Sunspots 995

 

Things I have spotted that may be of interest to others.

Discover Wildlife reports on a fish with a hole in its head, and what that hole probably does. Photos included.

National Public Radio reports that a Texas A&M professor has been told to not consider Plato in his philosophy class.

Gizmodo reports that rich people, world-wide, are responsible for a large portion of greenhouse gasses emitted.

A BigThink writer discusses the question "Why does something exist instead of nothing?" (The writer says that there is no possible scientific answer to this question.)

BisThink also discusses the state of particle physics, with discussion and diagrams.

ZDNet tested six chatbots, and found that all of them made a serious error on at least one of the tasks posed by the author.

Thanks for reading.

The Firmament (or Expanse)

This post is one in a series on the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. 

Ezekiel 1:22 Over the head of the living creature there was the likeness of an expanse, like the awesome crystal to look on, stretched forth over their heads above. 1:23 Under the expanse were their wings straight, the one toward the other: each one had two which covered on this side, and every one had two which covered on that side, their bodies. (All scripture from World English Bible, public domain, unless noted otherwise. Long quotes are in this color.)

The word translated as "expanse" is as follows, according to Strong's Concordance (See Wikipedia article on that resource) as shown in the Blueletter Bible:

Note that Strong gives two meanings for the Hebrew word rāqîa. The first is a "base, support," and the second is "regarded by the Hebrews as solid, and supporting 'waters' above it."

rāqîa is found in a number of passages in the Old Testament. It is translated as "firmament," "expanse," "surface," "platform" or "vault" in various translations, in Genesis 1:6; 1:6; 1:7; 1:8; 1:14; 1:14; 1:15; 1:17; 1:20, Job 37:18, Psalms 19:2; 150:1, Ezekiel 1:22; (3 times) 1:23; 1:25; 1:26 Daniel 12:3. "Expanse" is the most common, and it is often rendered "likeness of an expanse."

The graphic below is from the same source as the first one, and shows the concordance of Gesenius.

These two old authorities (Strong and Gesenius) believed that the firmament, or expanse, was a physical structure, over the earth, and that the stars were fixed in that expanse, and that that expanse supported reservoirs of water, just as the ancient Jews believed.

Here are some more Biblical uses of the word, rāqîa:

Genesis 1:6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.” The King James Version, and some others, use "firmament," rather than "expanse." "Expanse" is used more often than "firmament." One version uses "arch." The NIV uses "vault." (See here for over a dozen translations of Genesis 1:6.)

Job 37:18 Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror? [This verse supports the idea of a solid dome.]

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork.

Psalm 150:1 Praise Yah! Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him in his heavens for his acts of power!

Ezekiel 1:22 Over the head of the living creature there was the likeness of an expanse, like an awesome crystal to look at, stretched out over their heads above. 23 Under the expanse, their wings were straight, one toward the other. Each one had two which covered on this side, and each one had two which covered their bodies on that side. 24 When they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult like the noise of an army. When they stood, they let down their wings.25 There was a voice above the expanse that was over their heads. When they stood, they let down their wings. 26 Above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone. On the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man on it above.

Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise will shine as the brightness of the expanse. Those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever.

There are also Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened. ["windows opened" suggests a belief in a solid dome.]

and Job 22:12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are! 13 You say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness? 14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see. He walks on the vault of the sky.’ [Walking on a vault suggests that the vault is solid.]

Since I was going to write on the firmament/expanse/vault/arch, I thought I should see what AiG, the most important young-earth creationism organization, had to say about it. Here's part of that:

Critics of the Bible have often said that the writings of Genesis reflect an “unscientific view” of the universe—one that reflected the cosmology of the ancient world. One of these criticisms centers on the Hebrew word raqia used in the creation account of Genesis 1. (Guy Vaterlaus, "Underneath a Solid Sky," Answers in Genesis, August 8, 2023. Also published earlier on March 9, 2009.)

And, from the same post: "The argument from these Bible critics is that the ancient Hebrews believed in a solid dome with the stars embedded in the dome." Vaterlaus strongly implies that the ancient Hebrews didn't believe in a solid dome, holding up the heavenly bodies.

