Evolution In The Stars

11/1/2000

Recently The Dallas Morning News (10/27/2000) featured an article called: 6 Mars missions planned from the Associated Press http://www.dallasnews.com/national/200551_mars_27nat.html .

The subtitle of the article was Evidence of life will be sought.

According to the article, and as the title suggests, NASA is planning six missions to Mars, and as the subtitle plainly states, the objective is to look for life, past or present, on Mars. This is announced on the heels of two NASA disasters costing taxpayers $290,000,000. The upcoming missions are estimated to cost taxpayers $450,000,000 a year, culminating in a round trip estimated at $1,000,000,000 (yes, that is one billion dollars.)

In my book The Millennium Agenda, I discuss the topic of searching for life on other planets. It all goes back to evolution. The article quotes several NASA representatives with various views of the missions and what will be done.

In the movie Mission to Mars, the writers mused the possibilities that life had existed on Mars, but due to some catastrophe was driven away, but not before depositing a seed for life on neighboring Earth. According to that story, all life on Earth was a direct result and intent of the Martians and the legacy left for whatever life evolved on earth was a puzzle. Once solved, the puzzle would unfold all the answers of life to our human explorers.

I have several fundamental issues with the film, mainly dealing with continuity and gaps. The story is charming, and I have always been a fan of science fiction. But the movie, even in its attempt to explain how life originated on Earth, failed to explain how life originated (according to the movie) on Mars.

Nevertheless, NASA is planning to spend billions of dollars scouring the surface of Mars in order to find any tiny shred of evidence of life on that planet. The question that we should all be asking is this: what will we do with that evidence—if we find any?

My guess is that at the first slightest indication of the possibility of evidence suggesting the chance that life might have had the opportunity to exist, scientists will give themselves a ticker-tape parade proclaiming that they have disproved the existence of God by proving that life "evolved" somewhere besides Earth.

But let us not get caught up in this excitement too much. The question still remains: By what influence did the electrons form into elements, and then those form into life?

What can we possibly hope to learn on Mars that will benefit humanity? And, is it worth the cost?

If the only reason to go to Mars is to prove evolution, then scientists should give up now. Evolution, like religion, cannot be proven nor disproven. For something to be proven scientifically, it must be repeatable and observable. Evolution is neither repeatable nor observable—at least not in any practical sense. All we have is evidence. Some scientists like to believe the evidence points to (or in their words "proves") evolution.

All the evidence that I have studied, however, merely serves to confirm what the Bible tells me—God created all things. He created all things in definite, deliberate stages. And He created all things with a purpose with humankind as the stewards of this world.

See my article Noah and Adam, which discusses DNA evidence confirming the Bible’s account of a catastrophic flood.