Creation of Earth in the Bible vs Creation in the Eyes of Science

 

 The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

 

The above  account of creation of Earth given in the Book of Genesis of the Bible though said to be a religious narrative by many religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to my understanding does not contradict what scientists believe.

In the Bible it describes a theological understanding of the origins of the Earth and life, emphasizing the role of God as the Creator.

Scientific theories, on the other hand, are developed through empirical evidence, observation, and the scientific method. The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the origins of the Earth and life is the theory of evolution and the understanding of the universe's development through processes like the Big Bang.

 

Let us have a look how the verses in Genesis fit in exactly as astronomers and scientists believe. Let us look what Science tell us vs quotes from the Bible. 

 

Billions of years ago, Earth, along with the rest of our solar system, was entirely unrecognizable, existing only as an enormous cloud of dust and gas. Eventually, a mysterious occurrence—one that even the world’s foremost scientists have yet been unable to determine—created a disturbance in that dust cloud, setting forth a string of events that would lead to the formation of life as we know it. One common belief among scientists is that a distant star collapsed, creating a supernova explosion, which disrupted the dust cloud and caused it to pull together. This formed a spinning disc of gas and dust, known as a solar nebula. The faster the cloud spun, the more the dust and gas became concentrated at the centre, further fuelling the speed of the nebula. Over time, the gravity at the centre of the cloud became so intense that hydrogen atoms began to move more rapidly and violently. The hydrogen protons began fusing, forming helium and releasing massive amounts of energy. This led to the formation of the star that is the centre point of our solar system—the sun—roughly 4.6 billion years ago.

 

In Earth's Beginning

At its beginning, Earth was unrecognizable from its modern form. It was 4.543 billion years ago which was Day 1 in creation by God (Genesis 1:1)

On Day 1 the earth was extremely hot, to the point it was almost entirely of molten magma without any specific shape or structure.

  Over the course of a few hundred million years, the planet began to cool, and oceans of liquid water formed. But earth was still very hot and ocean waters were mainly an envelope of steam enveloping the entire Earth without separation of the waters below and the atmosphere above. In other words, there was no clear-cut filament to separate the sky above and the waters below. Everywhere on earth was misty with extremely hot steam enveloping the entire earth. The Earth was still dark as hydrogen in the Sun has not accreted yet to beginning nuclear fusion to give it light and heat. The Sun was formed about the same time as earth. Earth was empty of all life and was very dark with the Sun yet to form.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2)

Earth’s early atmosphere was most likely composed of hydrogen and helium. As the planet changed, and the crust began to form, volcanic eruptions occurred frequently. These volcanoes pumped water vapor, ammonia, and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere around Earth. As earth slowly cooled, the waters as hot steam above began to condense into water and fell as continuous rains and oceans began to take shape, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

In the course of a few million years, hydrogen in the Sun began to fuse together by its immense gravity and nuclear fusion began to give light and heat.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  (Genesis 1:3)

4.5 billion years ago the earth was  rotating in darkness probably in only 7 hours a day instead of a 24-hour day. The current slowing down of earth's rotation is due to loss of rotational energy caused by tides - tidal frictions across the earth's surface due to  the gravitational pull of the Moon.  

Earth began to face the Sun in brightness, for the first time, and thus there was a separation from light (day) from darkness (night)

God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day (Genesis 1: 4-5)

As earth cooled further, there was now a distinction between the skies above that still had a lot of water and heavy clouds. In other words, there was now a filament (horizon) that separated the waters above and the oceans of condensed water below.  That was just the second day of creation for God.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”  So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.  God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

(Genesis 1:6 – 8)

As earth cooled further, heavy elements began sinking past the oceans and magma toward the centre of the planet. As this occurred, Earth became differentiated into layers, with the outermost layer being a solid covering of relatively lighter material while the denser, molten material sank to the centre. Then land below the oceans began to rise by geological upheaval to form solid land above the oceans to separate the oceans from the land above

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:9).

The earth was still barren of life, devoid of oxygen, but it has a lot of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Thus, simple cyanobacteria capable of filling the atmosphere with oxygen and later more plants and vegetarian must come first to provide oxygen using photosynthesis. 

This was around 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria evolved, leading to the process of photosynthesis. This event significantly increased atmospheric oxygen levels.

Then around 1.5 to 2 billion years ago, more complex eukaryotic cells emerged. These cells are the building blocks of more complex multicellular organisms. The first multicellular organisms appeared around 1 billion years ago, followed by the first land plants that evolved around 500 million years ago. These were likely simple, non-vascular plants, but they provided they much needed oxygen for even simple animals to live.

