EVOLVING COMPUTER CODE
Genesis 11:1
“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.”
Some years ago, a major international software company took out some commercials on British television. The theme of the commercials was that their software was now better than it had ever been because it had evolved. The commercials showed images of dinosaurs and so-called primitive animals as they evolved into more modern, up-to-date varieties. As I said, the object of the commercials was to convince the public that the software applications they were selling were better and more sophisticated than their products had been previously.
Darwin’s theory of evolution, and its neo-Darwinian variants, suggests that organisms have gradually got more complex by the spontaneous appearance of new DNA code. There is, of course, an analogy between computer programming code and the arrangement of information in DNA – except that DNA information is a great deal more complex than a computer app.
If I had been one of the programmers of these software apps, I think I might have felt a little insulted. Granted, the new software versions were much better than the previous generations, having more and more useful routines. But each of these sophisticated features had been designed, planned and coded by software engineers. No information was introduced randomly by blind evolution. All new information was the result of highly intelligent design.
This reasoning, incidentally, is just one of many reasons why evolution is impossible. New DNA code has even less chance of appearing by itself than a new programmed feature has of appearing in these software applications.
Every item of code in DNA is important, Lord – just like the code in a computer program. Thank You for the wonder of Your creation.
Genesis 11:1
“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.”
Some years ago, a major international software company took out some commercials on British television. The theme of the commercials was that their software was now better than it had ever been because it had evolved. The commercials showed images of dinosaurs and so-called primitive animals as they evolved into more modern, up-to-date varieties. As I said, the object of the commercials was to convince the public that the software applications they were selling were better and more sophisticated than their products had been previously.
Darwin’s theory of evolution, and its neo-Darwinian variants, suggests that organisms have gradually got more complex by the spontaneous appearance of new DNA code. There is, of course, an analogy between computer programming code and the arrangement of information in DNA – except that DNA information is a great deal more complex than a computer app.
If I had been one of the programmers of these software apps, I think I might have felt a little insulted. Granted, the new software versions were much better than the previous generations, having more and more useful routines. But each of these sophisticated features had been designed, planned and coded by software engineers. No information was introduced randomly by blind evolution. All new information was the result of highly intelligent design.
This reasoning, incidentally, is just one of many reasons why evolution is impossible. New DNA code has even less chance of appearing by itself than a new programmed feature has of appearing in these software applications.
Every item of code in DNA is important, Lord – just like the code in a computer program. Thank You for the wonder of Your creation.
SOLAR ECLIPSE
Genesis 1:16
“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
Many of us in the United States watched the total eclipse of the Sun in 2017. I was at my place of work in the state of Washington, where the eclipse was 98%.
An eclipse happens when the Sun, Moon and Earth are perfectly lined up, with the Moon casting a shadow on to the Earth. You might think that such an arrangement would happen every month, but it does not because the Moon’s orbit is at an angle to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Nevertheless, total eclipses are not that rare and there is likely to be one somewhere in the world every couple of years.
We are so used to seeing the Sun and the Moon that we forget some important but simple concepts. First, we forget that these objects are entirely different. The Sun produces its own light by nuclear fusion, but the Moon – a solid lump of rock – simply reflects sunlight.
Also, we forget that the apparent size of these objects in the sky is the same. The Sun is many times bigger than the Moon but is also a lot farther away. The coincidence of their relative sizes means that the Moon can exactly fit over the Sun, enabling us to see phenomena such as the Sun’s promontories, looking like large flames. As Christians, we believe that this “coincidence” is actually a design feature. Eclipses in history can accurately be dated, enabling us to calculate the dates of many historical events. This is one of the reasons that God has designed this spectacular phenomenon.
Thank You again, Lord, for the wonder of Your creation. We stand in awe at the way that it works, and we are amazed at the wisdom of Your plans. Amen.
Genesis 1:16
“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
Many of us in the United States watched the total eclipse of the Sun in 2017. I was at my place of work in the state of Washington, where the eclipse was 98%.
An eclipse happens when the Sun, Moon and Earth are perfectly lined up, with the Moon casting a shadow on to the Earth. You might think that such an arrangement would happen every month, but it does not because the Moon’s orbit is at an angle to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Nevertheless, total eclipses are not that rare and there is likely to be one somewhere in the world every couple of years.
We are so used to seeing the Sun and the Moon that we forget some important but simple concepts. First, we forget that these objects are entirely different. The Sun produces its own light by nuclear fusion, but the Moon – a solid lump of rock – simply reflects sunlight.
