Laminated terrain at the Martian North Pole. Was each layer set down over the course of major cyclical climate changes lasting thousands of years -- or are they due to recent catastrophe?

6. Creation and Mars

Long before evolution was called science, the Bible's creation account was accepted for millennia. In that account, the universe and life are not random events, but rather the conscious plan of an infinite, eternal being -- God. In the late 1800s, the Bible's creation account was rejected by the scientific establishment because it allegedly conflicted with empirical evidence. Bible-believing christians were accused of irrational bias. Evolution came to dominate the minds of the intellectual elite, and educated people saw the Bible merely as an anthology of ancient fables.

Now that we've seen evolution break down on the sands of Mars, it's time to reopen the debate.

Let's first recognize there are other origin theories besides creation and evolution. Perhaps life on Earth evolved elsewhere and was brought here. Perhaps there is a God, but he has nothing to do with the Bible. Perhaps the entire universe is a 'cosmic consciousness,' and we've created our own reality.

We dispense with many of these theories by using simple logic.

First, if life didn't come about by chance, then it came about by design. And design implies a Creator. Moving the Creator off Earth to evolve on another planet doesn't solve the improbabilities of evolution, of course. The Creator can only come from a realm outside the laws of this physical universe. The Creator must be supernatural. This demolishes the New-Age 'Universal Cosmic Consciousness' concept. The Creator exists far beyond the universe; the material universe of atoms is an infinitesimal part of his being.

Nor is the Creator indifferent to humanity. Would someone go to the immense effort of creating beings as complex as ourselves, and then have no interest in how we actually function? The Creator must be concerned.

If the Creator cares about humanity, he would communicate his intentions to us. Sometime during history he would speak to us. His words would be written down and passed through history as religious scripture. That is what the Bible attests. The Bible is the only ancient document that speaks of a Creator this way. Unlike the deities of other 'scripture,' the Creator of the Bible strives to prove his existence through prophetic fulfillment. By the evidence, then, the Bible is the best candidate as a message from the Creator.

Many challenge the Bible's historical accuracy and the testimony of miracles, and even claim the fulfilled prophecies were written after the fact. But this much is undeniable: unlike fictitious deities who consistently demand uncritical acceptance, the Bible offers objective evidence of the Creator's existence. The Bible devotes entire chapters to genealogies, census counts, even eating-utensil inventories, to demonstrate objective details that connect it with history. No other religious document even comes close to providing such concrete specifics of time and place. Imaginary gods can't intervene in reality, and so they don't have records of doing so.

The Bible uniquely conforms to the character that reason tells us the Creator must have. But we're not just interested in the appearance of truth. We need to compare testament to reality.

If the Bible is true, then its narrative should accomodate intelligent life on Mars.We'll evaluate that, but first let's review what the Bible says about our origins.

The Bible is a collection of documents written over many centuries. The first book of the Bible dates back 3500 years. It is called 'Genesis.' It opens with a declaration of war on evolution: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."

God is the Creator and is omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal. He watches every sparrow and numbers the hairs on every head. God created not only life, but the whole universe, forming from nothingness.

Genesis states God created the universe in six stages, called 'days.' Stars, planets, and all life were formed by God's will. There is no evolutionary tree; life now is as it was then, or else it has deteorated. Men came not from apes but directly from dust. Thus ends the 'week' of biblical creation.

Genesis records what happened to the human race from the beginning. The first man and woman, Adam and Eve, are placed in paradise with all physical needs met. God's only commandment is: Do not eat the fruit of a particular tree. But deceived that she will become a god, Eve eats the fruit. Loving the woman more than God, Adam follows. As ironic punishment, God gives them free will -- and eviction from his paradise. This is the Fall.

Without God's benevolent intervention, the mechanical universe degenerates. Humans suffer poverty, disease, hunger, old age, and death. Spiritual corruption within each human soul brings exploitation of man by man.

The Bible says God now allows human sin and rebellion to run its course. Rarely does God manifest his will directly in human affairs and suspend physical laws. But the Bible does record such events.

The most dramatic of God's interventions was the Flood. Generations after the Fall, humans had spread across the Earth. When God looked down from Heaven, he saw continual evil among these humans, and in response cleansed the Earth of all but eight humans in a massive flood. Only Noah and his family were spared in a tiny ark, their survival as miraculous as the Flood itself.

After the Flood, humans repopulated the Earth, and the chronological narrative of the Bible overlaps with secular history. Working backward from these cross-referenced historical dates, the Bible provides a date for the Creation. According to the Masoretic translation of the Bible -- which is commonly used today -- the world was created in 4004 BC.