"Critics of the Bible" sounds like an important idea. But, what it really means, to Answers in Genesis, is "critics of the Answers in Genesis interpretation of the Bible." See the Answers in Genesis Statement of Faith, which includes the following:

• The account of origins presented in Genesis 1–11 is a simple but factual presentation of actual events, and therefore, provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the earth, and the universe. ...
• The great flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and catastrophic in its effects. ...
• Scripture teaches a recent origin of man and the whole creation, with history spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ.

In spite of the scriptural and historical evidence, AiG maintains that people of Bible times didn't believe in some sort of dome over the earth, holding up the clouds and heavenly bodies. Here's an article on the subject, from AiG. The title says it: ""Is the Raqiya‘ (‘Firmament’) a Solid Dome?" The answer, is "no."

Another article on the subject, from AiG, says The argument from these Bible critics is that the ancient Hebrews believed in a solid dome with the stars embedded in the dome. They say that the word firmament reflects the idea of firmness, and this reflects erroneous cosmology. Therefore, the Bible is not the inspired Word of God, and we don’t need to listen to its teaching.

AiG may be correct about some Bible critics and what they say about the Bible. But I doubt that many such base their criticism primarily on the idea of a solid dome above the earth. AiG is not correct in saying that statements in the Bible about scientific subjects, like cosmology, have to match our current knowledge, or, if they don't, the Bible is deeply discredited. I have posted here about ancient understanding of the function of the liver, and here, about the size of mustard seeds, and about how the sun's position relative to the earth is described. In these cases, the Bible reports something that was said, or believed, and was wrong scientifically. But that doesn't make the Bible wrong, anymore than reporting on some wacky idea, without arguing for its truth, would discredit CNN's reporting.

The Bible does not teach, as a doctrine to be defended, that there was a solid dome above the earth. But it does describe the situation as the ancient Jews believed it -- they thought there was such a firmament. If anything, that makes the Bible more believable.

Thank you for reading.

 

The Firmament of the Hebrews

The Blue Letter Bible says the following about the Hebrew word firmament, which occurs first in Genesis 1:6, and again in Genesis 1:14: (quotation in this color)

The KJV translates Strong's H7549 in the following manner: firmament (17x).

Outline of Biblical Usage

    extended surface (solid), expanse, firmament

        expanse (flat as base, support)

        firmament (of vault of heaven supporting waters above)

            considered by Hebrews as solid and supporting 'waters' above

            Strong’s Definitions [?](Strong’s Definitions Legend)

            רָקִיעַ râqîyaʻ, raw-kee'-ah; from H7554; properly, an expanse, i.e. the firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky

The same Hebrew word occurs several times in Genesis 1, and also in Psalm 19:1 and Psalm 150:1. It is repeated 4 times in Ezekiel 1, and also in Ezekiel 10:1 and Daniel 12:3.

Based on the Blue Letter Bible excerpt, the ancient Hebrews believed that there was a firmament, a structure of some kind, that held up the waters in the sky. Here are some more statements of that belief, from the Wikipedia:

In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God on the second day to divide the primal sea (called tehom) into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear.

The Hebrews believed the sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets and stars embedded in it.[9] According to The Jewish Encyclopedia:

The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.

No structure of this kind exists, as far as we know, and the earth is not the center of the universe or the solar system. That doesn't mean that the Bible is wrong. It was just written from the world view of the people who wrote it, and the culture of those who read it. They had a mistaken view of the solar system. We still say that the sun rises and sets, but it doesn't really. The earth rotates. But we aren't wrong if we say it does, and our literature and common discourse use "sunrise" and "sunset." We write and speak from our world view. So did the authors and original recipients of the Bible.

Thanks for reading.

Note added, December 23, 2021:

Joel Edmund Anderson, who firmly believes that Genesis 1-11 was not meant to be taken literally, says that he is not convinced that the ancient Hebrews believed in an actual physical firmament.

 

Note added, June 17, 2022:

This post links to three different articles on the Answers in Genesis web site, showing that Answers in Genesis, the most prominent Young-Earth Creation organization, doesn't believe in a firmament, either.

