The traditional creationist view of things has been taking a terrible beating lately. Their “science” comes the time of the Babylonian Empire when Genesis was written, and it has only been slightly modified from the scriptural description of a recently-created, Earth-centered universe in which our unique and perfectly designed world is the central focus of divine attention.
Scriptural literalists have been in a slow but steady retreat over the last four centuries, starting with the Galileo affair, which failed to suppress knowledge of the solar system, and continuing through the discovery of the age of the earth, the evolution of species, etc. Most creationists are no longer flat-Earthers, and they’ve grudgingly accepted the existence of the solar system, but despite the increasing pace of scientific discoveries, they seem determined to retreat no further.
The most recent catastrophe for die-hard adherents of the Babylonian view is the recent discovery that there are Maybe Billions of Habitable Planets. In response to these new findings, the creationists have been thrown into chaos. Some (predictably) are in total denial — see ICR Flat-Out Predicts: “No Alien Life Exists”. On the other hand, AIG Accepts Possibility of Alien Life, but not intelligent life.
Today we have two more creationist reactions to show you. The first is another one from Answers in Genesis (AIG), described in the Cast of Characters section of our Intro page. You can find this in AIG’s News to Note, February 2, 2013 — “A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint.” It’s the fifth item at their news summary, titled Looking for water in all the right places. They’re discussing the Mars rover’s discovery of evidence that Mars may have once had liquid water.
A more informative discussion of what’s been going on can be found at PhysOrg: Fossilized conduits suggest water flowed beneath Martian Surface. We’ll ignore AIG’s description of the rover’s activities and skip to their reaction. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:
The likelihood that Mars once had a different environment allowing the presence of liquid water does nothing to support the idea that our solar system formed billions of years ago.
Right. Mars went from wet to dry in only 6,000 years. No problem. AIG continues:
The belief that life evolved on earth is also based on unverifiable assumptions. If evidence of microbial life — past or present — on Mars is eventually found, evolutionists will of course claim that life proves evolution happened. But in reality, such a finding would simply be evidence that life is (or once was) there, not a demonstration of that life’s origins.
Isn’t that neat? Evidence of Martian life hasn’t been found yet, but their denials are already being scripted. One more paragraph:
The Bible does not say whether God created life on any other planets, but the Bible does tell us God created all life on earth during the first six days of Creation week, the same week in which He created the rest of the universe, about 6,000 years ago. Discovery of evidence of water and even life on Mars would not disprove or undermine that biblical truth.
In other words, AIG says: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz!
The other creationist reaction you should know about is at the blog of the Discoveroids — described in the Cast of Characters section of our Intro page. Their new post is Earth Is Barely “Habitable,” Say Scientists. Could Have Fooled Us.
Bear in mind that the Discoveroids are big promoters of The Privileged Planet, by Discoveroids Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. That’s a book about the allegedly unique nature of the Earth, so they’re pretty much committed to the “life on Earth only” dogma. That gives them far less wiggle-room than Hambo allows AIG to have.
The Discoveroid post is their reaction to this article in Astrophysical Journal: Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: New Estimates. It suggests that the Earth may be at the inner edge of the Sun’s habitable zone, and therefore the region around a star within which planets with liquid water and thus life may exist could be larger than previously estimated.
That is potentially disastrous for the allegedly privileged position of the Earth in the universe, so naturally the Discoveroids are horrified that now there could be even more habitable planets than recent research indicates. Their criticism is brief and not worth reading, but it shows their attitude — which is amusing because it’s instinctively creationist.
So there you are. The more we learn, and the more interesting the universe seems to be, the more the creationists close their eyes, wrap themselves tighter into the fetal position, and scream.
See also: ICR’s New Position on Alien Life.
Copyright © 2013. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.