Biblical creation dates flatly conflict with evolution -- which requires the universe to exist for billions of years for stars, planets, and life to evolve. However, outside this age discrepancy, evolutionary cosmology oddly parallels the biblical creation account in its beginning. According to that cosmology, the universe began as a dimensionless point having no matter and no volume; the Bible speaks in similar language of the world being 'void' and 'without form'. Modern cosmology states that the universe began existence in what is known as a 'black hole'; the Bible declares that 'darkness moved over the face of the deep.' Modern cosmology states that the present universe was formed with a tremendous explosion of light energy; the biblical account reads, "And God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light."

Why these parallels? Probably because any serious cosmology must address the creation of matter, space, and light. Ancient pagan cosmologies with their cosmic eggs, dragon battles, and giant turtles were not serious, or even sober. Modern cosmology is serious, because it is the last desperate attempt by the opponents of God to denigrate the Genesis account. The strongest lie is that closest to the truth.

But what about the time scale?

Time Scale

Some scholars suggest the word translated as 'day' in Genesis 1 poetically connotes a much longer period than twenty-four hours. Alternatively, multi-million-year-long 'gaps' of settling and stabilization may have occured between the 'days' of work. If this is true, modern science could hardly criticize the Bible for poetic allusion -- given that modern cosmology embraces such technically-absurd misnomers as 'Big Bang' (no noise in space!), 'Black Hole' (which actually shines brightly!), and 'Red Shift' (which for the most part shifts away from the red portion of the spectrum!).

While harmonization might be made between cosmology and the Bible, biological evolution, which claims humanity has existed for millions of years, cannot be readily reconciled.

Scientific creationism attempts to reconcile scientific evidence with the Bible. Scientific creationists generally accept secular scientific data -- but interpret it differently than evolutionists do. According to creationism, the fossils we dig up are not the record of millions of years of evolution, but rather the remains of creatures buried in the shifting sediments of Noah's Flood, which occurred, according to biblical chronology, mere thousands of years ago. The same Flood is held responsible for carving virtually all major terrestrial land features -- features which evolutionists attribute to millions of years of geological formation and erosion.

Hardly anyone in the modern scientific establishment subscribes to scientific creationism. To do so means disdain, ridicule, and ostracism. Scientific creationists are accused of wishful thinking.

In other words, the modern scientific establishment dismisses scientific creationism the same way it dismisses intelligent life on Mars.

Correspondingly, the martian stones which the builders of the scientific establishment rejected may now become the cornerstone of the strongest support yet for scientific creationism.

Let's review the conflicts between evolutionary theory and Martian reality -- but now we'll contrast scientific creationism as well.

The evolutionist finds it enormously improbable that a planet like Mars would evolve life. According to evolutionary theory, Mars should have lost its atmosphere and ocean billions of years ago -- long before life could evolve.

In contrast, the creationist knows that God created Mars according to his own purposes. These purposes may have included the presence of human life in recent times. Since evolutionary conclusions about the age of earthly landforms are wrong, it's not surprising they're wrong about Martian landforms.

The evolutionist concludes that even if Mars had possessed an earthlike environment, its smaller surface area would have retarded the evolution of life, and so the appearance of intelligent life on the planet could not have come about by native evolution. The intelligent lifeforms must have been placed there by a mysterious, powerful entity. This is a puzzling complication to evolutionary theory.

In contrast, creationism is founded on the existence of a mysterious, powerful entity -- known as God.

The evolutionist is puzzled that the monuments of Mars look as if they were built within the last few thousand years. Mars is supposedly billions of years old, and thousands of years is a millionth of that period. For civilization to arise independently on Mars within a few thousand years of civilization on Earth is a one-in-a-million coincidence.

In contrast, the creationist believes Earth and Mars are no more than a few thousand years old. Artifacts found on these worlds must therefore be within that age range.

Evolution also denies intelligent life on another planet would resemble us -- yet the Face on Mars is very human. Their probability for this coincidence is extremely low. In contrast, the creationist believes that humans have a special place in God's creation. Creationism predicts that if there are Martians, they too must be sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and therefore they should look human. It is not surprising Martian monuments have human faces.

Finally, the evolutionist cannot explain why the universe is empty of intelligent civilizations. The theory claims organic evolution is inevitable and predicts millions of advanced intelligent civilizations should already have arisen in the galaxy. Electromagnetic signals, space probes, and star spheres should have revealed their presence -- to say nothing of the archeological remains of interstellar expeditions to our world. But there is none of this, so the evolutionist concludes that perhaps the evolution of intelligence is not so probable, and perhaps the galaxy is empty.

