Christian scientists: Darwinian planet-eating Earth theory hard to swallow

Just as human babies often put things in their mouths and swallow them, researchers at Oxford University have developed a theory that, in its infancy, the baby Earth may have swallowed an entire planet similar to Mercury.

Some Christian scientists see the new theory as a story made up to fill the gaps that Darwinian theory can’t. Others see it as further evidence Earth’s existence can’t be explained by chance happenstance.

Secular scientists have long believed Earth’s magnetic core has existed for more than 3 billion years, but they have not been able to solve one major dilemma: There is no explanation for how this magnetic field could exist for so long. Strictly on its own, the magnetic field would decay within 20,000 years.

So scientists concluded there must be an internal dynamo, a mechanism within Earth’s core that continually generates the magnetic field. At the center of the Earth is the inner core, a solid ball of iron about the size of the moon and as hot as the surface of the sun. The inner core is surrounded by a Mars-sized liquid outer core. The internal dynamo, according to prevailing theory, creates a magnetic field from the motion of the liquid in the outer core.

Two processes maintain the liquid’s movement. The Earth’s rotation constantly swirls the liquid. And as they heat and cool, the rising and falling particles create convection currents. Just as molecules in water heated on a stove become hottest in the bottom of the pan, closest to the burner, so do particles at the bottom of Earth’s outer core, closest to the intense heat of the inner core. And just as the hotter molecules in the water bubble to the surface, so do the heated molecules in the bottom of the Earth’s outer core. At the top, the particles cool again and sink back to the bottom, creating a self-perpetuating convection current. Anyone looking at a hot lava lamp from days-gone-by has seen a convection current in action.

But, the researchers still have a problem: The heat sources are simply not enough to keep the convection current going indefinitely. To solve the conundrum, the Oxford researches developed the idea that perhaps, during the days of its formation, Earth incorporated another planet that provided a source of uranium. The radioactive element would generate heat that could keep the convection currents flowing.

Jeff Zweerink, astrophysicist and research scholar with Reasons to Believe, sees the Earth-swallowed-a-planet theory as plausible evidence the Earth was intentionally created because such a phenomenon could not simply happen by chance.

“This is just the latest example that the very fact that our Earth is capable of hosting life points to intentional design,” he told me.

On the other hand, physicist and young earth creationist David Coppedge believes the new theory is highly improbable. Secular researchers do not want to admit the evidence does not support their theory of deep time because Darwinian theory, which relies on that time for evolutionary processes to take place, would crumble without it, he told me.

So, rather than admit the evidence does not support their theory that Earth’s magnetic field is 3 billion years old, he said, they invent a story about Earth swallowing a planet: “Its like wishing upon a star to fill in the gaps, magic Mercury comes special delivery with just the right conditions.”