Torah and Science - Facts, Theories, and Fiction

Dr. Zvi Shkedi

One of the obstacles to the joint study of Torah and science is the mistaken perception as if there are contradictions between Torah and science. There are Torah scholars who do not learn science because they believe that science contradicts the Torah.

Not everything called "science" is science, and not everything called "Torah" is Torah. We show that there is never a contradiction between real Torah and real science. Human imagination, extrapolations, wishful speculations, mistaken theories, and leftovers of Greek philosophy are often believed to be part of Torah or science rather than what they really are. The controversy involving contradictions between Torah and Science is a result of such mistaken beliefs. Understanding the source of the mistaken beliefs resolves the apparent contradictions and shows that Torah and Science are in perfect harmony.

In this article we present one side of the debate - “Not everything called 'science' is science”. The other side of the debate, “Not everything called 'Torah' is Torah”, is presented in the article: ”Torah, Science, and Greek Philosophy”.

(We do not endorse and do not agree with the approach taken by Natan Slifkin to the subject of Torah and Science. Slifkin is not a recognized scientist. We were unable to find a single original-research scientific article written by Slifkin and published in a respectable peer-reviewed scientific journal. We believe that Slifkin failed to realize that not everything called "science" is science. Slifkin has mistakenly accepted as "science" many nonsensical speculations which do not qualify as science. Then, he distorted fundamental Torah principles in order to make them fit these nonsensical speculations.)

Introduction

The desire to understand God's creation has dominated human thinking since early history. The quest to discover nature and to understand the laws by which God controls nature is a never ending process. It probably started thousands of years ago when people got curious about the motion of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. How do they move? What is their trajectory? Why do they move? And, later on, what exactly is moving? What are the forces and rules of nature which govern this motion?

Then came the quest for understanding life. What is life? How did it start? Where do tiny creatures come from if we can't see how they are born? Why are there so many species of living creatures? Are they related to each other?

Another question which keeps scientists busy is, how did the world come into being? How old is the world?

There are two parallel paths which dominate this quest. One, is the religious path - the way of the Torah, or at least, what we think we understand from the Torah. The other, is the path of scientific research where nothing is taken for granted - everything is subject to questioning, criticism, research, and discovery. Somewhere in between these two, lies the philosophical path which is an attempt to understand the world through human intelligence, emotions, and imagination. This article will be limited to Torah and science alone. The religious and scientific paths have crossed roads since early history, sometimes in perfect harmony and sometimes in heavy conflicts and apparent contradictions.

One of the most difficult challenges facing society in its desire to understand newly discovered scientific knowledge, is the proliferation of those who pretend to know more than what they really know. In the field of medicine they are called "quacks". Unfortunately, almost every professional field has its share of "quacks". A title, a degree, or a diploma are far from being sufficient to establish a person's qualifications. The author of this article has interviewed many job candidates for scientific-research and for engineering positions. They all had valid paper certificates for their qualifications; some of them had Ph.D. degrees. A large percentage of those candidates could not pass a practical test and were unable to apply their skills in their own professional field. It is not a surprise that new cars fail within a few weeks and that buildings collapse while being built. Similarly, science libraries are full of publications which should have never been published. Sorting out the real from the fancy is not an easy task.

The apparent contradictions between what some people believe is their understanding of the Torah and their understanding of science, will not be resolved in a democratic way. Majority opinion and majority vote mean nothing in this quest. Just try to imagine how to determine who should have the right to vote on these questions. Does every individual get an equal vote? How about a joint decision by all the Rabbis and all the supreme courts in the world today? If they decide that the earth is flat, will the earth be flat? Personal credentials, authority, fame, and world recognition are just as meaningless in the quest to resolve such contradictions. When it comes to establishing the truth, the only thing that counts is the truth itself.

Psychological barriers to accepting a newly discovered truth can also not be ignored. It is only natural for people to reject knowledge which they don't understand. Regardless of how true the knowledge is, lack of understanding creates a psychological barrier which most people cannot overcome. The reaction to Einstein's theory of relativity teaches us an important lesson. When Einstein first published it in 1905, most of the physicists in the world rejected it - it was too difficult to understand. Today, on the other hand, every physicist knows how true it is. Many years later, Einstein himself, when introduced to the new principles of probability and quantum mechanics, rejected it with his famous saying: "God does not play dice with the universe." Even Einstein fell into the trap of this psychological barrier, unable to accept the new and difficult-to-understand discoveries. Again, today, every physicist knows how true these new discoveries are.

Many debates involving the apparent contradictions between Torah and science begin with phrases like: "Torah says that ..." and "science says that ..." Is it really what the Torah or science say? As we will see, this is not always the case. Not everything called "science" is science, and not everything called "Torah" is Torah. There are no contradictions between real Torah and real science. Apparent contradictions are only a result of misrepresentations of Torah, misrepresentations of science, or both. The most common misrepresentations occur when human imagination, extrapolations, and speculations are presented as if they were facts. An understanding of the misrepresentations resolves the conflicts and shows that Torah and science are in perfect harmony.

The Classification of Scientific Knowledge

Scientific research is a human process. It is a process by which people try, and occasionally succeed, to find answers to questions about the universe. All the knowledge which people tend to describe as "science" or as the "fruit of science" can be classified into four categories:

a) Fact
b) Scientific theory
c) Speculation
d) Imagination

Let's examine each of these categories in detail.

a)  A fact is something which is well proven and established by experiments. All experiments yield the same consistent results. All attempts to disprove the fact have failed, and will most likely always fail. It is important to note that most experiments measure the consequences of facts rather than the facts themselves. For example: a mercury thermometer measures the expansion of mercury inside a glass tube. The measured length of the mercury column is a consequence of temperature; it can be correlated with temperature; but, it is not temperature itself. An experimentally measured consequence can be interpreted as a fact only if the connection between the consequence and the fact is so well established that a) it is impossible to make a mistake in the interpretation of the measurement, and, b) it has been well established by other experiments that the same consequence cannot be caused by any other effect. Mistaken interpretations of measured consequences have embarrassed many scientists who neglected to verify that their measured consequences cannot be caused by any other effects.

b)  A scientific theory is an attempt to explain an observation in a logical way. Most scientific theories are expressed in the form of mathematical equations or formulas. A scientific theory must be stated in such a way that enables experimental scientists to perform experiments to test the validity of the theory. A claim or opinion which does not avail itself to experimental testing is not a theory -  it is just a private opinion or imagination. For example: "Life was brought to earth on a UFO" is not a theory - it is imagination. A scientific theory must be based on facts which support the theory, and, there cannot be any fact or observation which contradicts the theory. However, since the factual basis on which the theory is based is not sufficiently broad or complete, we still call it a theory rather than a fact. When a theory is a) completely free from contradictions; and, b) all experiments trying to prove the theory are consistently successful; c) all experiments trying to disprove the theory are consistently unsuccessful; and d) all predictions made on the basis of this theory are experimentally validated as true; then, the theory might be upgraded by scientists to the status of "well established theory" and sometimes even to the status of "fact". If, on the other hand, scientists find even a single fact or observation which contradicts the theory, the theory gets downgraded to the status of "failed theory".