1. After the plants and vegetation only came the first animals that evolved around 600-700 million years ago. These early animals were likely simple, multicellular organisms.
2. Then almost suddenly came the Explosion of Life (Cambrian Explosion) around 541 million years ago. There was a rapid diversification of life known as the Cambrian Explosion or Cambrian Radiation. This period saw the emergence of a wide variety of complex multicellular organisms, including many animal phyla.

This was clearly stated in the order of creation here:

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 

The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11 -13)

It was only when oxygen through plants, vegetarian and photosynthesis became available in abundance, that animal life could exist to populate earth, starting with fishes in the oceans, then reptiles and dinosaurs, then birds in the air as “gloried reptiles” and the rest of other mammals that followed in the course of natural evolution which took tens of millions of years in the eyes of humans, but was just one day in creation for God.  

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So, God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning - the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

(Genesis 1: 20 – 25)

Consider this analogy of a scientist conducting some experiments on rats over a certain period. Naturally as a creator, the scientist would use his time to measure the period and length of his experiment according to his clock. He would never use the short lifespan of the rats to measure time. Likewise, God as a Creator uses His clock and time to describe the length for each stage of His creation. There is no reason why He should use the short lifespan of humans to describe the length of His creation. His ‘one day’ - a watch in the night,  is probably hundreds of  millions of years to us. There is no comparison. This is important to consider not use a day in Genesis as our 24 hour-day. In fact 4,500 – 4,400 million years ago after the accretion of Earth, this planet could be rotating in darkness in just 6 or 7 hour each day instead of the current a 24-hour day. The slowing down of Earth's rotation is due to loss of rotational energy caused by friction from tides that sweeps across the surface  of Earth including over solid land from the pull of Moon's gravity.  Atomic clocks show that the modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century ago,

It was long after all the plants and other animals have already populated earth that God decided to create humans in His image.  

 And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moved upon the earth.

(Genesis 1: 26 – 28)

Aren’t all these stages of life evolution tallied so neatly with the verses line-by-lines as given in Genesis of the Bible that I could see it.

This was 250,000 – 160,000 years ago when Homo sapiens (modern human species) arose. But before that, human-like creatures called Hominids arose – a group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is, modern humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, plus all their immediate ancestors).

Please understand the Bible is not a science book where it needs to write the entire creation in scientific details. It is a book about how God needed to deal with man and ultimately and more importantly for his salvation which is much more crucial for man than revealing all the technical details about creation of earth and the evolution of life.

But if others are interested in scientific details on evolution and its timeline see my explanation below:

“A Summary on The Creation of the Universe and Evolution of Life on Earth”

“A Summary on The Creation of the Universe and Evolution of Life on Earth”

Unfortunately, other scientists and the church cannot agree with each other. 

The disagreement between Science and the Church is mainly because the Bible account of the entire Creation took place in 6 days, whereas in the eyes of astronomers, geologists, palaeontologist and other scientists the creation of the Sun, Earth, other planets and life on Earth took place 4.568 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud. This initial cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars.

Unfortunately, humans use their short lifespans at 120 years maximum as a yardstick to compare time that is eternal for God.  

“For a thousand years in thy (God) sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night”. (Psalm 90:4).

“You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).

 Given the distinct nature of religious and scientific explanations, there are often differences between the two accounts. The Genesis narrative is not a scientific explanation in the eyes of a scientist (but not to me)   

Genesis in the Bible scientists claim is a religious and cultural text that provides a theological framework for understanding the origins of the Earth and life.

Many religious individuals and groups reconcile their faith with scientific theories, viewing them as complementary rather than conflicting. This perspective is often referred to as "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creationism," where individuals believe that God guided the evolutionary processes to bring about the diversity of life.

Many people cannot differentiate the different purposes and methodologies of religious and scientific accounts and understand that they serve different aspects of human understanding and inquiry. 

Fortunately, some people like me with God help can agree on creation given in the Bible verse-by-verse, and the stage-by-stage given by scientists. They tallied so neatly in my eyes. 

In short, I can integrate their religious beliefs with my personal scientific training on astronomy and evolution, while others maintain a clear separation between the two domains.

 

Creation in my eyes:

 Astronomical Big Bang 13.8 billion years (4.3549488 x 10 ^ 17 seconds) ago

Age of Earth 4.543 billion years = 1.43366 x 10 ^ 17 seconds ago

1 day = 86,400 seconds

1 year = 365.25 days = 31,557,600 seconds   

100 year = 3,155,760,000 seconds

 If the Creation of the Universe through the Big Bang was 13.8 billion years

ago, and if our human life span at maximum last for 100 years, then our lifespan last only 7.3 x 10^-9   (0.0,000,000,073) of this, and only

2.2 x 10^-8 (0.000,000,022) of a fraction compared the creation of

Earth 4.543 billion years ago.

 Another way of putting this is, if the age of the Universe at 13.8 billion years was just one day of Creation, then 100 years of our lives lasts for just 0.23 second.  

