Astrophysics, schmastrophysics

Remember the “we’re-creationists-and-proud-of-it” creationists? Well, despite the press that ID has been getting, the older sort are still around. Today, they’re discussing not the beginning of the universe, but the end. Evidently they don’t like “dark matter” and “dark energy”, explanations that astrophysicists have proposed to explain certain puzzling phenomenon like the fact that galaxies spin faster than the gravity from their observed stars seems to allow.

Now, I think it is perfectly reasonable to criticize these explanations on their merits – it is conceivable, for example, that dark matter doesn’t exist and that instead we need some new physics to describe gravity at the very coarse scale – see for example the latest on MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) in New Scientist (plain text). And the answer to this question could impact our view of the eventual fate of the Universe – i.e., will we get a “Big Crunch” or not?

But I think the creationist solution to the problem leaves something to be desired:

Evolutionists accuse creationists of inventing a “God of the Gaps” to cover for their ignorance of true science. It would appear that the high priests of astrophysics have their own Gods of the Gaps, namely dark matter and dark energy. What will happen to the universe? It won’t be the Big Crunch or the Big Chill, but the Big Furnace: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:10-13).

Astrophysics, schmastrophysics!