Example: According to Kabbalah, the world consists of four elements: soil, water, air, and fire. In today's scientific terminology, these are called: solid, liquid, gas, and energy. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, added a fifth element - the "aether" - the substance from which the universe is made, filling up all space in which the first four elements are absent. Scientists invested a huge effort and conducted endless experiments trying to prove or disprove the existence of the aether. When it was finally proven that the "aether" substance does not exist, and what is left behind in the absence of matter is "vacuum", the "aether" theory was downgraded to "failed theory". Only experienced scientists know that the majority of theories found in science libraries are failed theories.

c)  Speculation is an attempt to explain an observation without a sufficient foundation of scientific facts. Such speculation may sound right, may be pleasing to our senses, and may even offer a possible explanation of an observation. However, the observation may also have other possible explanations which can be very different. What makes a theory "speculative" is the possibility of other theories and the lack of sufficient evidence to prove which one of these theories is the right one. For example: When a person does not come home from work at the time his wife expects him to be home, the wife will usually speculate as to the reason her husband is not home. There can be many possible theories, but the wife does not know which is the right one. If she chooses to believe in one specific theory, it would be speculation.

Speculations cause a lot of controversy in society. When scientists debate speculations their objective is usually to find the truth. However, when non-scientists debate speculations, their objective is rarely the truth. Many debates over famous speculations are more about promoting a social, emotional, religious, or anti-religious agenda.

Wishful speculations are the worst of the worst. Wishful speculations always contain a hidden agenda. They are crafted with the intention to prove a pre-determined desirable result. Fragments of information are pieced together in a way that will "prove" a desirable result, while ignoring information which contradicts the desired end result. Wishful speculations can be fabricated to prove the most nonsensical ideas that the human mind can invent. For example:

• A piece of bone that was publicized as being a collarbone of a "five million years old human-like creature", was later discovered to be part of a dolphin rib.
• The Nebraska Man was used to promote the idea of human beings evolving from apes, until it was shown to be based on a single tooth of a peccary (an animal similar to a pig) found by a farmer in his field.
• The Piltdown Man was publicized by evolutionists as the "Missing Link" between man and ape-like species, until it was discovered that it was a hoax based on a medieval skull combined with a lower jaw from an orangutan and teeth from a chimpanzee

d)  Imagination is just that. Some people use their imagination to explain certain observations without support from scientific facts. Every observation which we do not understand triggers our imagination and we try to develop some explanation in our mind. Almost all human beings develop at least one imaginative explanation during their lifetime. The milky way is there because someone spilled milk in the sky. The moon is made of a green cheese and a cow eats from it during the second half of each lunar month. During the day we hear more noise than at night because the movement of the sun in the sky makes noise. Sea water at night is warmer than by day because the sun warms it up from underneath the earth at night. People come from monkeys - they turn into people when nobody is watching. Life was brought to earth on a UFO. Do dogs evolve into cats or do cats evolve into dogs? There is no limit to human imagination. All so-called "theories" which do not avail themselves to experimental validation are included in this category of imagination.

Not all information which is claimed to be "scientific" will fit precisely into one of these four categories. It is possible to have borderline information which may fit into two adjacent categories. It is also possible for different people to have different opinions on where to classify the knowledge. The two categories which are most prone to such overlap are speculations and imagination.

To illustrate how all these categories can apply to one specific observation, let's look at the example of "dinosaurs". When a researcher finds a collection of large bones, which are much larger than those of any known animal, the existence of the bones is a fact. When the researcher tries to fit the bones together like a puzzle, he may come up with a skeleton of a large and unknown animal. If the researcher believes in his puzzle and draws a picture of the animal to which these bones used to belong, such an animal could be either a scientific theory or speculation. If all the bones "click" together in only one possible order, and it is impossible to fit the bones together in any other order, the general shape of this animal would be a scientific theory. If, however, it is possible to fit the bones together in more than one order (as is often the case), resulting in different animal shapes, then any shape depicted for this animal would be speculation. When book authors illustrate their books with life-like pictures of dinosaurs, showing details which cannot be derived from bones (e.g. skin color, hair, facial expressions, eyes, ears) such illustrations fall into the category of imagination.

Getting students to blindly accept information made up by others, is not education but indoctrination. The fact that most students today believe that they know exactly what dinosaurs used to look like, is a disgrace to current science education. Authors and teachers alike have yet to learn how to teach students the skill of differentiating between facts, theories, and imagination. Any subject in which speculations and imaginative ideas are presented as if they were scientific facts is pseudo-science, not science. (Pseudo in Greek means false, fake.) 


Theories in Modern Science

Scientific research is usually divided into two categories, experimental and theoretical. Experimental scientists who publish their research results, devote most of their publications to the experimental procedures and findings. Following the experimental section, it is common to suggest a theory to explain the experimental findings, or to connect the experimental findings with one or more theories suggested by other scientists. Both the authors and the scientists who read the publications know that the theoretical suggestion at the end of an experimental publication is speculative. They know that it is only one of several possible theories which "could make sense". Non-scientists who read such a publication usually don't understand that the theoretical suggestion is speculative. They often misunderstand the theoretical suggestion and believe that the entire purpose of the publication is to "prove" a new scientific theory.

Theoretical scientists write their publications differently. They usually open with a review of available experimental findings, continue with the results of their theoretical research, and conclude with suggestions for further experiments to be performed to validate or to resolve uncertainties in their theory.

Experimental scientists rely on theoreticians to guide and to suggest new experiments. Theoretical scientists rely on experimentalists to provide them with experimental data on which they can base their theoretical research. This interaction and cooperation is the core of modern scientific research.

Every experimental result needs to be uniformly reproduced and validated by other experimental scientists in order to be accepted as a scientific fact. Similarly, every suggested theory must be tested and validated by experiments in order to be accepted as a scientific theory. Every suggested theory also carries an additional burden before it can be accepted as a scientific theory:  a) it has to be consistent with all known experimental findings, b) no contradictions are permitted, c) all attempts to prove the theory wrong must fail, d) all experiments performed to test the theory must yield favorable results, and, e) the theory must be capable of making predictions which can be tested by future experiments.

The requirement of a theory to be capable of making testable predictions is one of the distinctions between modern science and old-style science. In old-style science, everyone could suggest theories. If they sounded right and were free from contradictions, they were recognized as scientific theories. Experienced scientists know that most of the theories so developed, are wrong. An experimental basis and lack of contradictions are no longer recognized as sufficient. To limit the proliferation of wrong theories, the requirement of making testable predictions is now uniform among scientists. Theories which cannot produce testable predictions are no longer considered scientific. Untestable theories are the fruit of human imagination. Any subject which appears superficially to be scientific or whose proponents claim is scientific, but, contravenes the testability requirement, is classified as pseudo-science.

Experienced scientists who read scientific publications know how to identify theories which their authors admit to be speculative. Such speculations are often presented using vague phrases like: "we can infer that ..."; "it is consistent with ..."; "it is possible that ..."; "undoubtedly ..."; "we must conclude that ..."; "it may have occurred at ..."; "there is no doubt that ..."; "it appears to be ...";  etc.

An easy way to find out if an author considers his theory speculative, is the "court testimony test". If the author's statement were to be presented as testimony in a criminal trial, would it be accepted as clear-cut evidence?  If the answer is "no" - it shows that the author knows his theory is speculative, therefore he qualifies it with vague or cautionary language.

It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between good-looking false science and real science. Even reputable scientists occasionally fall into this trap. Unfortunately, too many speculations and imaginative ideas are promoted by those who are more interested in publicity or politics than in intellectual honesty. Such speculations and imaginative ideas are often presented as if they were scientific facts, even though they lack the necessary ingredients to be considered scientific.