Answers in Genesis: There really is a red shift, and the universe is expanding

Two articles by Danny Faulkner, head astronomer of Answers in Genesis, the leading young-earth creationist organization, have recently been published. They both appeared in the science-oriented on-line periodical of Answers in Genesis, Answers Research Journal. They may be found here and here . (Note: these are technical papers. I'm a scientist, but not an astronomer, and I didn't understand some parts of these articles.)

The sum and substance of these two articles is the following, from the abstract of the first paper: "Many recent creationists appear to oppose the Hubble relation, the expansion of the universe, and/or cosmological redshifts of quasars. Here I examine these three topics. There are good reasons for accepting all three."

I appreciate Faulkner's honesty, and that of Answers Research Journal, in publishing these articles. Faulkner has not suddenly given up young-earth creationism, but he has challenged his fellow young-earthers to critically examine their beliefs about cosmology, and to explain an expanding universe within the framework of a recently created universe. (I'm not sure that that is possible.)

See also my post, "What's wrong with young-earth creationism," which was written before I knew of Faulkner's work in this area. Thanks for reading.

Stephen Hawking, famous doubter of God's existence (or importance) has died

This blog is normally reserved for the Sunspots column on Wednesdays, and one such was published earlier today. But the death of Stephen Hawking is important enough that I'm also publishing a link to a post, from a few years ago, which analyzes Hawking's thought.

Thanks for reading.

Genesis 1:1 in terms of today's science

Genesis was communicated for the culture of its time. It says nothing about bacteria, cells, atoms, or galaxies. That doesn't mean, of course, that God didn't know about these things!

Ken Schenck has reverently re-written Genesis 1:1 in terms of modern science. (The result will be more meaningful, the better science background you have. Schenck, who is Dean of a School of Theology, has a fine background in science.) In case you are wondering, Schenck's essay says nothing about how old the earth is, nor about the origin of humans. It's about the origin of everything, from nothing.

Thanks for reading. Read Schenck!

A century of General Relativity, proposed by Einstein

November, 2015, is the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's presentation of his General Theory of Relativity. This theory gave impetus to other ideas, including an expanding universe, black holes. As the Wikipedia says, this theory is still the best current description of how gravity works, 100 years after its proposal. (However, most of us, including some scientists, don't talk about gravity that way. We speak of it as if Isaac Newton had explained it. He was almost right.)

New Scientist has a timeline of the most important events related to this theory, since that time. We are not yet certain about what is going on with dark matter, and we have no "theory of everything" relating General Relativity with sub-atomic structure, but some amazing discoveries have occurred, in the century following 2015. The Atlantic also celebrates, pointing out that GPS satellites wouldn't work correctly if they weren't corrected for the effects of General Relativity.

See this post on the Big Bang, which is by no means necessarily a disproof of God's creativity.

Thanks for reading.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 18

I have remarked that the materialist, like the madman, is in prison; in the prison of one thought. These people seemed to think it singularly inspiring to keep on saying that the prison was very large. The size of this scientific universe gave one no novelty, no relief. The cosmos went on for ever, but not in its wildest constellation could there be anything really interesting; anything, for instance, such as forgiveness or free will. The grandeur or infinity of the secret of its cosmos added nothing to it. It was like telling a prisoner in Reading gaol that he would be glad to hear that the gaol now covered half the county. The warder would have nothing to show the man except more and more long corridors of stone lit by ghastly lights and empty of all that is human. So these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except more and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and empty of all that is divine. In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be broken, for the definition of a law is something that can be broken. But the machinery of this cosmic prison was something that could not be broken; for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery. We were either unable to do things or we were destined to do them.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.  Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Evidence for the Big Bang, 50 years ago

As the recent movie, God's not Dead, put it, "Let there be light" in Genesis 1 is a description of the Big Bang. (The argument between the fictional atheist philosophy professor and the fictional outspoken college student, in the movie, was not over whether there was a Big Bang or not, but over whether or not there was a God who created the universe, using the Big Bang as part of His creative action.)

A few days over 50 years ago, Penzias and Wilson discovered background radiation from the Big Bang. (See here for the Wikipedia article on the Big Bang.) National Public Radio has a good report, commemorating the event, and points out what Penzias and Wilson originally reported, namely that they discovered this evidence by accident -- they weren't looking to prove that there was a Big Bang. The report apparently is partly based on discussions with Penzias and Wilson, who are still alive.