 But if the age of Earth at 4.543 billion years was just one day in Creation,

then 100 years of our lives last just 0.7 second 

 Age of Earth and History of Evolution of Life on Earth:

1. 4,500 – 4,400 million years ago (Mya). Accretion of Earth

2. 4,200 million years ago (Mya) Atmosphere and oceans form

3. 4,000 million years ago (Mya) Prebiotic chemistry became possible

4. 3,800 million years ago RNA world shown by the first chemical fossil

available (viruses)

5. 3,600 million years ago the first DNA protein life came into existence

6. 3,500 million years ago LUCA: Archaea / Bacteria spilt and also

photosynthesis (autotrophy) began.

7. 2,700 – 1,900 million years ago the first eukaryotes / sexual reproduction

became possible.

8. 1,000 Mya?

9. 650 Mya Metazoans

10. 575 Oldest large organisms

11. 555 Mya Oldest sponge fossils

12. 542 – 488 Mya Cambrian Radiation

13. 525 Mya Earliest vertebrates

14. 440 Mya First vascular land plants

15. 425 Mya First jawed vertebrates

16. 420 Mya Earliest terrestrial animals

17. 396 Mya First insects

18. 365 Mya Plants evolves seeds and first tetrapods

19. 354 Mya Insects flight

20. 350 Mya First land-dwelling vertebrates

21. 240 Mya First dinosaurs

22. 210 Mya First mammals

23. 200 Mya Pangea breakup begins

24. 150 Mya Archaeopteryx / birds’ flight

25. 140 Mya Flowering plants

26. 128 – 124 Dinosaurs flight

27. 125 Mya Mammalian gliding flight

28. 105 – 95 Mya Gondwanaland breakup

29. 90- 80 Mya Formation of Galapagos geological hot spot

30. 57 – 53 Mya Whale ancestor

31. 55 Mya Australia breaks away from Antarctica

32. 51 Mya Mammalian powered flights (bats)

33. 50 Mya First fossil Equidae

34. 45.6 Whale ancestor

35. 40 Mya Primate order diverges

36. 35 Mya First grasses evolve

37. 30 Mya Old-world / new-world monkey spilt

38. 25 Mya Old-world monkey / apes split. Also, Drosophila melanogaster / D.

obscura split.

39. 15 Mya Apes migrate to Asia

40. 6 -7 Mya Sahelanthropus

41. 5 - 4 Mya Common ancestors of chimps and humans. Formation of current

Galapagos Islands

History on the Emergence of human-like and humans:

42. 3.6 Mya Panama Isthmus rise / Lucy fossil / Australopithecus afarensis

footprints

43. 2.5 Tool use

44. 1.8 Mya Homo habilis out of Africa

45. 1.6 Mya Homo erectus in Asia

46. 600,000 years ago Human / Neanderthal spilt

47. 500,000 years ago Homo erectus use fire

48. 355,000 Homo heidelbergensis footprints

49. 200,000 years ago Anatomically modern human

50. 250,000 – 160,000 years ago Homo sapiens arose

51. 120,000 Homo language possible

52. 100,000 years ago Wolf / dog split

53. 79,000 – 15,000 years ago Start of Wisconsin glaciations

54. 50,000 years ago. Humans migrate from Asia to Australia

55. 45,000 years ago. Megafauna extinction in Australia

56. 30,000 years ago. Human migration from Asia to North America

57. 14,000 – 10,000 years ago. Domestication of dog and Megafauna extinction

in North America

58. 12,000 years ago. Early agriculture

59. 8,000 years ago Domestication of cattle

60. 6,000 years ago Domestication of horse

61. 3,000 years ago Iron tools

Major extinctions of life took place during:

62. 445 Mya in the Late Ordovician

63. 375 Mya Late Devonian

64. 251 Mya End Permian

65. 200 Mya Late Triassic

66. 65 Mya Cretaceous-Tertiary

Lim ju boo

(3,709 words in 9 pages)  

The Effects of Climate Change

 

I received a suggestion from a chit-chat friend called Ms. Sonia Soon in a WhatsApp message that I write an article on climate change in Malaysia when I casually mentioned I do not know what subject I should write next in my blog.

Thank you for your suggestion sister Soon.

I shall not dwell on climate change in much detail here as I do not have the data from the Meteorological Department to back up any drastic climatic changes in this country as evidence.

Malaysia is such a small country especially not industrialized significantly to effect such global changes on weather, rainfall and temperature.

There may be changes, but these changes would be so small, so we may not think it significant for the moment, except for transient El Nino effect which brings a reduction between 20 % to 40 % in rainfall and a heatwave Malaysia experience as a result which is predicted to end by November 2023. However, globally the picture may be different.

