Creationism Refuted - Something From Nothing - Let There Be Light!

Normalised ellipticity across the transverse plane for the Gaussian scenario.

Illustration of photon-photon scattering in the laboratory. Two green petawatt lasers beams collide at the focus with a third red beam to polarise the quantum vacuum. This allows a fourth blue laser beam to be generated, with a unique direction and colour, which conserves momentum and energy.

Credit: Zixin (Lily) Zhang

Oxford physicists recreate extreme quantum vacuum effects | University of Oxford Department of Physics

As Sam Harris once remarked, “When religions are right, they are right by accident.” His point highlights the lack of empirical grounding in religious claims, which are typically non-falsifiable and therefore beyond the scope of scientific validation.

Ironically, this may mean that the authors of Genesis were accidentally correct in one of their most iconic assertions: that the universe began with the creation of light (Genesis 1:3). While the biblical writers lacked any scientific understanding, modern physics now suggests that under extreme quantum conditions, something akin to this could indeed occur — light arising from an apparent vacuum.

This is an area where creationists normally tie themselves up in knots, claiming on the one hand that you can't get something out of nothing because it contravenes the laws of thermodynamics and on the other hand that a god made of nothing created the universe out of nothing with some magic words.

The truth, of course, is rather more rational and subject to scientific analysis and testing.

Researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford have successfully simulated a remarkable prediction of quantum electrodynamics: the spontaneous emergence of photons from empty space. Their work, published in Communications Physics, demonstrates how light can be generated from the quantum vacuum — a phenomenon that, until now, had only existed as a theoretical possibility.

Creationism Refuted - Consciousness Is Yielding Up Its Secrets To Science

Quantum Consciousness

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Microtubules, seen in yellow in this image, are part of the skeleton of plant and animal cells

Wellesley - Wellesley team’s new research on anesthesia unlocks important clues about the nature of consciousness | Wellesley College

If there is one thing that creationists get right it is that science is a threat to their childish superstition, so they have two main lines of argument: firstly they tell us how their religion disagrees with science, using Bible quotes as though they are indisputable facts, not just claims written down and declared to be true; secondly they attack science as though finding fault with one aspect or another of science somehow invalidates all of it and their superstition wins by default.

Neither of these tactics ever provide any evidence for creationism of course because there is none to produce, but they have the desired effect of making the creationist feel superior to those clever-dicky, elitist scientists with their big words.

And one of their favourite lines of attack is to claim that 'science can't explain consciousness', conveniently forgetting to add the word 'yet' to the end of their claim. A basic understanding of science and the history of science, would tell them that not yet understanding something doesn't invalidate science, it invalidates ignorance. Science never used to understand lightening or earthquakes, or diseases, or atoms, or biodiversity and the appearance of kinship between species, but now it does.

And now we are beginning to understand consciousness too. We know, for example, that it doesn't exist independently of a fully-functional brain because it can be abolished with chemicals and by injury, so we know that whatever the mechanism, it is a function of neurophysiology and so amenable to scientific investigation and explanation. The questions are the 'how' and the 'what' that makes up all scientific investigation.