Expert: James Gort - 1/11/2011

Question
Hello James,just for the record I am an sixth day creationist I humbly do not believe the macro-evolution or big bang hoax.My question is I know astronomers like to deceive the public by telling them that the Eagle Nebula is proof that stars are evolving,but they show nothing of stars evolving. If stars were evolving other physical measurements would validate it.Where are those measurements? Please list them. Thank you

Answer
Hi Kevin,

First, let me be on record that I have an open mind about the big bang.  My personal view is that the origin of the universe by a "Big Bang" is very much still a theory, and there are alternative theories.  Some observations do not support an expanding universe or the Big Bang.  There are several references concerning this, but perhaps the most authoritative person is Halton Arp, a leading astronomer and researcher on galaxies, who wrote "Seeing Red".  That book is highly recommended to get an alternative view.  Or read "A Different Approach to Cosmology" by Hoyle, Burbidge, and Narlikar - another great book which gives a well supported view on how the universe is in a steady state.

That said, I don't believe any scientist, or Creationist, knows "the answer".  All I know (for sure) is that the universe exists,  and that there's order in the universe, which implies "intelligence".  At least we haven't figured out a way to get order without intelligence.  Everything else is either "faith" or "models" put forth to explain the universe.  Some of those models are very useful because they make predictions.  If the predictions come true, we say it's a good model.  Until the predictions don't work any longer, and then we need to look for a different model.

You ask about the stars evolving.  No one has actually seen the "normal" evolution of a star (although we have seen some violent eruptions from stars - even stars that have exploded and destroyed themselves).  But as for evolution of stars - we "think" we see stars in various phases of evolution, and we come up with models to explain those phases.  The Eagle Nebula is not "proof" of anything.  It's just one of those phases.  Most of the stellar evolution models today seem to work well.  Are they correct?  I don't know.  No one does.  As long as they make good predictions - that's science - then they're keepers.

But I don't think the goal of science is to explain how the world "is".  Some scientists think they can, but they're the arrogant ones.  All science can do is to come up with models to predict the outcome of events.  It doesn't explain the fundamentals.  It doesn't explain what gravity ACTUALLY IS.  It can use gravity to predict eclipses, to send people to the moon, etc.  Science can "try" to explain it in terms of "curved space-time", but that only uses other terms to describe something which we really can't EXPLAIN.

So I can't say that you're wrong about the universe being created in "6 days", any more than I can say that the universe is 13.6 billion years old.  I just don't know.   I know the universe was created - I just don't know when or how.

I hope that sheds a little light on the subject - from just one "scientist's" viewpoint.

Prof. James Gort