Logical Fallacies  

The understanding of logical fallacies is rarely included in the education of science students. Those who have not been trained to detect logical fallacies can easily be led to believe that they witness a new scientific discovery. Let's start with a simple example - proving the effectiveness of "elephant repellent powder". Can you find the fallacy?

Many years ago, when I visited Brooklyn, I saw a person walking up and down the streets, puffing white powder into the air.
- "What are you doing?" I asked him.
- "I spread elephant repellent powder" he answered, "it keeps the elephants away".
- "But, there are no elephants in Brooklyn", I said.
- "You see, it works!" he replied.
I immediately started spreading this powder in my own town and it really worked. We were never visited by elephants.

The next example includes a series of fallacies. Can you find all of them?

Chicken lay eggs with calcium shells even when they are fed a diet with no calcium. From here we learn that chicken have the ability to convert other elements into calcium. Now that we have established that one element can be converted into another, there is no reason why people cannot convert other elements into gold. Indeed, various successful recipes for making gold have been published.

The inversion of cause and effect is another common fallacy. The following example shows how an effect can easily be turned into a cause.

A journalist interviewed ladies wearing expensive jewelry. He discovered that all the ladies, or their husbands, earn a high income. The journalist concluded that wearing expensive jewelry causes people to earn a high income.

Another example of deceptive logic involves circular reasoning. Circular reasoning (sometimes called circular logic) is the basing of two conclusions each upon the other. The truth of the conclusion is already assumed in the premise. Sometimes circular reasoning also includes intermediate steps. By following a chain of arguments and conclusions, one of the conclusions is presumed by an earlier conclusion. Cleverly designed circular reasoning can sometimes be difficult to detect.

The human eye cannot see infrared light. Infrared light is light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns. This proves that the human eye cannot see light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns.

"Infrared light" and "light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns" are exactly the same thing. So what did we prove? We proved that the human eye cannot see infrared light because the human eye cannot see infrared light.

The following deception should be easy to detect:

a) I bought 4 pounds of groceries
b) You bought 6 pounds of groceries
c) The store cashier says that we both bought the same groceries
d) Therefore, the weight of our groceries is irrelevant and is not indicative of what we bought.

Pseudo-scientists are particularly fond of using logical fallacies as evidence for their speculations.

Another type of fallacy incorporates deceptive mathematics. Appendix A shows two example of deceptive mathematical proofs. The first one proves that 0=2, while the second one proves that 2=1. Combining these two equalities will yield the additional conclusion that 1=0. From here it easy to show that not only 1=0, but also 2=0, 3=0, 4=0, and so on. This proof, that all numbers are equal to zero, mathematically verifies the famous saying: "Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet; vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

It is difficult to imagine how many articles have been published in scientific journals, using similar methodologies to prove the validity of various speculations. 


Speculative Mathematics

The process of scientific discovery and analysis employs various mathematical tools. Two of these tools, which are of particular interest to our discussion are "interpolation" and "extrapolation".

 If we know the location of a car at one point in time, and we also know the location of the same car at a later point in time, we can calculate, with some certainty, the location of this car at any point in time in between. This process is called interpolation. Obviously, the process of interpolation depends heavily on the ASSUMPTION that the car continued to move at a constant speed without interruptions.  If we try to calculate the location of this car 1 minute earlier than the first point, we still have some chance of being correct. Since 1 minute earlier than the first point is OUTSIDE the known range between the first and second known points, the process is called extrapolation. We can also use extrapolation to calculate, with some degree of certainty, the location of the car 1 minute later than the second point.

Now try to use extrapolation to calculate the location of the car 50 years earlier then the first point. If you ask a computer, the computer will calculate an answer with great accuracy. Is the answer correct? Absolutely not. No one in his right mind will support a theory that this car started it's journey 50 years ago and continued moving for 50 years, in the same direction, at a constant speed, without interruption. Most likely, the car did not even exist 50 years ago. Yet, the computer will calculate its theoretical/ imaginary location with great accuracy.  The purpose of this example is to demonstrate the danger of using extrapolation in scientific research.

Here is another example of extrapolation. A car is moving at a constant speed from east to west. On day 10 of the month, the car is in New York city. On day 13 of the month the car is in Los Angeles. Where was the car on day 7 of the month? Every child can calculate its theoretical location on day 7 without even using a computer. The mathematical formula is extremely simple and accurate. No one will dispute the correctness of the formula. Yet, how correct is the result? Did the car really start its journey in the middle of the Atlantic ocean?

The above examples demonstrate the danger of assuming that things always change at a constant rate. Such an assumption ignores the fact the everything in nature is constrained by boundaries.  A boundary is a point in time or a location in space beyond which a certain rule or pattern no longer applies. A boundary is an abrupt change in conditions. The pattern of motion or behavior on one side of the boundary is very different from what it is on the other side. In the first example above, the point in time when the car started moving, is a boundary. Before this point in time the car did not move; after this point in time the car did move. Another boundary condition in this example is the point in time when the car was manufactured. Before this point in time the car did not exist; after this point in time the car did exist.

The scientific process of extrapolation is valid only within a certain smooth range which does not cross a boundary. Extrapolation may never be extended beyond or across a boundary. If a scientist (or a computer) ignores the existence of a boundary, we end up with calculated results which look accurate, yet, are completely meaningless.

What is the boundary in the second example above? The car started moving in New York from east to west. East of New York is the Atlantic ocean, and cars don't usually run on the ocean. The boundary between the ocean and the land is an abrupt change in conditions. Any attempt to calculate the location of the car beyond this boundary (which means, at any day earlier than day 10 of the month) is scientifically meaningless. We can calculate an artificial number which looks exact, but this number has no scientific meaning. Now, in this example, what happens if we don't know the location of the boundary? How do we know if a calculated result is valid or not? The answer is simple - we don't know. Any attempt to claim that we know, is not science but speculation.

Another mathematical tool employed in the process of scientific discovery and analysis is a little more complicated - functions and equations. Every change and every motion in the physical universe can be described by a mathematical function or can be obtained through a solution to its applicable set of equations. We don't always know what the equations are. And, even if we know what they are, we don't always know how to solve them. But, we know that the equations and their solutions exist.

In precise mathematical terminology, calculating the location of the car moving from New York to Los Angeles involves a solution to a very simple equation which describes the car's movement. The car's movement can also be described as a function of time and as a function of the car's location. When we state the speed of motion of an object, we are in effect writing the equation which governs the motion of the object. The speed of motion is the distance the object moves within a given period of time. This is the simplest possible equation. When we know the equations and at least one boundary condition (for example, the speed of the car and the starting point or the end point of its motion), we have an opportunity to solve the equations and get results. But, we have to be very careful to avoid a common pitfall in this analytical process. To understand the pitfall, let's try to solve the following scientific question:

A person walks from Phoenix Arizona, in a straight line north, towards Salt Lake City in Utah. The distance from Phoenix to Salt Lake City is 500 miles. The person can walk 10 miles in one day. How many days will it take the person to get to Salt Lake City?

This question was presented to many people. School children, teachers, school principals, rabbis, and doctors. They all said 50 days.  Is this your answer too?  Remember, this is not an exercise in fourth grade math. This is a scientific question. If you think the answer is 50 days, try again without peeking at the next paragraph.

Hint:   This is not a trick question. The distance from Phoenix to Salt Lake City is indeed 500 miles;  Salt Lake City is indeed north of Phoenix; and the person is indeed capable of walking 10 miles a day. If you still think the answer should be 50 days, open a map of the area.