There is other evidence for the Big Bang, principally the shifting of light spectra towards the red, with this shift being greater, the further the object observed is from the earth. This is believed to be because the universe is expanding, as you would expect if there had been a cataclysmic explosion at its beginning. Red shifts were discovered before the discovery by Penzias and Wilson.

Although the background radiation and red shifting may not seem like a lot of evidence, they are an amazing amount of support, considering how long ago the Big Bang occurred.

Reasons to Believe, a Christian organization, claims that the Bible describes the Big Bang, especially in passages that use the phrase "stretched out" to refer to the starry sky. Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'm not an expert in the original language. "Stretched out" may mean expanding. It may merely mean that God created the starry sky. I don't know. Whichever way it was, the Big Bang was not a surprise to God, and required God to create a universe such that it could occur.

Thanks for reading.

Cosmos, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

I watched part of the first part of Cosmos, a series about (what else) the cosmos, on Fox TV and also on the National Graphic Channel, on Sunday evenings, with Neil deGrasse Tyson as narrator. This is an upgrade of a previous series, with the same name, with Carl Sagan as narrator, which may have been the most widely watched TV series of all time. It looks like the new one is going to be a great series, with great graphics, and magnificent subject matter, but Tyson unfortunately started it off by quoting Sagan, who said that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." (Cosmos, p. 4. New York, Random House, 1980.) That's an interesting statement. It may even be true, although I personally don't believe it, because the Bible contradicts it -- the Bible says that there is a God who is superior to the cosmos. And it's not a scientific statement at all. It's a philosophical statement, one that can't be proved or disproved by science. Sagan didn't do any experiments that showed it to be true. Neither did Tyson, or anyone else.

Here's the Wikipedia page on the new series. The Sagan series also has a Wikipedia article -- see the "previous series" link above.

Thanks for reading.

The fundamental properties of the universe

These six numbers constitute a 'recipe' for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be 'untuned' there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator? I take the view that it is neither. An infinity of other universes may well exist where the numbers are different. Most would be stillborn or sterile. We could only have emerged (and therefore we naturally now find ourselves) in a universe with the 'right' combination. -Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe. Basic Books, 2001, page 4.

Rees's six numbers are these: N, the strength of the electrical forces between sub-atomic particles, compared to the gravitational pull between them, Epsilon, which measures the binding of atomic nuclei, Omega, which is related to the expansion of the universe, lambda, which Rees says is related to cosmic antigravity, and is thus also related to how the universe expands, Q, which is the ratio between two types of fundamental energies, and the number of dimensions, 3, in the universe. I'm not a cosmologist, and I don't think I understand any of these, except maybe the last one. See here for a little more information on these numbers, from the Wikipedia. However, I do understand that Rees is saying something profound. He has no explanation as to why his six numbers are exactly what they are, but, if they weren't, either we wouldn't exist, or the universe, and any life in it, would be seriously different. I prefer to believe that the values of these important physical relationships, and our existence, are "the providence of a benign Creator."

I don't know whether there are alternate universes, with different sets of physical constants and laws. Perhaps, perhaps not. Nor should either possibility shake one's faith in God, if she has such.

If God produced these six numbers, He might well have also produced moral constants. One such, which, also, I make no claim to understand, but which the Bible is quite clear on, is that disobedience to God must be paid for by a blood sacrifice. In the Old Testament, the sinner furnished this. In the New, God the Son did.

If you want to read more about the scientific and philosophical question of whether the universe was made for us, or we are as we are because the universe is the way it is, read the Wikipedia article on the Anthropic Principle.

Thanks for reading.

The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton: introduction

I have recently read The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, by John H. Walton. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. I hope to post on the book several times over the next few weeks. (Walton has a Wikipedia page, but the information on it is minimal. It does say that Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.

So what does the book have to say? In summary, Walton makes a bold claim. He claims that the creation account in Genesis 1 was not understood, by contemporary listeners or readers, as being about making things, but that it was about arranging things so that various entities had a function within a created world. How is that possible? After all, the words used speak of creation, and doesn't creation mean making things? Walton says that that's what it means to us, in the 21st century, but it's not what it meant to the ancient world. (He says clearly that God can, and did, make things, in the way that we mean it.)