For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that climate change, deforestation, and urbanization are some of the major risk factors behind the increasing number of outbreaks of viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya around the world.

Studies by WHO showed that dengue in South America alone is moving further south to countries such as Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay. Their studies showed the incidence of infections caused by these mosquito-borne illnesses, which thrive in tropical and subtropical climates, have grown dramatically in recent decades. WHO noted that cases of dengue in Asia have increased in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore due to warmer climate. According to WHO, incidence of infections caused by these mosquito-borne illnesses, which thrive in tropical and subtropical climates, have grown dramatically in recent decades.

Climate change gives rise to increased precipitation, higher temperatures and higher humidity, conditions under which mosquitos thrive and multiply. There is new research, which shows that even dry weather enables mosquitoes to breed. Scientists say dry weather makes mosquitos thirsty and when they become dehydrated, they want to feed on blood more often.

“This is really worrying because this shows that climate change has played a key role in facilitating the spread of the vector mosquitoes down south”.

A former colleague of mine who was a medical entomologist told us many years ago that mosquitoes found in the tropics are moving northwards and southwards from the equator and were found as far northwards as Shanghai?

This is only just a small part of the effects of climate change.  

Earth is warming globally from the North Pole to South Pole due to greenhouse effects from carbon dioxide emission.  The global average surface temperature has increased by more than 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1906 especially in the polar regions. The effects of rising temperatures are felt right now from melting glaciers and sea ice.

Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. Mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and the Arctic Sea are melting. In Montana's Glacier National Park, the number of glaciers has declined to fewer than 30 from more than 150 in 1910. Much of this melting ice contributes to rising sea-levels.  Global sea levels are rising at 3.2 millimetres a year. The rise is occurring at a faster rate in recent years and is predicted to accelerate in the coming decades.

The rising sea level affects coastal regions, shifting precipitation patterns, causing wildlife to migrate elsewhere. For instance, some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have migrated farther north or to higher, cooler areas.

It has also confronted species such as the Adelie penguin in Antarctica, where some populations on the western peninsula have disappeared by 90 percent.  

It also  gives rise to  disease-carrying mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, and crop pests to thrive. Booming populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce and pine trees, for example, have devastated millions of forested acres in the U.S.

Climate change causes complex shifts in our weather and climate systems. These changes incorporate not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting animal populations and their habitats, among other outcomes. It affects crucial water supply, agricultural, crop production and food supply, rising cost of living, among others.  

All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. A slight rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may stimulate plant growth, perhaps crop production also only to a small extent, but this is off-set by a lot of other  disastrous events

Greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide and methane emission is caused by our human population growth, animal farms and industrialization which destroys the natural environment, not the other way round – greenhouse gas emissions cause increased human growth and industrialization?

But I think industrialized countries like China, Japan, Korea, Canada, the United States, and some over half a dozen other European countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, including Brazil, Turkey and Singapore, etc would be the major players that may finally destroy this Earth not from war or disease as already briefly mentioned, but from other effects of over their development and industrialization

These are the economies  that contribute most to climate changes from fossil fuels usage, carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse effects. Probably even traditional farmlands where farm animals are kept may have the same effect through methane emission Methane gas has a highly potent greenhouse effect.  If emitted by farm animals over a long time, it has 80 times more potency in warming the climate than carbon dioxide. Methane has accounted for around 30 per cent of global warming since pre-industrial times and is proliferating faster than at any other time from records kept between 1980s till August 2021. The fastest doubling of the world population was recorded between 1950 and 1987:

It was a doubling from 2.5 to 5 billion people in a mere 37 years which is a little more than one generation. This period was marked by a peak population growth of 2.1% in 1962.

However, greenhouse gases and their effects are just one of the factors where humanity is going to land up. There will be many other changes in the environment followed by a lot of disastrous social and economic impacts as we are being cooked on this planet once global warming accelerates and I shall deal with this issue in the future.  

However, I did mention a little bit on climate change from overpopulation. I believe its consequence due to over human activities would be worse than mere changes in the climate.

The dreadful consequence of an unchecked overpopulation such as in India within a short time would overshadow the effects of a much slower increase of the world temperature.

Climate change is just one result from overpopulation. The very rapid increase in human population and its impact on the environment on this beautiful blue watery planet is likened to cancer cells destroying the entire beautiful workable human body. Our overgrowth would change this life-embracing world of ours into a barren, hot and inhospitable world like Mercury and Venus

My earlier thoughts on this dilemma of overpopulation was published below.

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=Climate+change

I remember writing an article on the amount of heat needed to boil off all the oceans on this beautiful blue planet into a waterless and barren planet, and the time it takes to do this.

Ah, here it is! I just found the link below that explains. This scenario in all probability shall come to pass. It will be far worse and faster than the slower boil from greenhouse effect and any climate change.