Ironically, we then find such a civilization on Mars, The Planet Next Door. It seems that no other star in the hundred billion or so in the galaxy hosts an intelligent civilization; our one ordinary star hosts two. This is at least a billion-to-one coincidence.

For the creationist, it is no coincidence at all. Since humanity has a special place in God's creation, any extraterrestrial civilization must have migrated from Earth. Extraterrestrial civilizations would be expected to be found nearby rather than far away.

Summarizing, what can we say about the differences between evolution and creationism over intelligent life on Mars? Where evolution declares a condition improbable, creationism predicts it -- and reality agrees with creationism.

Even though the Bible doesn't explicitly mention Martians, it presents a cosmological framework which is consistent with their existence: (1) Martians are the Bible's kind of age (thousands of years), (2) they are the Bible's kind of people (humans), and (3) they are living in the Bible's neighborhood (next door to Earth). The Bible even offers an explanation as to how they got there (God) and how their world came to be so earthlike (God).

Both evolution and creationism ultimately lead us to the same conclusion -- that a mysterious Third Party transported humans from Earth to Mars a few thousand years ago. But for evolution this is improbable. For creationism, it is plausible.

More embarrassing for evolutionists is the flat contradiction of their geological observations about the age of Martian landforms. Those age estimates were based on the same observational conclusions applied to earthly landforms. Now, if these age estimates are bogus on Mars, just how accurate are they for Earth?

Furthermore, the existence of life on Mars matches most closely the most fundamentalist and literal interpretation of the Bible's creation account. 'Gap theories' and 'theistic evolution' are just as problematic as evolution itself, because they insert millions of years into the history of the universe -- and that's the central problem here. Mars is not about millions of years. It's about thousands of years.

Given that Mars confirms a literal Bible, perhaps we should take a closer look at the Bible and see if there is an oblique reference or two to the Martians after all. And we'll do that in the next chapter.

For now, let's review the intellectual dismissal of creationist doctrine. The evolutionists have the universities and the research grants, and even the Supreme Court sides with their views. The only thing evolutionists lack is factual credibility. Given its success in accounting for the existence of life on Mars, creationism deserves a second look.

In science there is a rule called 'Occam's Razor': the best explanation is the simplest one that accounts for all the facts. False theories have a tendency to stretch and elaborate to account for inconsistencies with the data; Occam's Razor mercilessly cuts away at such convoluted reasoning.

Occam's Razor isn't the same as proving a theory, but it's common sense. If a theory is becoming ever more cumbersome in order to explain away contradictions, it surely loses credibility.

Modern science claims scientific creationism violates Occam's Razor. In reality, evolution is by far the greater violator. Where major natural phenomena can be readily explained in terms of processes acting over thousands of years, evolution consistently introduces 'unknown mechanisms' to account for the same observations 'really' requiring millions of years.

A few key examples will illustrate.

In the nineteenth century, the British physicist Sir William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, seriously challenged the evolutionary time scale. Astronomer Robert Jastrow recounts:

Kelvin calculated how long it would take the Earth to cool from its present temperature, assuming that the heat had been flowing out of the interior of the planet throughout its past history at the same rate at which it flows out today. The calculations indicated that the earth had been cooling down for about 40 million years . . . .

But, according to Darwin, a far greater time than 40 million years was needed for species of plant and animal life to have developed by the slow process of natural selection. If Kelvin's calculations were correct, Darwin's theory of evolution must be wrong.[1]

In 1893, Kelvin reduced his estimate to 24 million years -- even worse for evolution! But creationism's approximate ten-thousand year age for the Earth fit well under this limit.

Evolutionists responded -- with speculation. In 1904, the physicist Ernest Rutherford presented a paper suggesting that radioactive substances in the earth's core might release enough heat through decay to sustain the temperature of the Earth's interior for billions of years.[2]

It was a theory without proof, and has remained proofless. Yet it is now accepted as fact. Now, is proofless faith consistent with science -- or religion? Occam's Razor surely protests -- the elaboration was introduced solely to salvage evolutionism.

This happens all the time in evolutionary 'science.'

Another example is with regard to the Sun's lifespan.