How is this possible? See here for a Biblical example of how our understanding is not the same as that of people in Biblical times.

Walton is an expert in creation myths from Near East cultures. That doesn't mean that he believes Genesis 1 is a myth. But he uses his knowledge to shed light on the way people thought at about the time Genesis was written. I hope to set forth what Walton thinks they thought -- what he thinks Genesis 1 and 2 meant to the people who first heard and read them.

Thanks for reading.

Stephen Hawking and God, again

Stephen Hawking, famous scientist, and best-selling author, has said, in an interview, that 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story.' He believes, as many do, that human existence ends with death.

Perhaps Hawking is right. I can't prove that he is not.

But statements such as this are not scientific. Hawking has not proved, by experiment, that there is no heaven. He presents no firm scientific evidence for this assertion.

It is interesting that the reason for interviewing Hawking was a lecture he recently gave on M-theory. M-theory is one version of a so-called Theory of Everything, an attempt to explain the physical laws that undergird our universe in one unified scheme. As the Wikipedia article on the theory says, so far, M-theory lacks experimental proof, and ". . . the tangible success of M-theory can be questioned, given its current incompleteness and limited predictive power, even after so many years of intense research."

That doesn't prove that M-theory isn't right. It may be. But perhaps its predictive power is roughly equivalent to assertions about the existence (or not) of a heavenly afterlife. (I would guess that the establishment of M-theory, should that take place, would neither prove or disprove the existence of God.)

For more on Hawking's religious beliefs, see this paragraph in the Wikipedia, or go here.

Thanks for reading.

"What Have You Changed Your Mind About?" pt. 4

I continue comments on Edge's "World Question" issue, which question is the same as my title. See the first part of this series, which gives some explanation, the second part and the third.

On this page of the issue, Lawrence Krauss explains why he has completely changed his views about cosmology, and why.

On the same page, Stephen Kosslyn writes about the interaction between genes and the environment:
. . . this stereo process — of computing depth on the basis of the disparities in where images strike the two retinas — depends on the distance between the eyes. And second, and this is absolutely critical, there's no way to know at the moment of conception how far apart a person's eyes are going to be, because that depends on bone growth — and bone growth depends partly on the mother's diet and partly on the infant's diet.

Also on the same page, Gary Klein has an essay on how firefighters make quick decisions about what to do.

The last essay on the page is about how Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of Wired, has come to see that the Wikipedia is splendidly better than he had anticipated.

Thanks for reading!

The Language of God, Chapter 3, by Francis Collins

A previous post gives the contents of Chapter 1, and the bibliographic and author information for The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and another post describes Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 is entitled "The Origins of the Universe." In it, Collins describes the history of our knowledge of cosmology, and the evidence for the Big Bang. He believes that science has no explanation for (or knowledge of) what came before the Big Bang. He describes current scientific thinking on the origin of the sun, and of the earth. Then he takes up the Anthropic Principle, which, more or less, is the idea that the universe is particularly hospitable to human, and other, life. (Here's the Wikipedia article on that important subject. There is also a web domain dedicated to the subject.)

One of his most remarkable statements is the following:
Altogether, there are fifteen physical constants whose values current theory is unable to predict. They are givens: they simply have the value that they have. This list includes the speed of light, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces, various parameters associated with electromagnetism, and the force of gravity. The chance that all of these constants would take on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life forms is almost infinitesimal. And yet those are exactly the parameters that we observe. In sum, our universe is wildly improbable. (p. 74) Collins, of course, is not the first person to point this out, but he does a good job of doing it again, and it is worth frequent reminders. It is, of course, possible that some theory will come along that explains why the velocity of light, or other of these constants, is what it is now.

He goes on to argue that cosmology points strongly toward a supernatural origin of the universe, and would say that such a position is academically defensible.

As the last topic of the chapter, Collins tackles the status of the first part of Genesis. He does not believe that it was meant to be taken literally, and says why. He quotes St. Augustine on the subject: In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. (p. 83 of Collins)

Thanks for reading.