Hugh Ross has been around for a long while, he was born in 1945. He's been publishing his Christian shoe-horn pablum in his books for many years. He's smart enough as a scientist in astrophysics to know that the uniformitarian concepts of chemical substances, (composition of stars, planets, moons, atoms, molecules etc), are proved, as well as concepts of light speed, distance in light years, etc.
So he is comfortable with age of Earth being 4.5 billion years, (not a Young Earth Creationist), but claims his Christian magic God placed human beings on this 4.5 billion year old planet "just a few thousand years ago". As an astrophysicist, Dr Ross seems to understand the principles of physics, (atomic theory,general relativity, alpha and gamma rays, etc etc.) He even seems to apply the concepts of physics to the formation of this Earth and other planets, to the undeniable geomorphological history of this planet, but then he goes off on his creationist "shoe horn" routine.
"There were
30,000 land mammals on planet Earth when God created Adam and Eve. There are only
15,000 remaining today.
In just a few thousand years, 15,000 species of mammals have disappeared.
Admittedly, man has a lot to do with that."
Hugh Ross - Origin of the Universe
Man killed off 15,000 species of mammals "in just a few thousand years"? What did man do to accomplish THAT so quickly? I don't even want to imagine!
After all the other diversity developed on his 4.5 billion year old planet, (he got THAT right), then he just says that God guy decided, just a "few thousand years" ago, to place homo sapiens on this planet. Shazam!
Here is where his knowledge of biology seems to come up short. So he plugs in his "God gap". He was doing just fine with the astrophysical parts of the universe, he was doing fine with the formation of the planets. He was doing fine with his concept of the age of the Earth, with the chemical composition of the Earth prior to the Carboniferous period, and he even would agree that it was the emergence of large plants covering a land mass that is responsible for creating sufficient oxygen from CO2 to allow for mammalian species to develop, (350,000,000 years ago). But then there's his "God gap", all other plants and animals grew following the laws of geochemistry, geomorphology, (earthquakes mountain and volcanoes, etc), all conditions were made right for man to emerge. and chimps and cows and chickens and apple trees were all ready... just a few thousand (not million) years ago? Oh, because it has to agree with his Christianity story, and he must make it so that science cannot logically falsify the Christian Bible.
This is what we call "shoe-horning" science to fit religious beliefs. Christians are not alone as true believers in doing this here and there to fit in with their mythical stories. Buddhists and others believe we are all re-incarnated, (and will be again and again) but are perfectly okay with the scientific age of the Earth and modern scientific concepts of Earth's biodiversity. (Buddhists even believe we come back to Earth as different animals, but let's not go there right now, off topic.)
It doesn't matter how many science facts one fits in the paragraph along with the words Jesus Christ. Science is science, Christianity is a set of religious beliefs. No, Dr Ross, the 30,000 land mammals is NOT an ACCURATE ESTIMATE of the total number of species of
mammals ever to have existed, IN ABOUT 300 hundred plus million years !!!! about 15,000 of which exist today. And, unfortunately, Dr Ross has got the math WRONG on the number of species of plants and animals ever to have existed on this planet.
Extinction is a natural phenomenon in Earth history, it happens, and it happens a lot!
"Of all the species that have lived on the Earth since life first appeared here 3 billion years ago, only about one in a thousand is still living today.All the others, the vast majority, became extinct, typically within ten million years or so of their first appearance. This large extinction rate has had an important influence on the evolution of life on Earth - the population and repopulation of an ecological niche by species after species allows for the testing of a much wider range of survival strategies than the slower process of phyletic transformation by which a species gradually adapts its morphology and behavior to its surroundings. This in turn has contributed greatly to the current level of biodiversity on the planet. There is nothing however to suggest that the species alive at present are special in any way. Presumably they too will become extinct within the next ten million years or so, and make way for successors themselves."