Hermann von Helmholtz, a nineteenth century German physicist, questioned what power source provided the Sun's tremendous outpouring of light. Even if the Sun were made of coal, he determined, it could only burn for a mere fifteen hundred years.[3] He searched for another possibility. In 1853, Helmholtz calculated that if the Sun were collapsing under the force of its own gravity, the conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy would keep it alight for up to 18 million years.[4]

This was not enough for evolution, as science writer Isaac Asimov notes in his book, The Neutrino:

It might have seemed that a lifetime of 18,000,000 years for the Earth was enough for even the most demanding theorist, but it was not. Geologists, who studied slow changes in the Earth's crust, estimated by what seemed irrefutable arguments that to achieve the present situation, the Earth must have been in existence not for merely tens of millions of years, but for hundreds of millions of years, possibly for billions of years; and that through all that time, the Sun must have been shining in much its present fashion.

Then, too, in 1859, the theory of evolution by natural selection had been advanced by the English naturalist Charles Robert Darwin. If evolution was to have proceeded as biologists were then beginning to think it must have, then, again, the Earth had to be in existence for hundreds of millions of years at least, with the Sun shining throughout that time much as it is today.[5]

The evolutionists again met fact with unfounded speculation. The Sun's energy source, they declared, must be nuclear fusion. Why? Because only fusion provides enough energy to keep the Sun burning for the billions of years required by evolutionary doctrine. It is a baseless 'fact' that is now accepted without question.

Yes, stars are made of hydrogen, and hydrogen fuses into helium. But the pressures and temperatures at the Sun's center are far lower than those that trigger a hydrogen bomb. After decades of trying, the physics community still can't duplicate hypothetical 'solar fusion' reactions. Maybe that's because the hypothesis is wrong?

Observations indicate the Sun is not undergoing a fusion reaction, because it is not emitting the expected neutrinos (the neutrino is a subatomic particle ejected in fusion reactions). Theory states the Sun should be producing measurable levels of neutrinos. Reality: the flux level is too low to detect.[6]

According to science writer Jerry Pournelle, the scientific response has been " . . . a theoretical orgy, mostly of 'cocktail party' theories."[7] Some examples:

Item: the Sun has 'gone out' and periodically does so, reigniting after a period of gravitational collapse. Item: there's a black hole of around 1% of the Sun's mass dead center in our star, and the Sun shines because matter falling into the hole gives off energy; there's no fusion in there at all. Item (a theory that really drives astronomers nuts): suppose all the heavy elements in the Sun are concentrated in the outer layers (for reasons no one can give): then the results would be consistent with neutrino observation.[8]

Occam's Razor says the obvious explanation is the Sun is powered by conventional gravitational contraction after all. But that doesn't work for evolution, so it's ignored.

Does a mysterious mechanism inside the Sun inhibit neutrinos? Occam's Razor says no. Evolution says yes.

Another example of evolutionary rationalization is with respect to the Earth's magnetic field.

Creationists and evolutionists both recognize the Earth's magnetic field is the product of electrical currents generated by molten metals churning in the Earth's core. While the Earth formed, molten metals within the core were in agitation. This charged up the magnetic field. However, any such residual magnetic field would be short-lived in terms of the evolutionary time-scale. Geophysics researchers Charles R.Carrigan and David Gubbins explain:

The field cannot be descended from a magnetic field of the primordial earth because the electric conductivity of the core is too low. Without a constant supply of energy the electric currents maintaining the field would have died out in less than 10,000 years.[9]

This decay period is perfect for creationism, but evolutionists must again introduce an elaboration. They hypothesize that the Earth's magnetic field is recharged from time to time by a 'virtual electrical motor' within the core -- a 'geodynamo.' There is no evidence for this geodynamo, of course -- apart from belief that the Earth is billions of years old!

One good unobservable elaboration apparently deserves another. According to research scientist Kenneth A. Hoffman:

Paleomagnetic records show that the geomagnetic field does not reverse instantaneously from one polarity state to the other. Rather, the process involves a transition period that typically spans a few thousand years. Hence for perhaps 98 percent of the time the field is stable and its shape is well understood. But for the remaining 2 percent of the time the field is unstable and its shape is not obvious.[10]

The 'paleomagnetic data' here is from lava beds spread out from fissures on the ocean floor. As lava solidifies, it retains a residual magnetism oriented to Earth's magnetic field at the time it solidified. Using evolutionary assumptions about the lava flow rate, evolutionists conclude the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself every half million years, with a transition period of ten thousand years during which the field decays to zero. Measurements indicate we are living in just such a transition, and Earth's magnetic field will reach zero in just another thousand years.

This creates more problems for evolution than it solves.

First, the complexity of the paleomagnetic record defies the ability of a 'geodynamo' to emulate. As Hoffman stated in 1988, after three decades of data collection, the results " . . . now challenge theorists to develop 'geodynamo' models that can account for the observed behavior."[11] Translation: they can't even come up with a theory that fits the data.