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=Heat+to+boil+off+the+oceans

I hope I managed to give this short answer to Ms Sonia Soon who requested it.  

Are There Life Out There in the Universe?

 

 If you happen to have a very clear and dark night, you can see the Milky Way Galaxy like a River of Light spreading across the sky from one end of the horizon to the next. Just imagine a tiny dot of faint light out there is a single star similar to our Sun with 500 worlds revolving around it.

When I was a child, I wondered what all those stars were twinkling out there in the night sky. When I grew up, I wondered if those stars seen in the dark alley behind my house have life in their worlds that are much, much more beautiful than ours, where beings live in eternal peace and absolute happiness so unlike our troubled and stressful world we experience here. I began to learn astronomy because of this reason.

But let’s first look at our Solar System.

Our solar system is made up of our Sun and eight major planets, with countless smaller bodies such as dwarf planets, and asteroids.  Some asteroids have more than 300 moons

Various methods have been used to discover other bodies outside the Solar System. These planets outside our own Solar System are called exoplanets or extrasolar planets.  Their presence is detected using various methods, briefly mention below:  

1.       Measuring their radial velocity, or wobble of a stat that measures the line-of-sight velocity, or the rate of change of the distance or range between the two points. Using this method, some 1,036 planets were discovered at this time of writing.

2.       Most exoplanets have been discovered using the transit method when a planet passes between a star and its observer. Transits reveal an exoplanet not because we directly see it from many light-years away, but because the planet passing in front of its star ever so slightly dims its light. This dimming can be seen in light curves – graphs showing light received over a period of time. When the exoplanet passes in front of the star, the light curve will show a dip in brightness. The light curve data helps determine a variety of different exoplanet characteristics. The size of the exoplanet’s orbit can be calculated from how long it takes to orbit once (the period), and the size of the planet itself can be calculated based on how much the star’s brightness lowered.

3.       Direct imaging by taking pictures directly has its limitation in that the planets are so far away that their images are so faint. Only 66 planets have been discovered so far using direct photography.

4.       Gravitational Microlensing is a method used by measuring how light from a distant star bends by the presence of a body in between during its transit to Earth. As a planet revolves around a star, gravitational microlensing causes the brightening and dimming of a star by an object passing between the star and an observer. Since 2004 many extrasolar planets have been found through gravitational microlensing, including several so-called free-floating planets that do not orbit any star. This technique depends on an effect first discussed by physicist Albert Einstein. In his 1916 paper on general relativity, he showed how light that passed a massive object would be deflected by the object’s gravity. In this way, an extrasolar planet can act as a gravitational lens that would focus the light from a more distant star. Some 187 planets have been discovered using microlensing.

5.       Another method is through astrometry. This method detects the motion of a star by making precise measurements of its position on the sky. This technique detects the presence of planets around a star by measuring tiny changes in the star's position as it wobbles around the centre of mass of the planetary system. As far as I know only two exoplanets have been discovered using astrometry.

In the past few decades, the number of planets discovered beyond our Solar System has grown by leaps and bounds. As of October 4th, 2018, a total of 3,869 exoplanets have been confirmed in 2,887 planetary systems, with 638 systems hosting multiple planets. Unfortunately, due to the limitations astronomers have been forced to contend with using indirect methods for a majority of them. .

Within our Milky Way Galaxy itself there is a minimum of 100 million stars according to older estimates, but we now think there could be as much as 400 billion or even 500 billion stars. But I personally estimate that there could be even more than 5,00 billion (500,000,000,000 or 500 thousand million). We are still uncertain and still counting

Let us use 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, with each star harbouring 4,000 other worlds of all sizes revolving around each of them as an estimate.  In such an estimate, there would be at least 1.6 x 10 ¹⁵ (16,00 trillion) other worlds or planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.  

That's not all. Within our Universe 93 billion light years across, there could be as many galaxies as there are stars in our own Galaxy. Let us use even a much lower and a more modest figure of only 250 billion stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy instead of 400 or 500 billion other astronomers estimate.

Using this conservative estimate of 250 billion stars a in a typical galaxy to multiple itself as the number of galaxies in the universe, and multiple this again by 4,000 planets in each star system, our answer is an absolutely astounding 2.5 x 10 ²⁶ (250 trillion, trillion) other planets or worlds within an Observable Universe. Some much older estimates put the numbers of stars in the Universe as 10 ²¹ but we think there are far more than that when we have better and better and more powerful space-orbiting telescopes now in place constantly surveying the heavens.

Here are the numbers of stars God Revealed to Abraham:

When the angel of the Lord called upon Abraham, he said:

“That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Genesis 22:17).