Also, we forget that the apparent size of these objects in the sky is the same. The Sun is many times bigger than the Moon but is also a lot farther away. The coincidence of their relative sizes means that the Moon can exactly fit over the Sun, enabling us to see phenomena such as the Sun’s promontories, looking like large flames. As Christians, we believe that this “coincidence” is actually a design feature. Eclipses in history can accurately be dated, enabling us to calculate the dates of many historical events. This is one of the reasons that God has designed this spectacular phenomenon.
Thank You again, Lord, for the wonder of Your creation. We stand in awe at the way that it works, and we are amazed at the wisdom of Your plans. Amen.
JUST SO
Romans 1:25
�Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.�
I used to love it when my elementary school teacher read stories to the class. She had some favorite stories. One of her favorite collections was Rudyard Kipling�s Just So Stories. The idea of each story was to give a fictional account of how certain features of various animals came to be. Of course, Kipling was not presenting a scientific thesis. He expected his stories to be received as works of imagination. So in his �The Elephant Child�, we learn about a button-nosed young elephant who was bothering a crocodile. The crocodile caught the Elephant Child by his nose and pulled, and his nose stretched into the long trunk we have today.
What has always struck me since I became a Christian is how similar many evolutionary ideas are to Kipling�s imagination. For example, there are those zoologists who maintain that giraffes developed gradually longer necks in order to be able to get food from higher branches of trees. The idea is that of a multi-generational �Just So� story, and it does not account for the many extra features found in a giraffe�s neck and anatomy � not just the neck�s length.
A recent academic account has suggested that flight developed in therapod dinosaurs by the creatures flapping their arms, and that is how their arms eventually became wings as they evolved into birds.
Of course, the evolutionary articles are much more sophisticated than I have suggested here. But, in kind, they are really not much more than clever �Just So� stories. We do not need such stories because the Bible explains clearly how God put life on this Earth.
We pray, Father, for freedom from the need to believe Just So stories. Instead, Lord, we pray that people will give You the honor You deserve for all that You have done. Amen.
Ref: Kipling, R. (Candlewick edition 2004), Just So Stories. Image: Public Domain.
Romans 1:25
�Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.�
I used to love it when my elementary school teacher read stories to the class. She had some favorite stories. One of her favorite collections was Rudyard Kipling�s Just So Stories. The idea of each story was to give a fictional account of how certain features of various animals came to be. Of course, Kipling was not presenting a scientific thesis. He expected his stories to be received as works of imagination. So in his �The Elephant Child�, we learn about a button-nosed young elephant who was bothering a crocodile. The crocodile caught the Elephant Child by his nose and pulled, and his nose stretched into the long trunk we have today.
What has always struck me since I became a Christian is how similar many evolutionary ideas are to Kipling�s imagination. For example, there are those zoologists who maintain that giraffes developed gradually longer necks in order to be able to get food from higher branches of trees. The idea is that of a multi-generational �Just So� story, and it does not account for the many extra features found in a giraffe�s neck and anatomy � not just the neck�s length.
A recent academic account has suggested that flight developed in therapod dinosaurs by the creatures flapping their arms, and that is how their arms eventually became wings as they evolved into birds.
Of course, the evolutionary articles are much more sophisticated than I have suggested here. But, in kind, they are really not much more than clever �Just So� stories. We do not need such stories because the Bible explains clearly how God put life on this Earth.
We pray, Father, for freedom from the need to believe Just So stories. Instead, Lord, we pray that people will give You the honor You deserve for all that You have done. Amen.
Ref: Kipling, R. (Candlewick edition 2004), Just So Stories. Image: Public Domain.
THE MINERS� CAR
Psalm 75:2-3
�When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah. �
Three people went out to dig for rock. The rocks in their claim were rich in minerals, such as malachite � the principle ore of copper.
Historically, copper has been used as an alloy, being mixed with tin to form bronze. Today, copper is used in the printed circuits of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. Copper is relatively easy to extract from its ore, requiring not too much heating of the ore, with a reducing agent such as carbon.
One morning, the three miners drove to their claim, as normal. They parked their car and walked a mile or so to their claim in order to dig for ore. Their mine was in the heart of the Cascade Range in the state of Washington, close to the volcano known as Mount St Helens. Donald and Natalie Parker, and their nephew Richard signed waivers at the edge of the �blue zone� in order to gain permission to the area, access to which was being restricted because of the possibility of an eruption. The next morning, Sunday May 18, 1980, the mountain blew and the Parkers� cabin was destroyed by the blast. All three miners died of asphyxiation. Their car was thrown 60 feet and landed where it remains to this day as a macabre tourist sight.
