Refuting Creationism - Bible Naïvety Brought Into Sharper Focus By 'Pillars Of Creation'

Pillars of Creation

James Webb Space Telescope

Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA's Hubble and Webb Telescopes - NASA Science

In the Hubble version of the model (left), the pillars feature dark brown, opaque dust and bright yellow ionized gas set against a greenish-blue background. The Webb version (right) showcases orange and orange-brown dust that is semi-transparent, with light blue ionized gas against a dark blue background.

Greg Bacon, Ralf Crawford, Joseph DePasquale, Leah Hustak, Christian Nieves, Joseph Olmsted, Alyssa Pagan, and Frank Summers (STScI), NASA's Universe of Learning

The child-like naïvety of those who made up the origin myths in the Bible was brought into sharper focus today with the publication of images of the 'Pillars of Creation' in the heart of the Eagle Nebula.

This fragment of the known universe was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 and opened many people's eyes to the grandeur and size of the Universe compared to the Bible's laughably naïve description of it as a small, flat planet with a dome over it to keep the water about the sky out.

Now this image has been brought into even sharper focus by the James Webb Space Telescope with a new 3D rendering and a movie so viers can experience flying between the birthplace of stars.

By flying past and amongst the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in the Hubble visible-light view versus the Webb infrared-light view. The contrast helps them understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.

Frank Summers, principal visualization scientist
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Baltimore, MD, USA.

The four Pillars of Creation, made primarily of cool molecular hydrogen and dust, are being eroded by the fierce winds and punishing ultraviolet light of nearby hot, young stars. Finger-like structures larger than the solar system protrude from the tops of the pillars. Within these fingers can be embedded, embryonic stars. The tallest pillar stretches across three light-years, three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the next nearest star.

The movie takes visitors into the three-dimensional structures of the pillars. Rather than an artistic interpretation, the video is based on observational data from a science paper led by Anna McLeod, an associate professor at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. McLeod also served as a scientific advisor on the movie project.

The Pillars of Creation were always on our minds to create in 3D. Webb data in combination with Hubble data allowed us to see the Pillars in more complete detail. Understanding the science and how to best represent it allowed our small, talented team to meet the challenge of visualizing this iconic structure.

Greg Bacon of STScI, production lead.

Using data from NASA's Hubble and Webb space telescopes, astronomers and artists modeled the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16 or M16) in three dimensions, creating a movie that allows viewers to fly past and among the pillars.

Credit: Producers: Greg Bacon and Frank Summers (STScI), NASA's Universe of Learning; Visualization: Greg Bacon, Ralf Crawford, Joseph DePasquale, Leah Hustak, Danielle Kirshenblat, Christian Nieves, Joseph Olmsted, Alyssa Pagan, and Frank Summers (STScI), Robert L. Hurt (Caltech, IPAC)
Science Advisor: Anna McLeod (Durham University); Music: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

After that, it seems almost mean to again remind creationists how the Bible describes the Universe. The problem is though that very few of them read it for themselves and rely on priests and preachers to read carefully selected parts to them from the pulpit:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1: 1-10

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1: 14-18

And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

Daniel 8: 10

The obvious conclusion is that far from being written by an omniscient creator god, the stories in Genesis describe what simple, scientifically illiterate people would make up to explain the Universe as they saw it from their small area of the Canaanite hills. They told a tale of what they thought the Universe was like being created by a magic god exactly as they saw it. In their understanding of science and history they were probably on a par with the average uneducated medieval shepherd who had never travelled more than a day's walk from his home village.

The result is something you might expect if you asked such a person to describe the world and explain the cycle of the seasons and why day follows night, without access to any sources of information beyond their own imagination.

Would you expect them to write a science textbook that was more accurate and reliable than anything scientist could produce?

And yet there are adults who think the Bible is just such a science textbook!

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