Of course, there are only about 5,000 stars visible to the naked eye on a very clear and dark night. This would be the numbers of stars Abraham would have been able to see even in the dry, clear desert skies where he dwelled. There was no way for Abraham to see more than 5,000 without a telescope. He wouldn’t have known there were as many stars in heavens as there were sands on all the seashores in the world during his days. But that was God revealed to Abraham.

On the numbers of sands on Earth, we have calculated that if the Earth's surface is covered with 0.5 m of sand evenly all over, then there are 2.7 x 10 ²⁵ grains of sand.

This works out that the heavens (Universe) have 432 times more stars than all the sands covering the entire surface of Earth 0.5 m thick.

Alternatively, see this article here on sands on a seashore:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=sands+on+earth

The numbers of sands in all the seashores and beyond would not even match the numbers of stars in heavens. Abraham would not know this till God revealed this to him.

Do we now in our right sense of thinking believe we are the only world that has life here? If we think earth is the only world that has life on it is the same as claiming that among all those astronomical numbers of sands on the seashore, there is only one special teeny-tiny grain of sand that has microbes on it, the rest are all completely sterile. We can’t be as conceited, arrogant and self-important as that, are we?

I have always thought not just one or two but hundreds of thousands of million other worlds that look exactly and precisely like our own world. In these worlds they have streets, shops, schools, banks, buildings,  trains, cars, rivers, bridges, seas, etc exactly like ours there.

In those worlds there would also be humans and or human-like animals creeping and crawling there.

If we understand statistics on chance and probability, we have to accept this reality if we take random samples in a large population to find similarity in each sample. Why should we be that special? The worlds out there are like sands on the seashore and on all the deserts of the world. We then multiply those numbers many, many times more.

If we have a logical thinking brain, we will understand that there would be countless grains even on a teaspoon of sands that would look exactly the same as each other, let alone untold numbers of sands that look exactly like each other among all those sands on a seashore.

We don’t even need the Frank Drake equation to tell us if there are intelligent and advanced civilizations in the Milky Way. Frank Drake equation is given by:

N = R_*f_pn_ef_lf_if_cL.

Where:

N = the number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with which communication might be possible

R_∗ = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy

f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_l = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point

f_i = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)

f_c = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

Nor do we need to look for planets with Earth-like characteristics, like liquid water where a celestial object can only orbit so close (like Mercury) or so far (like Pluto) from its star before water on its surface boils away or freezes.

This concept is called the 'Goldilocks Zone,' or habitable zone. It is the distance of a world with the right temperatures for water to remain liquid from the star. Discoveries in the Goldilocks Zone, like Earth-size planet Kepler-186f, are what scientists hope will lead us to water and life.

There are two steps in the calculation for the Goldilocks Zone:

Step 1:

Estimate the host star’s absolute luminosity based on the star’s apparent visual magnitude by calculating the absolute visual magnitude of the host star based on the star’s apparent magnitude.

M_v = m_v – 5 log (d/10)

Where:

M_v = Absolute magnitude of the star

m_v = apparent magnitude of the star (visual spectrum)

d = distance from Earth to the star in parsecs

Step 2:  Calculate bolometric magnitude of the host star.

M_bol = M_v + BC

Where:

M_bol = bolometric magnitude of the star

M_v = the absolute magnitude of the star

BC = bolometric correction constant

There is also no need for scientists to embark in their Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to listen to radio signals transmitted by other civilizations in other planets among the stars. Neither do we need China's huge 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest radio telescope to do the same.  

International efforts have been ongoing since the 1980s to look for advanced civilizations among the stars. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Listen Project, a $100 million 10-year attempt to detect signals from nearby stars. None has been successful since.

Common sense would instantly tell us untold numbers of civilizations exist out there among the myriads of stars except they do not want to communicate with us. Why should they? What is so great and advanced about us?  Would any life among the sands in a vast seashore wish to communicate with one teeny-tiny isolated far-off grain of sand called “Earth”?

We already instinctively know they are there without us needing to search for them.

Even in other worlds beyond the Goldilocks Zone there may be silicon-based life that may not even need water. There may be worlds with the same appearance as ours with even humans or human-like creatures on them. This may be different from our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth that requires water that has given rise to such enormous biodiversity of life on Earth with untold colours, shapes, sizes and genetic diversity. We may not necessarily expect this the same as in other worlds. Their conditions for their existence may be entirely different from ours.  We may even expect human-like beings with grotesque faces, limbs and bodies out there. Their appearances would be so frightening, weird and surreal, so fearfully and frighteningly different from ours. We can also expect human-like beings to be so beautiful, kind, loving, hospitable, and understanding. They may be towering giants in smaller worlds or tiny and light Lilliputians hardly a few cm tall in giant worlds where gravity is strong. We do not even know if life is carbon and DNA-based as we know it here. All kinds of possibilities far beyond our wildest imagination are possible given the horrendous myriads of other worlds out there that may have created and evolved under entirely different conditions than ours.