We do not know what tomorrow may bring. This is why the Bible reminds us that today is the day of salvation. It is important to get right with our Creator today.
We thank You, Lord, for our health and for the life You have given us. We pray that we will not take You for granted but give every day to You to serve You for Your honor and glory. Amen.
Psalm 75:2-3
�When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah. �
Three people went out to dig for rock. The rocks in their claim were rich in minerals, such as malachite � the principle ore of copper.
Historically, copper has been used as an alloy, being mixed with tin to form bronze. Today, copper is used in the printed circuits of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. Copper is relatively easy to extract from its ore, requiring not too much heating of the ore, with a reducing agent such as carbon.
One morning, the three miners drove to their claim, as normal. They parked their car and walked a mile or so to their claim in order to dig for ore. Their mine was in the heart of the Cascade Range in the state of Washington, close to the volcano known as Mount St Helens. Donald and Natalie Parker, and their nephew Richard signed waivers at the edge of the �blue zone� in order to gain permission to the area, access to which was being restricted because of the possibility of an eruption. The next morning, Sunday May 18, 1980, the mountain blew and the Parkers� cabin was destroyed by the blast. All three miners died of asphyxiation. Their car was thrown 60 feet and landed where it remains to this day as a macabre tourist sight.
We do not know what tomorrow may bring. This is why the Bible reminds us that today is the day of salvation. It is important to get right with our Creator today.
We thank You, Lord, for our health and for the life You have given us. We pray that we will not take You for granted but give every day to You to serve You for Your honor and glory. Amen.
YEARS OF DARKNESS
Isaiah 60:2
�For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.�
You must have heard the evolutionary idea that dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid hitting the Earth about 66 million years ago � probably on Mexico�s Yucatan Peninsula. Recently, this idea has come under criticism from evolutionists as well as from creationists. Other models for the extinction of the dinosaurs have been explored.
Recently, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have been revisiting the idea of the asteroid strike and have suggested that dust and soot, flying into the air after the impact, would have caused about two years of darkness over the entire world. The researchers suggest that this would have shut down all the photosynthesis across the world, resulting in mass extinctions and reducing the global temperature. This darkness, therefore, would have caused the demise of the dinosaurs.
The word �dinosaur� was originally coined to give a label to types of animals which do not really have much in common, other than the fact that they are extinct. It seems odd to spend so much time wondering how a class of animals became extinct, whose nomenclature was only created to state that they were indeed extinct. Many animals have become extinct. In a biblical worldview, we can see that some animals, following the Flood, might have had difficulty adapting to new climatic conditions. In any case, it seems more logical to attribute the death of dinosaurs to climatic conditions following a known worldwide catastrophe (the Flood) rather than a similar change caused by the speculation about an unknown worldwide catastrophe � the years of Darkness.
Father, we thank You for Your word and for the fact that we can trust it. We pray that Your people will be increasingly dependent on the truth found in the Bible rather than chasing after idle speculations. Amen.
Isaiah 60:2
�For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.�
You must have heard the evolutionary idea that dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid hitting the Earth about 66 million years ago � probably on Mexico�s Yucatan Peninsula. Recently, this idea has come under criticism from evolutionists as well as from creationists. Other models for the extinction of the dinosaurs have been explored.
Recently, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have been revisiting the idea of the asteroid strike and have suggested that dust and soot, flying into the air after the impact, would have caused about two years of darkness over the entire world. The researchers suggest that this would have shut down all the photosynthesis across the world, resulting in mass extinctions and reducing the global temperature. This darkness, therefore, would have caused the demise of the dinosaurs.
The word �dinosaur� was originally coined to give a label to types of animals which do not really have much in common, other than the fact that they are extinct. It seems odd to spend so much time wondering how a class of animals became extinct, whose nomenclature was only created to state that they were indeed extinct. Many animals have become extinct. In a biblical worldview, we can see that some animals, following the Flood, might have had difficulty adapting to new climatic conditions. In any case, it seems more logical to attribute the death of dinosaurs to climatic conditions following a known worldwide catastrophe (the Flood) rather than a similar change caused by the speculation about an unknown worldwide catastrophe � the years of Darkness.
Father, we thank You for Your word and for the fact that we can trust it. We pray that Your people will be increasingly dependent on the truth found in the Bible rather than chasing after idle speculations. Amen.
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