Are you still perplexed? You are in good company. If you run your finger on the map, following the route that this person has to walk, you will discover that he has to cross the Grand Canyon...  Ooooops.

The Grand Canyon is a discontinuity in the path from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. The Grand Canyon actually presents three types of discontinuities. The first is the walk down; the second is the need to somehow cross the Colorado river; and the third is the climb back up.  When doing scientific analysis, crossing an unknown discontinuity leads to very large errors and meaningless results. The less we know about the discontinuity, the larger the errors.

Even if we know exactly how to write and how to solve the equations that describe a process, once we have to cross an unknown discontinuity the equations are no longer valid and are not solvable. Any attempt to guess an answer beyond an unknown discontinuity is not science - it is speculation or imagination.

Now let's get back to extrapolation. We already know that extrapolation does not work beyond boundaries. How valid is an answer if we have to extrapolate beyond an unknown discontinuity?

Extrapolation is a very unreliable tool when dealing with scientific analysis. Real scientists never rely on extrapolation in their research. Solving equations within a known range is a much more reliable tool, as long as we don't try to cross a boundary or an unknown discontinuity. Now, what happens if we try to combine two evils - extrapolation AND crossing an unknown discontinuity? The errors will be so bad that the results will not even qualify as "imagination" in the classification above. 


The Great Flood 

The story of a Great Flood is a widespread theme among most of the world's cultures. It is best known by the Biblical story of Noah. It is also known in other cultures, such as stories of Matsya in the Hindu Puranas (India); Deucalion in Greek mythology; and Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh (Babylonia - Iraq).

The date of the Great Flood has been the subject of many research projects. According to the Bible, the great flood occurred in year 1656 following the creation of the world  (2104 BCE). Various archaeological findings date the flood to within the range of 2000-2700 BCE.

The Great Flood was caused by a massive climatic change in the atmosphere and a similarly massive geological change in the earth's crust. Almost all of the humidity in the atmosphere condensed, came down as an avalanche of rain, and flooded the earth. Volcanic activity shifted or broke up tectonic plates, and parts of the earth's crust were pushed up to form mountains, as evidenced by fossils of sea creatures and seashells found high up on mount Everest. Other parts of the earth's crust sank down and formed low areas which filled up with water and turned into oceans.The volcanic heat caused the water to boil, so, all the archaeological findings from before the flood reach our hands after having been immersed in salty hot water. These changes resulted in a massive unknown discontinuity in the parameters used today by scientists who try to date various archaeological findings.

Bible critics try to refute the account of the first appearance of the rainbow following the flood. Did the laws of physics change to enable the appearance of a rainbow? they cynically ask. No, the laws of physics did not change. What changed is the atmospheric conditions. Before the flood the humidity in the atmosphere was near 100%. Under such conditions it was impossible to have simultaneous rain and sunshine, so, it was also impossible to ever see a rainbow. After the flood, the atmospheric humidity dropped to what it is today, and the appearance of the rainbow was enabled. The appearance of a rainbow is evidence of low atmospheric humidity, and, therefore, can be presented as a guarantee that such a flood will never occur again. This massive atmospheric change is another discontinuity in the parameters used for dating early history.

Dating studies using carbon-14 and other similar methods work only if all the relevant parameters remain constant over the entire range of time being studied. Every decent chemist knows what happens to natural materials immersed in salty hot water for a long period of time. Scientists involved in such studies know that the parameters were NOT constant, and that the Great Flood was a massive discontinuity. However, those who admit to such knowledge risk losing their jobs or their research grants. So, to protect their livelihood, they have no choice but to conveniently ASSUME that the relevant parameters did not change over time, and to conveniently IGNORE the discontinuity caused by the Great Flood.

Any attempt to calculate a date based on today's known parameters is risky "extrapolation". Any attempt to calculate a date earlier then the Great Flood carries with it the added vice of trying to cross an unknown discontinuity. Together, the extrapolation of today's parameters across the unknown discontinuity of the Great Flood results in errors so big that only "science fiction" could qualify as the category of the results.


The Age of the Universe 

In the 1700's the first speculations about an old earth, as opposed to the dates given by the Bible, emerged. James Hutton was the first to postulate the idea that the earth is old based on rock formations. He developed his theory of rock formations and privately described it in 1785-1795. Charles Lyell continued Hutton's work, invented the geologic column and its associated dates, and published it in his book "Principles of Geology" in 1830. Radiometric dating technology was not invented until 100 years later. Lyell invented his imaginative dates, ranging into 240 million years, without any scientific dating technology. Charles Darwin was impressed by Lyell's book and became a close friend of Lyell. For evolution to make any sense, Darwin needed an old earth. (Little did he know that for evolution to make any sense the earth would have to be more than a trillion trillions years old.) He happily accepted Lyell's imaginative dates and incorporated them into his theory of evolution. Church-of-Darwin[20] followers, up until today, blindly accept these imaginative dates as a dogma.


In 1760, Georges-Louis Leclerc, determined that the earth is 75,000 years old. In 1831 Charles Lyell said the age of the world is 240 million years. Did the earth get 240 million years older within 71 years? The only thing that changed was the speculative model and extrapolation used to calculate the age. Scientific dating methods were not invented yet. In 1929 Edwin Hubble calculated the solar system to be 2 billion years old. Now the earth seemed to age at a rate of 18 million years per year. More recent theories claim that the earth is 5 billion years old. That's an even faster aging rate of 38 million years per year. Is this how "time warp" in science fiction started? Some of the latest theories have extrapolated the age of the universe to 15 billion years. At this exponential rate of aging, by year 2080 the age of the universe will probably be extrapolated to 100 billion years.


When radiometric dating techniques were invented, wide ranges of contradictory dates were measured. As we will see below, publications of dating results are systematically filtered - dates which support the dogma are selectively published while dates which contradict it (either too young or too old) are discarded. 


Radiometric Dating 

All modern attempts to date early history are based on a long list of assumptions. Most of the assumptions are known to be so wrong, that the dates they produce are meaningless. Willard F. Libby criticized these measurements -  "measurements based on assumptions are guesses, not fact."[3] Yet, most publications claiming precise date measurements (which fit the dogma) state their findings as if they were facts rather than calculations based on assumptions.Libby enumerates 7 assumptions on which Carbon-14 dating is based[3]:

• 1) The balance between Carbon-14 production and decay has always been the same;
• 2) The rate of Carbon-14 decay has not altered;
• 3) Organic material tested has not been contaminated by Carbon-14 since its death;
• 4) Earth's magnetic field intensity has not changed;
• 5) There have only been small variations in ocean depths;
• 6) Ocean temperature changes have only been minor; and
• 7) Cosmic ray intensity has not changed.

To this list of assumptions we can also add:

• 8) Same materials on earth have always started their existence with same concentrations of radioactive ingredients; and,
• 9) Changing environmental conditions, in particular the Great Flood, did not cause a change in the concentration of any of the isotopes.