We may even find tiny human creatures with wings that fly around like birds, or giant humans with multiple eyes, eight or ten hands, several legs and eery faces in another world or in the same world living together. We might even find an ancient world as it was one million years ago on earth, either similar or dissimilar from ours where all kinds of creatures’ dwell alongside humans or human-like beings with weird and anomalous faces and features. We have no clue.  

Likewise, there may also be worlds that are 100,000 years or more advanced than ours who have conquered all ills and diseases whose state of art in medicine is exactly like how Jesus treated the sick by just one touch of their hands. All kinds of possibilities, combinations and permutations are possible considering the horrendous number of worlds out there among the stars. All these possibilities depend on the conditions and environment out there, and how life was created or evolved, and also how they adapt themselves over several million years, more or less.

Of course, many, many worlds are sterile and devoid of all life like we know them so fare. But what about the vast majority of the rest we have not seen or explored? Here on Earth, we can already see all kinds of creatures of different shapes, colours, sizes, genetic characteristics among others. We already have at least 10 million species of life here thriving in our own small little world, and they are all different in morphology, shapes, sizes, physiology, and their requirements for existence. What about 250 trillion, trillion other planets or worlds under all kinds of weird conditions spread across all heavens 93 billion light-years in diameter? We don’t expect all the worlds out there are similar to ours where life has evolved and have existed exactly the same as ours. Of course, there is a very high chance that many, many worlds are the same as ours where life evolved under the same conditions and patterns as ours, in fact a mirror image to ours. But there is also a chance of the extreme. We have no clue at the moment because we have so far not detected even the simplest life form even in our nearest neighbour, the Moon, or in Mars, let alone in other planets or extrasolar planets we have already discussed. We only need to close our eyes and imagine all possibilities, all kinds of beings, and living creatures presented with all kinds of strange, offbeat shapes and sizes in other worlds entirely different from ours. Their existence may depend on conditions there in their words, how they came into existence, their requirements for continuing existence, how they adapt to challenges in their environments. Anything is possible in other worlds as much as we see and experience here among the wide spectrum of life here on Earth. The evolution of life and their characteristics may be much, much more different from just the single world they exist together just like here on Earth. We can go on and on with all possibilities how they look in different parts of alien worlds scattered over such a horrendously vast reach of heavens. Some ideas here should suffice.

We can also expect spiritual beings like angels flying about. Life out there may not necessarily be carbon-based, nor do they require air or water as there is no sea, rivers or lakes there. They may also be silicon-based life whose chemistry is entirely different from ours. See this article:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=silicon+life

Life in some of the myriads of worlds may exist as pure “energy of life” like a soul without the body.

They may also exist as viruses such as:

Is SARS Virus an Alien Visitor from Another World?

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=comets+carrying+life

Why must life have a physical body like we know here? See

“Does Soul Exist” in Part II under “Does A Human Soul Travel Faster than the Speed of Light?” here:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=is+there+a+soul

There is also the presence of principalities and higher powers in other worlds.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:16).

Their civilizations may be tens of thousands or millions of light years more advanced than ours. Take Jesus who came from another world to ours over 2,000 years ago as an example. His miracles defy all laws in biology, medicine, chemistry and physics that we know of in this world. His practice of healing and medicine by merely touching a person afflicted with all kinds of illnesses, or merely touching the clothes Jesus was wearing and she was instantly cured, showed His healing powers were tens of hundreds of light years ahead of our modern medicine where we depend on all kinds of drugs and surgery.  

 “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her haemorrhage stopped (Luke 8:43 – 48).

So was his first miracle in chemistry when He converted water into wine:  

Scientific Logic: Jesus First Miracle: A Hind Thought on Life

In physics and in meteorology when He walked on water and rebuked the storm (Matthew 14:22-33).

His miracle on biology when He raised up the dead.  Here is just one example of Lazarus being brought back to life by Jesus as described in John 11:1–45.

He also clearly revealed He came from another world. But He was born in human form.

“My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

Just think about all these possibilities given that the age of an Observable Universe is 13.8 thousand million years old, and the Earth is 4.543 billion years old.  But the Universe is expanding ever since its birth and is now stretching with a radius of about 46.5 billion light-years and with a diameter of about 28.5 gigaparsecs or 93 billion light-years (8.8×10²⁶ metres) across.  