Also disturbing for evolution is the timing coincidence. All of human history 'just happens' to coincide with a rare magnetic-field transition period. Also coincidentally, magnetic field transition periods happen to last just longer than all of recorded human history. And just a thousand years from now, the magnetic field will be gone! For the creationist, the timing fits perfectly with biblical doctrine. For the evolutionist, these coincidences are a headache.

The creationist model relates the paleomagnetic data to the Flood. The Flood waters came not only from rain but also 'the fountains of the deep' -- fissures in the ocean floor which opened up and released huge amounts of water sufficient to cover the continents. The Flood involved major geological upheaval (there is no way for a mountain such as Everest, for example, to have been covered by water unless the entire Earth's surface was undergoing major deformation). The turbulence at the Earth's core caused the Earth's magnetic field to charge up to saturation level -- and rapidly oscillate. The lava beds on the ocean floor were created when the fissures were opened, and bear witness not to millions of years of geological history, but to the single year of upheaval that occurred during the Flood, and to the splitting of the continents that occurred in its aftermath.

The Earth's magnetic field is still decaying from this cataclysm, which occurred less than ten thousand years ago.

And the historical coincidences? When the Flood ended, human history began again as well, so naturally the beginning of the decay of Earth's magnetic field and the beginning of human civilization occurred simultaneously. That the end of the field and the end of civilization also might ultimately coincide is once again indicative of divine planning, evoking the prophecies of the Bible's last book, Revelation, which states the Earth will be remade.

The Earth's magnetic field will have to be recharged someday, considering the role it plays in protecting life from deadly space radiation. And in that consideration, there is another evolutionary problem.

The danger is described by Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill:

Occasionally, for reasons we are only slowly coming to understand, the Sun emits sudden bursts of radiation called flares. These rays travel almost as fast as light, and reach Earth within minutes. When they do, they cause brilliant auroral displays in the upper reaches of our atmosphere. Very rarely, every few decades, particular intense flares occur, which saturate Earth with radiation, temporarily blank out much of our long-distance radio communications, and even affect Earth's magnetic field. Such an event last occurred about twenty years ago [i.e., late 1950s]. If there had been astronauts on their way to the moon at that time, they would almost surely have been killed by that flare.[12]

O'Neill suggests that future deep space colonies be shielded with six feet of rock as an adequate substitute for the shielding done by the Earth's magnetic field.[13] He also is concerned cumulative genetic damage could build up over many decades, unless such shielding is in place.[14]

Yet according to evolution, every half million years, the Earth's magnetic field dwindles to zero! The planet's radiation belt vanishes as well. How has life on Earth survived solar flares during those periods? The geological evolutionists need to talk to the biological evolutionists.

When they do, a new elaboration of evolutionary theory will be introduced. It will be unprovable -- yet quickly accepted as 'fact.'

Occam's Razor remains sheathed as always.

Earth's interior is home to massive quantities of radioactive material and a 'geodynamo.' According to evolution.

Another example of Occam's Razor avoided is the 'Oort Cloud.' The evolutionary problem: comets are believed to have formed with the solar system, billions of years ago, but since comets are made of ice and pass close to the Sun, they evaporate in less than a million years[15]. How come there are still comets? Astronomer Jan van Oort theorized there must be a vast cloud of icy planetoids circling the Sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto, where they keep frozen over the eons. From time to time a tiny fraction of these planetoids are perturbed by Jupiter's gravitation, 'fall in toward the Sun' and become short-lived comets. Thus we still have comets today.

There probably are many icy planetoids beyond Pluto. But how many does Oort need to make his theory work? Oort calculated a hundred billion, while astronomer Fred Whipple thought the number might be a thousand times greater![16]

Thus: evolutionists require a hundred trillion hypothetical comets-in-waiting to explain the existence of fewer than six hundred known comets.[17] And only a handful of outer-system ice planetoids have actually been found!

But you would never know how extreme this speculation is from popular science literature -- where the Oort Cloud is taken as fact.

Billions of years after they should have all died out, comets mysteriously intrude upon our solar system. Evolution requires an explanation.

One comet in the Kuiper Belt is proof for quadrillions in the Oort Cloud . . . according to evolution.

But with the Oort Cloud, evolution may finally be called to account. We can't cut open the Earth to see radioactives heating the core, nor can we penetrate the Sun to learn why there are so few neutrinos. But someday, we'll be able to search deep space for icy planetoids. What if there are only a few million -- or perhaps merely a few hundred?

What will evolutionists tell us then?

What does Occam's Razor tell us now?