Except for assumption #2 above, all the other assumptions are known to be wrong, some of them very wrong. Yet, these mistaken assumptions are relied upon as if they were an absolute truth. Here is how Walter T. Brown exposes the fallacy of assumption #1:

"In 1952, when Willard Libby first published his work on radiocarbon dating, he called attention to the critical assumption that the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 has been constant. He tested that assumption by making various measurements and calculating how rapidly carbon-14 was forming and decaying. Surprisingly, carbon-14 seemed to be forming faster than it was decaying. That would mean that there was less carbon-14 in the atmosphere in the past. If we did not know that, we would falsely conclude that the lack of carbon-14 was because the missing carbon-14 had decayed through old age. Libby felt sure that his measurements must have been in error since he thought the earth was so old that a balance between formation and decay must exist. Recently, others have duplicated Libby’s measurements with much greater accuracy. They have concluded that the out-of-balance condition is real and even worse than Libby believed."[4]

The potassium-argon dating method is also dependent on assumptions, all of which are known to be wrong. Potassium-argon dating is applicable only to solidified magma rocks. There is no direct dating method for sedimentary rocks. Ian McDougall and T. Mark Harrison provide a list of the assumptions underlying the potassium-argon dating method[5]:

• 1. The parent isotope ⁴⁰K decays at a constant rate which is not affected by changes in pressure or temperature.
• 2. The ⁴⁰K/K ratio in nature has always been constant.
• 3. All measured argon was produced by the radioactive decay of ⁴⁰K. All the pre-existing argon gas was fully removed from the magma prior to cooling, and the magma was never contaminated by other argon-containing material.
• 4. Corrections for pre-existing argon are calculated based on further assumptions.
• 5. The samples must have remained in a closed system since they cooled enough to retain argon, neither admitting nor emitting either of the isotopes of interest. (Unfortunately, extraneous argon can be incorporated into a rock depending on conditions during cooling. Samples can also be contaminated by absorption of argon from the atmosphere.)

The authors admit that all these assumptions are known to be wrong, and provide examples. To this list of assumptions, we can also add assumption#8 from the list above (same materials have always started their existence with same concentrations of radioactive ingredients) and assumption #9 (The Great Flood did not cause a change in the concentration of any of the isotopes.)

The following "precise" measurements and dates are sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy of radiometric dating techniques. In particular, they prove the fallacy of assumption #8 which is the starting point of all date measurements. (Assumption #8 applies to carbon-14, potassium-argon, and all other radioactive measurement techniques):

• Live mollusks in Hawaii had their shells dated with the carbon-14 method. The tests showed  their age as if they died 2000 years ago.[6]
• Shells from living clams were dated as if they were thousands of years old.[7]
• A freshly killed seal was dated as if it was 1,300 years old.[8]
• Dried seal carcasses less than 30 years old were dated as if they were 4,600 years old.[8]
• A living water snail taken from an artesian spring in Nevada was dated as if it was 27,000 years old.[9]
• A 15,000 year difference appeared in the assessment of samples from a single sample block of peat.[10]
• One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth was carbon dated at 29,500 years old and another part of the same mammoth was dated at 44,000 years.[11]
• One part of Dima (a baby frozen mammoth) was Carbon Dated at 40,000 years old, another part was Carbon Dated at 26,000 years old. The wood immediately around the carcass was Carbon Dated at 9,000-10,000 years old.[11]
• Living penguins were dated as if they were 8,000 years old.
• The hair on the Chekurovka mammoth was found to have a carbon-14 age of 26,000 years but the peaty soil in which is was preserved was found to have a carbon-14 dating of only 5,600 years[12]. (These calculated dates contradict each other. The animal should be younger not older than the soil under it.)
• Ten samples of 400-600 years old lava from Mount Rangitoto, Auckland, New Zealand, were dated using the potassium-argon method. The ages of the samples ranged from 146,000-500,000 years, even though they were only 400-600 years old.[13]
• The Kaupulehu lava flow in Hawaii which took place in 1800-1801 AD (about 200 years old) has been dated many times by the potassium-argon method. Dates ranged from 140 million years to 3 billion years, even though it was only 200 years old.
• "The radiogenic argon and helium contents of three basalts erupted into the deep ocean from an active volcano (Kilauea) have been measured. Ages calculated from these measurements increase with sample depth up to 22 million years for lavas deduced to be recent. ...these lavas are very young, probably less than 200 years old. The samples, in fact, may be very recent."[14]
• Different radioactive dating methods used on volcanic rock samples from Reunion Island (Indian Ocean) gave conflicting results that varied from 100,000 to 4.4 billion years.[15]

Dishonesty (motivated by the desire to protect the dogma) is prevalent in radiometric dating reports. R. L. Mauger writes: "In general, dates in the 'correct ball park' are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are discrepancies fully explained."[16]

Prof. Brew summarized the prevalent dishonesty in the practice of publishing dates established by the carbon-14 method: "If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date', we just drop it."[17] In other words, measurements are selectively filtered to support the dogma.



Additional Observations

The following brief descriptions of additional observations were copied from
http://www.barr-family.com/godsword/old.htm
No attempt was made to investigate these observations.

The Shrinking Sun

Since 1836, observations of the sun indicate it is shrinking about five feet an hour. Studies show this has been true for at least 400 years. At this rate, 100,000 years ago the sun would be twice as large as it is today. Twenty million years ago the sun would have touched the earth.

The Moon's Dust

Interplanetary dust and meteors is depositing dust on the moon at the rate of at least 14,300,000 tons per year. At this rate, if the moon were 4.5 billion years old there would be at least 440 feet of dust on the moon. The astronauts, however, found a layer only 1/8 to three inches thick. Three inches would take only 8000 years. Even evolutionists believe the moon is the same age as the earth, giving the earth's age as only 8000 years.

The Magnetic Field

The earth has a magnetic field that is constantly decreasing due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The half-life of the magnetic field is 1400 years. Only 2800 years ago the magnetic field would be four times as strong as it is now. Only 10,000 years ago the magnetic field would be as strong as a magnetic star and be a nuclear power source as the sun. For this reason the earth could not be more than 10,000 years old.

The Earth's Rotation

The rotation of the earth is gradually slowing down at about .00002 seconds a year. The lost energy is transferred to the moon. The moon, therefore, is slowly moving away from the earth at about 4 centimeters a year. This would put the moon in contact with the earth less than 2 billion years ago. Yet, if the moon were closer than about 11,500 miles, the moon would be broken into tiny pieces, much as the rings of Saturn.

The Missing Helium

Helium is generated as radioactive uranium decays. This is known as radiogenic helium, and is the primary source of helium in the earth's atmosphere. If the earth were really 4.5 billion years old as claimed by the evolutionists, the atmosphere would be saturated with this helium. But it isn't. Where did it go? It can't escape to space. The simple answer, of course, is that the earth isn't really that old.

The Comet Mystery

Comets, as they orbit the sun, are literally torn apart by gravitational forces, internal explosions, and solar winds. Short period comets can't exist for more than 10,000 years. Most astronomers believe that comets originated at the same time as the solar system. That limits the age of the solar system to about 10,000 years.


Other Observations and Theories

We also have the following observations which remain unexplained by current old-age speculations:

• The oldest living coral reef is less than 4200 years old. If the earth is billions of years old, why is there not a bigger and older living coral reef?
• The oldest living tree in the world is about 4300 years old. If the earth is billions of years old, and life on earth started millions of years ago, why don't we find older living trees?
• Textbooks in astronomy state that 100,000 years are required for a star to "evolve" from a red giant to a white dwarf. Cicero in year 50 BCE described Sirius as being a red star; Seneca, approximately in year 20 AD, said Sirius was redder than Mars; Ptolemy in year 150 AD said Sirius was one of 6 red stars in the sky. Yet, today, less than 2000 years later, Sirius is a white dwarf. Where did the theory of 100,000 years come from?

