worldwide, from the jungles of Indonesia to Hawaii to the deep Amazon. How did ancient Hawaiians get the name of Noah right and know that he and his three sons built an ark? You think the Hebrews sent them a letter?

In his most recent article in the November issue of Acts and Facts, Herbert notes that the Biblical model solves another major mystery – the existence and then disappearance of millions of wooly mammoths in Siberia. He points out the strong evidence that large numbers of mammoths lived in Siberia during the Ice Age, and notes that winters in Siberia today are far too cold (Minus 40 Fahrenheit is common) for these animals. Herbert states that the only logical theory is that Siberia’s climate was more temperate during the Ice Age, which is what we would expect from warm oceans without Arctic ice. Herbert notes that the coastal lowlands of Siberia were never covered by ice, even though secular ice age models predict they would have been. Finally, Herbert points out that the Biblical model tells us why the mammoths went extinct. When the arctic ocean finally did freeze over, and the moderating influence of warm sea air was no more, the climate changed quickly. The Biblical model predicts that colder high-latitude temperatures, combined with a dryer climate at the end of the Ice Age, would have resulted in enormous dust storms, which buried the mammoths alive. Herbert notes that many mammoth carcasses are found in frozen hills of wind-blown silt.

How do you get an Ice Age? If you look to the word of God, to the Bible, you will find the answer.

Thanks for reading. Please spread the good news of modern science. Together we can change the world.

Doug Ell

The Laws of Physics

Atheists believe there is no evidence of supernatural creation. At a dinner a few years ago a Harvard professor told me “I do not believe the laws of physics can be violated.. He didn’t realize that his system of belief fails when closely examined.

We will skip over here how one can have laws without a lawmaker. Where do the laws of physics come from. We will also skip over the fantastic fine-tuning of the laws of physics. It is accepted fact that the universe is fine-tuned almost beyond comprehension, beyond picking one special marble out of a pile of marbles millions of light years high. The existence of natural laws and the fine-tuning of those laws are both powerful evidence of God (see Chapters 7 and 8 of Counting To God). But we will skip over these for now, because the laws of physics themselves reveal God.

Perhaps the most fundamental of those laws are the laws of Thermodynamics. The First Law of Thermodynamics is that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. Einstein showed us how they are related (E=mc2). In a sense, matter is frozen energy, and a very small amount of matter melts into an enormous amount of energy (think atomic explosion). If the First Law of Thermodynamics cannot be violated, matter/energy have always existed, and the universe has existed forever.

This contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is that the universe is running out of useable energy. Everything eventually breaks down and decays. All systems go from order to disorder. The universe has not existed forever, because, if it had, everything today would be lifeless and static. There is no way around this problem. The “quantum egg” theory, that our universe popped out of a quantum field, fails because if the past were infinite the “egg” would have “cracked” an infinite time ago, and again today the universe would be lifeless.

How can we reconcile the First and Second Laws. There had to be an event outside the laws of physics. Genesis tells us God created the heavens and the earth. There is no better explanation, no better way to reconcile the First and Second Laws. The multiverse theory, that our universe popped out of another universe, cannot be tested (and is therefore unscientific by definition), and the infinite multiverse was disproved by the Borg-Guth-Vilenkin Singularity Theorem (the universe had to have a beginning).

If that weren’t enough evidence for God in the laws of physics, there is even a scientific experiment that violates the known laws of physics. It’s called “quantum entanglement,” where two particles, or even bundles of atoms, are “entangled” so that a change in one instantaneously affects the other. Instant effects over distances (it’s been tested up to 88 miles apart, see pages 188 and 189 of Counting To God)) violate General Relativity. General Relativity tells us that effects cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Quantum entanglement violates General Relativity, and proves there is something outside of space and time.

When I pointed out to the Harvard professor that quantum entanglement violated the laws of physics, he was taken back, and sheepishly suggested that we need a better definition of time. If that strikes you as a feeble cop-out, you’re not alone. At the same time he is claiming the laws of physics cannot be violated, he is admitting he doesn’t understand the laws of physics.

The laws of physics reveal the existence of God.

Thanks for reading. My health is starting to improve, and I hope to post more often.

Doug Ell