A distant rocky planet was recently discovered orbiting close enough to its red dwarf star that liquid water could exist on its surface. This rare position is called the goldilocks zone (not too hot and not too cold). But it would be tough for life to exist on a planet that doesn’t!
"All the excitement has been over the subtlest of wiggles” observed in a star system named Gliese 581, 20 light years from earth.1 However, a Geneva group, also looking at subtle wiggles in Gliese 581’s position in the sky, “announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet.”1
Even if the planet (dubbed Gliese 581g) is in the goldilocks zone and has water, it would probably be frozen, since one side of the planet always faces its star. But even if one were to grant the presence of surface liquid water on Gliese 581g, there are many more hurdles to clear before entertaining the possibility of life there.
Life also depends on the right temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition, and appropriate available elements. It also needs internal equipment capable of producing new generations of the biochemical machines, and this equipment would have to be protected from the very environmental conditions—like water, for example—that make life possible.
None of this deters study leader Steven Vogt, who said at a press briefing, “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent.”2
There could be no stronger statement of blind faith (!) that an evolution-inspired, imaginary property of nature could somehow generate life. In reality, any propensity for life to flourish is a direct result of the specialized machinery and coded instructions already placed into living cells, rather than the result of any known natural law.
Wild pronouncements of life on other planets are fueled by evolution-inspired “excitement,” not by real science. Those coded instructions make life possible precisely because they circumvent or exploit the laws of nature.
God is the Miraculous Creator. And Goldilocks ran away into the forest, never to appear again.
References (selected)
1. Kerr, R. A. Recently Discovered Habitable World May Not Exist. Science Now. Posted on news.sciencemag.org October 12, 2010, accessed October 28, 2010.
2. Bryner, J. Odds of Life on Newfound Earth-Size Planet ‘100 Percent,’ Astronomer Says. Space.com, reporting on research slated for publication in Astrophysical Journal. Posted on space.com September 29, 2010, accessed September 30, 2010.
(Brian Thomas, M.S., Acts & Facts, December 2010, Institute of Creation Research)
Evolutionary science increasingly believes in the supernatural. How can evolutionary science then be “scientific”?
For example, evolutionists believe in “ghost lineages”, which they conjure up to explain puzzling gaps in the fossil record. Commenting on the implications of finding tetrapod tracks “18 million years” earlier than expected, authors of a Nature study stated, “This forces us to infer much longer ghost lineages for tetrapods and elpistostegids [lobe-finned fish] than the body fossil record suggests.” 1
A particular animal might appear near the bottom of the record, be absent for many strata, then reappear far above the first layer. In some cases, the upper specimen is found first, then another much lower down. Sometimes a lower-layer fossil is surprisingly discovered still alive!
The enigma of ghost lineages is solved when the rock record is decoupled from belief in millions of years. Some of the same kinds of organisms may have been inundated and fossilized earlier in the year of the Great Flood, with others fossilized a little later on. Large hiatuses in the fossil record are no mystery if all these creatures lived at the same time, as the Genesis record states.
References (selected)
1. Nied´zwiedzki, G. et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature. 463 (7277): 43-48.
(Frank Sherwin, M.A., Acts & Facts, December 2010, Institute of Creation Research)
RBA is an organization helping to unite the growing movement of African Americans embracing the Reformed faith. It seeks to build and maintain an infrastructure and network among African-Americans in a Reformed theological context for indigenous leadership, church growth and theological research for today's world.
RBA was led to its existence due to the lack of an intentional multifaceted structure through which the Reformed Black community in all its diversity can reach its fullest potential in America. The cultivation of this infrastructure will be fulfilled through these three aspects of the mission of RBA: (1) the advancement of indigenous Black Reformed leadership, (2) growth of Reformed Black churches and (3) theological research that addresses the pathologies of Black America and the challenges of this complex world.
One of RBA's distinctives is that it embodies the next generation of Black Reformed thinkers and thought.
RBA on the Doctrines of Grace: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistable Grace, Perseverence of the Saints.
The Cambridge Declaration: Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria.
For more info, see http://reformedblacksofamerica.org/.