Thirteen varieties of finches live on the Galápagos, the famous island group visited by Charles Darwin in the 1830s. The finches have a variety of bill shapes and sizes, all suited to their varying diets and lifestyles. The explanation given by Darwin was that they are all the offspring of an original pair of finches, and that natural selection is responsible for the differences. The popular theories of how long it took for Darwin’s finches to "evolve" from their parent population, range from one million to five million years, based on Lyell's imagination that the earth is "millions of years" old. However, Princeton zoology professor Peter Grant performed a study of all the Galápagos finches. He showed that all the variations between finches developed following changes in food supply within less than 18 years; sometimes after only one generation; and, that all the changes were reversible upon returning to the original food-supply conditions.  18 years are a far cry from the imaginative "millions of years" theories.

Certain animals have no defense mechanisms against predators. Sheep and chicken, for example, cannot survive in nature without human protection. Sheep and chicken released into the wilderness will not survive more than a few weeks.  Non-domesticated habitats of sheep or chicken are not found in nature, except in highly isolated areas devoid of predators (like islands). Evolutionists generally agree that humans "evolved" millions of years later than lower level animals. If this is true, how exactly did the sheep and chicken survive for millions of years without human protection and without defense mechanisms? One argument suggests that domesticated animals lost their ability to survive in nature only after they were domesticated by humans. This argument, however, has no merit because agriculture and farming are relatively new inventions - much too recent for any evolutionary changes to take place. So, how did the pre-farming sheep and chicken survive for millions of years?  The only possible answer is - they never had to survive on their own. The mere existence of animals which lack the ability to survive on their own, is sufficient to disprove the imaginative theory as if humans "evolved" millions of years later than these animals.

The models used by scientists to calculate the age of the world keep changing frequently. There seems to be some kind of a competition among scientists - who can calculate an older age, or who can dream up a model or a theory which will yield an older age. Evolution biologists need an old age to justify their theory of evolution. To this end, all assumptions which help support their theory are blindly accepted as true, regardless of their validity. The common aspect of all these models and calculations is extreme speculative extrapolation of current data back into a period of time for which we have no data - only assumptions, speculations, and a heavy dose of human imagination.

In 1959, a survey was taken of leading American scientists. Among the many questions asked was, "What is your concept of the age of the universe?" (Not just the earth, but, the entire universe).  Dr. Gerald Schroeder reports that two-thirds of the scientists gave the same answer: "There was no beginning"[18]. 2400 years ago philosophers argued that the universe is eternal. Most scientists preferred this imaginative theory over the first word in the Bible: "In the beginning" ("Bereshit" in Hebrew).

With the discovery of the expanding universe by Edwin Hubble, and some evidence of the "big bang" found in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning. Scientists have made an enormous paradigm change in their understanding of the universe. They finally discovered, after more than 2000 years of research and debate, that the universe had a beginning and that the first word in the Bible is a scientifically proven truth. Now, it is only a matter of time before scientists also discover the truth of the second and third words in the Bible: "God created" 


World Population Growth

A detailed analysis of the world population growth yields interesting conclusions regarding the time when mankind first appeared on earth. The world population in year 1000 AD was 310 million. In year 1750 AD the world population was 791 million. The population growth from year 1000 to year 1750 gives us an average growth rate of 0.125% per year. This is a very slow average rate which takes into account all the effects of wars, famine, plagues, natural catastrophes, and negative growth periods, before the onset of modern technology and medicine. When we extrapolate this slow average growth rate backwards, we find that we have to start with 2 people in year 14100 BCE, to achieve the known world population numbers. [The mathematical equation is: population = (starting-no.-of-people) * 1.00125 ^ (total-no.-of-years).] 

The population density thousands of years ago was so low that competition over food supplies would have a negligible effect on population growth. Living conditions in ancient times could not be much worse than in Africa before the beginning of the 20th century. The average growth rate in Africa from year 1750 to year 1900 was 0.15%. This rate is very close, yet, larger than the 0.125% world growth rate mentioned above. By comparison, during the 210 years that the Jews were enslaved in ancient Egypt, the average growth rate was about 5% per year. In ancient times, when overall population density was lower, the growth rate was much higher than 0.15%, and definitely not lower than 0.12%. This supports the earlier conclusion that mankind could not have appeared on earth earlier than year 14100 BCE. All theories which claim a lower growth rate in ancient times are nothing but baseless speculations.

The known growth rate in Asia alone between the years 1750 and 1900 was 0.42% per year. This rate is very close to the 0.45% growth rate we get if we start with the 8 biblical people who survived the Great Flood in year 2104 BCE and end with 310 million people in year 1000 AD. If we calculate the 0.42% rate backwards, we find that we have to start with 2 people in year 3500 BCE to achieve the world population of 310 million in year 1000 AD.

The higher the growth rate - the shorter is the time required to achieve a known population. Obviously, the growth rate was not constant with time, but, the long-term average could not be less than 0.12%. Using this lower limit, it would be impossible for mankind to have appeared on earth earlier than 14100 BCE. Using the higher known growth rate in Asia shows that mankind appeared on earth around year 3500 BCE. So, we conclude that mankind appeared on earth somewhere between 3500 BCE and 14100 BCE. This time range is three orders of magnitude shorter than the speculative evolutionists' estimates of millions of years ago. According to the Bible, mankind appeared on earth in year 3760 BCE. This biblical date is well within the date range calculated based on the known population growth rates, and is very close to the calculated date based on the known population growth rate in Asia.

These growth numbers may not be exactly equal to the unknown numbers in ancient times. These calculations also include calculations which require caution when interpreting the results. However, they are infinitely better than the imaginative speculations by evolution biologists who claim that mankind appeared on earth millions of years ago. Did any of those biologists ever disclose a better, more accurate, mathematical model to get their "millions of years" estimate? Pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat is much easier to believe than the "millions of years" estimate. Did any of those biologists ever calculate the possible consequences of their "millions of years" estimate? Let's see what happens if we assume that mankind appeared on earth not millions of years ago but only 40,000 years ago.

At the lower-limit growth rate of 0.12% per year, if we were to start with 2 people  40,000 years ago, the current world population would grow to 1.3*10^21 which is 1,300,000,000 trillion people.  That's a population density of 850,000 people per square foot of earth land area.  The people on earth would have to pile up 850,000 layers high to contain all of them. Even the wildest science-fiction writers could not dream of such a large number. Even if they all perished, where are their bones, 850,000 layers high? Can anyone imagine how many more bones we would find if mankind appeared on earth millions of years ago? 

150 years ago, when the imaginative theories about the beginning of mankind became popular, scientists did not have computers to calculate the consequences of these speculations. 150 years ago, scientists could also not publish their theories in the journal which is available today - "Speculations in Science and Technology".

Evolution biologists need an old universe. Little do they know that for evolution to make any sense the earth would have to be many trillions of years old[2]. Evolutionists claim that it would take millions of years for "evolutionary mutations" to occur and spread into the population. So, since "evolution is fact", as they claim, it proves that the universe is old. In the second step of this deceptive cyclical logic we find in biology texts statements like: "Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor millions of years ago", as if this was a well established scientific fact. To complete the cycle of this logical fallacy, we find statements like: "The common ancestry of humans and monkeys proves that mankind appeared on earth millions of years ago."