 

Earliest and Smallest Life Forms in Evolution

 Someone, a Christian doctor friend who was my former medical colleague asked me if I could elaborate a little more on how the smallest life form came into existence into other bigger species of life during Creation after I wrote this article:

 

Creation or Evolution? The Bible vs. Science here:

 

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=evolution

 

and on:

 

The Spark of Life: From Birth - A Journey till Death here:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=spark+of+life

 

Here’s briefly my answer:

 

The smallest life forms are the viroids containing less than 10,000 atoms, exclusively nucleic acids unlike viruses which also have a protein coat besides their single strand of RNA either a linear or a closed circular geometry. Sometimes viruses may also be a strand of DNA. The first free-living viroids was only a few hundred nucleotides long  

 

The next smallest cell-like living organism are the pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) composed of about 50 million atoms

 

The simplest one-cell organism is far more complex than the precision-made watches. The pocket watches do not spontaneously self-assemble themselves. They obviously require a watch-maker. Neither do atoms and molecules fall together on their own to create life. There must be a designer and a creator behind to put them together before pumping life into them.

 

The origin of life 4 billion years ago remains a mystery despite several theories being forwarded. How did the first organic molecules dissolved in the primitive oceans manage to assemble themselves into the earliest ancestors of the DNA, the master molecules of life? Even if they did by random chance, these early molecules still would not sing the music of life in them as much as a the most precision watch would still not tick with life had the watch maker not wind them up  

 

The nucleic acids that make up the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are the information-carrying molecules of the cell. They direct the process of protein synthesis, and the enzymes produced. They also determine the inherited characteristics of every living thing.

 

All life on Earth is made from organic molecules. There are tens of billions of organic molecules known. The list of organic molecules known is so huge that they are contained in the ‘Beilstein’ a German compendium in 28 volumes, the largest database in the field of organic chemistry covering the scientific literature from 1771 to the present. It contains information on millions of chemical reactions and substances from original scientific publications

 

However, only about 50 of them such as proteins, enzymes and hormones are needed and used for life activities. The proteins control cell chemistry, and the nucleic acids carry the hereditary instructions. Enzymes work on orders of the nucleic acids of the DNA.

 

All living things on Earth are made of these nucleic acids that instruct how each species should be different from each other as much as an automobile manufacturer instructs how each car should be made into different models. But they all take the same journey in life from birth to death as described in:  

 

“The Spark of Life: From Birth - A Journey till Death”  

 

During the evolution of life on Earth a lot of changes took place in the DNA, blueprint of life through mutations for the next generations to be better adapted.

 

A mutation is a change in the nucleotide copied in the next generation. Mutation is a random nucleotide change often coding into existence non-functional proteins and enzymes. However, in the event of a very small chance an error is made, DNA polymerases are kicked in to erase the error to ensure accurate and efficient replication of the genome in order to ensure the maintenance of the genetic information and its faithful transmission through generations. A small beneficial mutant nucleotide is only ten-million cm across.

 

In the process of evolution as time went on through millions of years mutation got better and better with less and less errors as if the craftsmanship of a potter improving his skills in making potteries and porcelain figurines with time and discarding the older models into extinction as described in “Creation or Evolution? The Bible vs. Science”

 

 

 

As mutation got better and better with less and less errors in the earlier pre-life molecules, they created better molecules with specializations till they form the first plant cells – chloroplast that are capable of photosynthesis changing the carbon dioxide rich primordial atmosphere into an oxygen-rich one for animal life to be evolved after the plants. The change in the early atmosphere from a hydrogen and carbon dioxide enveloped one into an oxygen-rich sky was 99 % was due to the early blue and green algae bringing in photosynthesis.

 

600 million years ago, the blue-green algae flooded the oceans. Once oxygen became available, air-breathing animals became possible. 100 million years later (500 – 542 million years ago) the trilobites dominated the ocean floors

 

The trilobite is a group of extinct fossil arthropods easily recognized by their distinctive three-lobed, three-segmented form. Trilobites, exclusively marine animals, first appeared at the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 542 million years ago, when they dominated the seas.

 

Once oxygen was made available through photosynthesis by the algae, trees and plants animals made use of the oxygen and food available for energy and reproduction. It was the mitochondrion in those membrane-bound cell organelles that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the cell's biochemical reactions. They do this by combining food with oxygen. Initially, chemical energy produced by the mitochondria is stored in a small molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) till oxygen is available to change them back to ATP after the energy is released.

 

It was not until a sexual companion was created to introduce sexual production some two billion (2,000,000,000) years ago that more complex species of life emerged much faster.

 

 

It was during the Cambrian Period, the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon that lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 million years ago that there was actually an explosion of life on Earth.

 

However, the early stage of evolution is excruciatingly slow through letter-by-letter changes in the alphabets of the ancestral DNA and their arrangements in unicellular organisms. A lot of mistakes were made during the evolutionary process through mutation. However, if any error was made, it is erased by the DNA polymerase.

 

The primary role of DNA polymerases is to accurately and efficiently replicate the genome in order to ensure the maintenance of the genetic information and its faithful transmission through generations. All the notes of life (DNA / RNA) must be put together in their correct sequence.