Mass extinction
Back to Dr Ross:
This Dr Ross is a creationist, just as much as any other creationist, he's just not a Young Earth Creationist. He prefers and sincerely is convinced of the science he studied to the Ph.D. level in Astrophysics. He probably likes being a professor in that field. He gets enormous respect fame and fortune with that title, mostly from non-scientists who buy his books. But he somehow has to keep believing in his Bible's creation of human beings story, without any science to go along with it. He just claims man appears here "just a few thousand years ago"!
He just ignores the scientific evidence for the existence of prior homo species. He ignores Neanderthal man, etc. He claims his God, AFTER 4,.5 BILLION years of waiting for the right moment, just plunks down on the planet someone who looks and acts and walks and talks like us, in Ross' words "just a few thousand years" ago!
In psychology, we call this phenomenon "cognitive dissonance", the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time. He knows the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, (give or take), he knows the age of the stars in the universe, but he HAS to keep his Bible beliefs alive. So he "buys into" the creationist mythology with humans arriving on planet Earth "just a few thousand years ago"! Despite all the logical evidence, despite all the fossil record, despite the fossils of other hominoid species, (Neanderthal, Habilis, Australopithicus, etc.), he claims the Christian Bible as his authority for the length of time human beings like us have been around. Simply amazing! (Or simply a great book sales strategy!)
How does he get away with this? How does he (falsely) claim that evidence of other hominoid forms on the planet prior to Homo Sapiens "fills only one coffin full of bones"?
Well the OP's article cited was from 1994, and obviously that coffin would not be overflowing with bones of our pregenitors that are actually MILLIONS of years old ! That's why! But if you buy into the "just a few thousand years ago" mythology, having only one or two coffins to fill would be easy to disregard.
But the evidence of more than just a coffin full of bones is mounting, dear Dr Ross!
The complete DNA sequencing of Neanderthal man, (last on this planet about 30,000 years ago, and probably our closest now extinct ancestral relative), shows striking similarities to Homo Sapiens, and almost identical sequencing to ours in 99%+ of his genome.
Well, we're beginning to get the picture here of Dr Ross, and the kind of talker he is.
He's like a used car salesman, telling us not to pay any attention to the high mileage, (or the bodies in the trunk). These are slick sales lines, they convince some buyers, but they are just a cover-up for the human species history in science that is clearly worthy of study. Dr Ross will convince you he's a legitimate scientist, he will give you 80% science from his vast astrophysical study. He will talk astronomy, geology, physics. But the last 20% will be the non-science from his Bible, complete with his warnings not to pay any attention to the science that disputes the Bible, the science that ("fills only one coffin full of bones").
Just as the magician focuses your attention away from what he's doing by waving one hand, he convinces you not to pay attention to the motion behind the curtain. And with the complete sequencing of humans and Neanderthal man, (not to mention other species), there is PLENTY of motion behind the curtain these days, motion Dr Ross wants you to ignore, like you can easily ignore what "fills only one coffin full of bones"! That's Dr. Ross at his most slick sales pitch best!
He's a flim flam artist, and he has found that he can sell more books to unsophisticated non-scientifically trained Bible followers than he can sell astrophysics texts to college grad students, simply because there are lots of people who WANT to believe their Bible is true, and will pay almost anything to get some "proof" from a scientist. The ill-informed and the gullible are many in our American society, just look around. The critical thinkers, the skeptics, the scientifically trained minds, not so many.
For those clearly curious about the formation of the universe and solar system, the Earth and other planets, for those who want to study the geomorphology of the planet, (volcanes, continental drift, tectonic plates, etc), for those who want to study the history of the evolution of biological species on this planet, I suggest you pay no attention to Dr Ross, and pay him no $ either for his books. Instead I suggest a trip to the local publica library. Ask the librarian to get you a good basic college textbook on any of those subjects. Ask for some videos or other material from a basic college course in planetary science, geologic history of the planet, history of life forms on Earth, etc. You'll learn a whole lot more and not get caught in the shoe-horn traps of non-scientific religious mythologies, no matter HOW "scientific" and appealing Dr Ross may look and sound, he's still preaching, not educating.