Today, unfortunately, the speculations about the age of the universe and the beginning of life have turned into an anti-religious political agenda (in the USA) which has nothing to do with science. If not for the anti-religious motivation, these speculations would have been long forgotten, together with so many other imaginative theories gone with the wind, like the aether, the flat earth, alchemy, and spontaneous generation of life.

As we can see from the examples above, dating early history is not a very promising branch of science.  Fiction and dogma - maybe, but, science - no.


Physics, Functions, and Differential Equations

Now, that we have established the scientific credibility of dating early history, let's look at the subject from a different point of view, entering the world of physics, functions, and differential equations.

Let's start with a story.

When I lived in California, I used to take walks along the ocean. One day, I found a glass bottle sealed with a cork. When I opened the cork , a genie jumped out. The genie thanked me for releasing him from his captivity and offered to grant me a wish. After a few moments of pondering, I asked the genie to make me a book which is 500 years old. The genie agreed; whispered "hocus pocus"; and the book was in my hands.

I wasn't sure whether to believe it or not. Was the book really 500 years old? On my way back home I passed near a university and went to look for a chemistry professor to analyze the book. The professor took the book into his lab, and, a few hours later, came out and said: "Yes, the book is 500 years old."

When I came home, I told the whole story to my wife, not noticing that my little son was also listening attentively. The next day I wanted to impress my son with my new book. "Guess how old this book is?" I asked my son. He didn't blink an eye and said: "This book is one day old."  I was shocked. "What do you mean one day old!" I screamed at him. "This book is 500 years old. Even the professor said it is 500 years old". "Sorry", responded my son, "if the genie made it yesterday, then it is one day old."

So, how old is the book?

Since the genie made it yesterday, it is really only one day old. However, to a chemist, it looks like it is 500 years old. The reason it looks so old, is that it was made in such a way that it contains its history - it contains chemical features and changes in the composition of the paper which would normally take 500 years to develop. Once the history has been embedded into the composition of the book, it is no longer possible to tell the difference between such a book and a book which is really 500 years old.

Similarly, a fake archaeological artifact can be skillfully crafted to pass all tests and to be pronounced authentically antique. Yet, antique it is not. A scientist in the lab may discover that the artifact contains all the features of a real antique. Yet, this is no evidence that it is indeed antique. The only thing we can say with certainty is that it LOOKS antique.

Every object and every event in the physical universe can be described by a set of mathematical functions. The most common parameters of the functions are the three dimensions of space, and the dimension of time. We don't always know what the functions are, but we know that the functions exist. A unique quality of every mathematical function describing a physical object or event is that it is continuous and can be calculated over an infinitely wide range of parameters, regardless of whether the range is realistic or not. So, for a car moving from Las Vegas towards Los Angeles, the function describing the movement of the car can be calculated backwards to a location far east of Las Vegas. Mathematically, the earlier presence of the car somewhere between Las Vegas and New York is correct, even though the car has never been there. When we see the car arriving in Los Angeles, it is impossible to tell from its direction and speed, when and where the car started its trip. Regardless of whether the car actually started in Las Vegas, in Kansas City, or in New York, the arrival in Los Angeles will look identical.

Note: The rest of the discussion in this section may be difficult to follow. It requires some understanding of religious philosophy, multi-dimensional mathematics, and differential equations. A good example to help illustrate the difficulty is color blindness. A color-blind person can never be a judge of colorful art. He may be the most honest and ethical person on earth, but, if he cannot see color, he cannot judge colorful art. Imagine that all the inhabitants of an island are, and have always been, color blind. One day a visitor shows up who starts taking about the beauty of certain features that the locals cannot see. What will their reactions be? Most likely they will accuse him of having a vivid imagination. Who is right and who is wrong? That's why atheists think that religious people have too much imagination, while religious people feel sorry for those who are spiritually color blind.

Pierre-Simon, Marquis De Laplace (1749 - 1827) was a brilliant French mathematician and astronomer. His work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy. Through his work with differential equations, equations which are used by scientists to describe the characteristics of physical systems, he discovered that the past and the future of the universe can be calculated mathematically:

"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."[19]

Obviously, this applies only to the physical universe, to the exclusion of Godly spiritual intervention which is outside the jurisdiction of nature and mathematics. In mathematical terms, Godly spiritual interventions would be the equivalent of the boundaries and discontinuities described above. Laplace did not believe in God, so he did not add the possibility of such intervention to his mathematical discovery. Napoleon had to do it for him. When Laplace sent to Napoleon a copy of his book about the universe, Napoleon replied: "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator."

The past, present, and future of the universe (excluding spiritual effects) can be described as a solution to a large set of differential equations. Assuming we are wise enough to develop the complete set of equations, we can, using these equations, calculate the future and calculate the past, as long as we do not attempt to cross spiritually-induced boundaries and discontinuities. (Don't celebrate yet - the amount of additional scientific knowledge and computer power necessary for such calculations is millions of times greater than what is available today.)

The physical universe is so constructed, that spiritual boundaries and discontinuities are hidden. The origin of spiritual effects is outside the four dimensions of physical location and time. For example: the author and many others have personally experienced spiritual communication of information with others. Yet, there is no known physical explanation for such communication.

Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Formation, author unknown), written more than 4000 years ago, describes the universe as a five-dimensional space. It describes the physical universe as a four-dimensional space of location and time and adds a fifth spiritual dimension. (It took physicists until the end of the 19th century to discover that the physical universe is a four-dimensional space of location and time. This discovery led to the development of Einstein's theory of relativity and to the discovery of quantum mechanics.) To a religious person, the existence of the spiritual dimension is self-evident. A non-religious person may view the following discussion about the spiritual dimension as a theory. Telepathy and prophecy, for example, could be viewed as processes involving the fifth spiritual dimension.

All attempts to solve currently known equations to calculate the past, ignore the existence of spiritual boundaries and discontinuities and ignore the existence of the spiritual dimension. In the currently available mathematical models of the four-dimensional physical universe, such boundaries and discontinuities are not represented. Therefore, calculations and extrapolations backwards to the past are not limited in range.

When we observe light rays coming from the direction of a star billions of light years away, the only scientific facts we have are the direction from which the light rays arrive, and the spectrum and intensity of the light. Everything else we try to say about this light is nothing but a theory - a mathematical calculation and extrapolation backwards in time. The scientific data carried by this light does not include the time or the location where it started its journey. It is mathematically convenient to say that the light started its journey at a far away star billions of years ago. It looks to us as if this is when and where the light started. But, we do not know for a fact that this is indeed the case. We don't even know for a fact that the star exists. Just like the car arriving in Los Angeles from the east. It is impossible to tell from the arrival direction and speed of the car, when and where it started its journey. Similarly, it is impossible to tell from the arrival direction and speed of the car, when and where the car was manufactured.

To those who believe that God created the universe, what we learned so far leads to only one possible conclusion - God created the universe with its history. The act of creation started in the spiritual fifth dimension of the universe. Therefore, it is not visible to "spiritually color-blind" scientists whose science is confined to the four physical dimensions. In exact mathematical terminology, what is visible to scientists is the projection of the (five-dimensional) universe into the four physical dimensions. This projection is similar to the image of a three-dimensional object projected on a two-dimensional screen. When we look at the projection, we get some information about the object, but most of the (three dimensional) information is invisible. It is also possible to project a shadow of a vertical pole on the ground in such a way that the shadow looks much longer than the pole itself. If we were to examine only the shadow, we would conclude that the pole is much longer than it really is. Similarly, scientific research is limited to the study of the four-dimensional projection of a five-dimensional universe.

