FAITH - Footprints in the Dust

FAITH --- Footprints in the Dust

by Ernest Lucas

'One small step'

Twenty five years ago, at 9.56pm Houston time on July 20th, 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped off the landing pad of the lunar module Eagle and uttered the now famous words, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". A human being had set foot on the Moon for the first time. Television pictures and photographs of the footprint he left in the dust on the Moon's surface flashed around the Earth. Those pictures showed that the dust was only a few inches (2.6 to be exact) thick.

Proof of a young Earth?

Within a few years some Christians were arguing that this thin layer of dust proved that the moon (and therefore the Earth) is only a few thousand years old. Their argument rested on an article by H. Pettersson published in Scientific American in 1960. Pettersson measured the amount of atmospheric dust collected by filters on top of Mount Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He knew that only a very small fraction of this dust came from outer space in the form of tiny meteorites. Meteoritic dust is known to contain more nickel than terrestrial dust, but how much more is a matter of guesswork. Pettersson made what he considered a reasonable guess, and on this basis used the amount of nickel in his dust samples to calculate the amount of dust from outer space which settles on the Earth each year. He stressed the very speculative nature of his conclusion that 14 million tons of such dust reach the Earth's surface annually. This leads the authors of the book Scientific Creationism, published in 1974, to argue that if the Moon were 4.5 billion years old, as astronomers claim, it should have had several feet of dust on its surface, not a few inches. They even say that astronomers were dismayed by how little dust there was.

Evidence from NASA

This last comment, which is repeated in other such books, is quite untrue. The amount of dust on the Moon was a matter of great interest to NASA. A very thick layer would have made landing on the Moon, and moving around on its surface, difficult. Leaving it again might also have been problematical. However, by 1968, a year before Eagle landed, it was clear that there was nothing to worry about. Satellites orbiting above the Earth's atmosphere had been used to measure the amount of dust in space, and on this basis it had been estimated that there would be a layer of dust about 1.2 inches thick on the Moon, if meteoritic dust alone were the cause. (This work, and other evidence, was surveyed by J.S. Dohnanyi in 1972 in Icarus vol. 17 pp. 1-48). Of course, there would be more than that because there was evidence of past volcanic activity on the Moon, and that would produce dust too. So the 2.6 inches actually found was more or less as expected.

Evidence ignored

Since this evidence had been published in 1968 it is surprising that a book, claiming to be scientific, published six years later is unaware of it, or ignores it. One of the basic rules of good scientific work is that you must keep up to date with what is being published in the area in which you are working. If you fail to do this you risk basing your conclusions on out-of-date evidence or disproven arguments. It is amazing to find people associated with what is called The Institute for Creation Research falling into this basic trap. It undermines confidence in the quality of their science and their research. It is even more amazing to find a book published in 1992 (The Facts of Life by Richard Milton) and highly acclaimed by advocates of the 'young Earth' theory, still quoting the argument about the lack of dust on the Moon, based solely on Pettersson's 1960 paper, and apparently totally ignorant of all the relevant new evidence that has accumulated in the 30 years since then.

Evidence from the surface of the Moon

The fact is that the evidence of the surface of the Moon does indicate its great age. Before 1969 artists' depictions of the surface of the Moon, such as the famous paintings produced by Chesley Bonestall in the 1940's and '50's, showed extremely jagged mountains and rocks. There was some reason in this. The Moon has no significant atmosphere, so its surface cannot be eroded by wind and rain. However, the pictures brought back by Apollo 13 and subsequent Apollo missions show rocks and mountains that are rounded as if worn down by erosion. Examination of the rocks brought back to Earth revealed the reason for this. Surfaces that had been buried in the dust are sharp and jagged. Those that had been exposed are covered with small pits. These are, no doubt, the result of the impact of meteoric dust. On the basis of the known average mass of interplanetary dust grains and the velocity with which they strike the Moon McDonnell and Ashworth estimated the rate of erosion of the Moon's surface. The figure they arrived at was about 10 feet in a billion years. In reality it would be much less than this because the debris is not removed and so forms a protective covering of dust which absorbs the impact of subsequent meteorites. However, even at the maximum rate, in 10,000 years (the kind of age of the Earth that the authors of Scientific Creationism argue for) the surface of the Moon would have been eroded by 1.2 millionths of an inch, producing a virtually undetectable coating of dust! This work was published in 1972 and should have been known, and taken into account, by the authors of Scientific Creationism.

Does the truth matter?

Does the failure of these authors to be up to date really matter? Yes, for several reasons. First of all, Christians should be concerned about the truth. The God we are committed to is the God of truth (John 15:26 ). Of all people, Christians should be most punctilious about using only those arguments that are based on sound methods of scholarship and the best evidence available. This is a matter of obedient Christian discipleship, not simply a desire to look good in the eyes of other scholars. Secondly, following from this, it is dishonouring to God when Christian scholars are found to be using sloppy arguments based on out-of-date evidence - and I know secular scholars who have little respect for Christianity because of this. Finally, it is a matter of considerable pastoral and evangelistic importance. Christian scholars who wrongly claim to be presenting sound 'scientific' arguments are misleading their fellow Christians who read their books. Most of these readers do not have either the opportunity or the inclination to check up on the reliability of the arguments used and evidence presented. Some of those readers may in time be stumbled in their faith because of their misplaced confidence in what they have read. Christian students who, with more zeal than wisdom, confidently confront lecturers with arguments culled from books like Scientific Creationism have sometimes been made to look foolish when the lecturer has been able to show that the argument does not stand up to the evidence, even the evidence available when it was first put forward. That has not only shaken the faith of the Christians, but undermined their witness to their fellow students. Perhaps publishers of books on 'scientific creationism', and the managers of bookshops which sell them, ought to consider putting a spiritual health warning on them.