When God created the far-away stars, God also created the light rays emitted by these stars, extending all the way back to what looks like billions of years ago. When we look at a far-away star, we see the light rays exactly as they would have been if they were to start their journey at this star billions of years ago, but, this is not evidence that they actually did. Similarly, when God created the earth, God also created fossils and other ancient-looking features. The reason God created the universe with its history, is that the physical findings must match the results of calculations we might want to make by solving the equations of the universe, and extrapolating the calculations backwards in time. If God were to create the world without its history, there would be a mismatch between the results of the calculations and the observed findings. Such a mismatch would be a deficiency in God's ability to create perfection.

It is important to understand that the calculation and extrapolation backwards in time is a theoretical mathematical process. It is NOT physical evidence and it is NOT proof that anything actually existed that far back in time. All it means is that MATHEMATICALLY the world looks as if it existed that far back in time. The observed features of the universe look as if they existed that far back in time, to match the mathematical calculations. This is highlighted by the example given above, of the car arriving in Los Angeles - mathematically it looks as if the car started its journey in New York, even though it actually started in Las Vegas.

This discussion is not evidence that the world was created 6000 years ago. What this discussion does prove is that it is impossible, and it will forever be impossible, to tell the difference between an ancient world and a newly created world. No physical evidence and no mathematical ingenuity will ever be able to "prove" that the universe is billions of years old.


Evolution - Facts, Theories, and Fiction

This chapter was published as a separate article at:
http://torah-science.blogspot.com/2012/01/evolution-facts-theories-and-fiction.html

This article exposes the colossal intellectual dishonesty of evolution biologists. It exposes various fraudulent techniques used by evolution biologists to brainwash students, extrapolate data, and present wishful speculations as if they were scientific facts. Evolution research is the art of inventing wishful speculations and presenting them as facts. Darwin called his theory "a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaws and holes as sound parts" and said: "I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." When Darwin himself admits that his theory is based on non-scientific speculations; when he compares his hypothesis to a poor rag full of flaws and holes and falling apart; no further evidence is necessary to show that the theory of evolution is just an exercise in speculation. An interesting ideology it might be, but, science it is not.


Abiogenesis - Can Life Be Initiated Without a Creator?  

This chapter was published as a separate article at:
http://torah-science.blogspot.com/2009/05/can-life-be-initiated-randomly-in.html


The minimum quantity of organic matter needed to randomly initiate life in nature is 10^49 times the volume of planet earth and a billion times larger than the total volume of the Milky Way galaxy. It proves that random initiation of life in nature, without a Creator, is absolutely impossible.


Conclusion

There are no contradictions between Torah and science. As we have seen, the apparent contradictions are only a result of misrepresentations and misinterpretations of science.

It is worth repeating a quote by Charles Darwin, showing that Darwin himself believed that life on earth was started by "the Creator", as described in Genesis:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one..."

Darwin himself, whose theory is often quoted by anti-religious proponents, testifies to the greatness of "the Creator".

The English Professor Anthony Flew was, for half a century, the world's leading authority on atheism. When he learned, in 2004, about the breaking of the genetic code in DNA, he immediately realized the impossibility of DNA evolving on its own or initiating randomly in nature. He was able to overcome all barriers, changed his mind, and announced that he believes in God as a first cause. The structure of DNA, he explained, was so awesomely complex that it could not have just evolved. It must have been designed and created by God.

Appendix A  

This appendix shows two examples of deceptive mathematics. We start with an identity, then we apply the same mathematical operations to both sides of each equation.

Let's start with the following identity:
-1/1 = 1/-1

Take the square root of both sides:
(-1/1)^½ = (1/-1)^½
(-1)^½ / (1)^½ =(1)^½ / (-1)^½

Using the symbol i: [ i = (-1)^½ ]
i / (1)^½ = (1)^½ / i

Now let's subtract  i  from each side and simplify:
i/1 - i = 1/i - i

multiply both sides by i:
i² - i² = 1 - i²
(-1) - (-1) = 1 - (-1)
0 = 1+1
0 = 2

We just proved that 0=2.     Now let's prove that 2=1 :

Let's start by establishing the following identity:
a=b

Multiply each side by a:
a² = ab

add a² to each side:
a² + a² = a² + ab

which is the same as:
2a² = a² + ab

Subtract 2ab from each side:
2a² - 2ab = a² + ab - 2ab

Multiply each side by b:
2a²b - 2ab² = a²b + ab² - 2ab²

Which is the same as:
2a²b - 2ab² = a²b - ab²

Now take the common factor b out of parenthesis:
b(2a² - 2ab) = b(a² - ab)

Which is the same as:
2b(a² - ab) = b(a² - ab)

Cancel (a² - ab) on each side:
2b = b

Cancel b on each side:
2 = 1

Since 0=2 and 2=1, we can combine these two equalities to yield the additional conclusion that 0=1.

So far we proved that 0=1, 0=2, and 1=2. By adding 1 to each side of the equation we can extend the proof to show that: 2=3, 3=4, 4=5, 5=6, and so on.   Not only that, but, since 1=0, we can multiply each side of this equation by any number, to show that 2=0, 3=0, 4=0, 5=0, and so on. This proof, that all numbers are equal to zero, is the mathematical verification of the famous saying: "Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet; vanity of vanities, all is vanity."[1]

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References

1. Kohelet - Ecclesiastes, ch.1, v.2
2. Shkedi, Z. "The Probability of Evolution by Mutations "
   http://torah-science.blogspot.com/2012/01/probability-of-evolution-by-mutations.html
3. Willard F. Libby, "Radiocarbon Dating", University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1955
4. Walter T. Brown, "In the Beginning" (1989), p.96.
5. Ian McDougall and T. Mark Harrison. "Geochronology and thermochronology by the 40Ar/39Ar method" (1999)
6. M. L. Keith and G. M. Anderson (Department of Geochemistry and Mineralogy, Pennsylvania State University, USA), "Radiocarbon dating: fictitious results with mollusk shells", Science, Vol. 141, 16 August 1963, p.634-635
7. Science, Vol. 141, August 16, 1963, p.634
8. Antarctic Journal of the United States, Vol. 6, October, 1971 p.210
9. Alan C. Riggs, "Major Carbon-14 Deficiency in Modem Snail Shells from Southern Nevada Springs", Science, Vol. 224, April 6, 1984 p.58-61
10. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1978 p.463-466
11. Troy L. Pewe, Quarternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862, p.30
12. Radiocarbon Journal, Vol. 8, 1966
13. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 33, 1969 p.1485-1520
14. C.S.Nobel and J.J.Naughton, Hawaiian Inst. of Geophysics. Science, Vol.162, p.265
15. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 35, 1971, p.261-288. and Vol. 36, 1972, p.1167
16. R. L Mauger. "K -Ar Ages of Biotite from Tuffs in Eocene Rocks of Green River, Washakie and Uinta Basins" Contributions to Geology, Vol. 16,(1), 1977, p.37.
17. Quoted by T. Save-Soderbergh and Ingrid Olsson. "C-14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology", Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium, John Wiley & Sons, 1970, p.35.
18. Gerald Schroeder, “Age of the Universe”, January 2000
19. Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités"
20. Phillip E. Johnson, "The Church of Darwin", The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 1999
    http://leaderu.com/pjohnson/churchofdarwin.html