Japheth, remember to turn off the computer …
Photo from Wikipedia. Released under the GFDL.
The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient mechanical analog computer.
by Calvin Smith
Today’s evolutionary worldview taught by most school systems promotes the
belief in a history in which mankind has grown more and more intelligent as we have
‘evolved’ over time. Many people cannot conceive of technologically
advanced people existing thousands of years before us.
Stories like Noah’s Flood have been categorized as myth by many who simply
cannot believe a ‘primitive’ man like Noah could have built an ‘ocean
liner’ sized vessel like the one described in
Genesis 6.
From time to time a careful observer can spot news items that support the biblical
creationist view. (This view holds that man was created as very intelligent and
has degenerated rather than evolved since that time due to the effects of sin and
the Curse because of man’s rebellion against God.)
Recently CBC News released a story1
about a device made between 150 bc
and 100 bc that was discovered in
1901 in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. An interesting point in
the story showed that it was ‘embedded in rock’ and was first examined
with x-rays to determine what was inside; a clear admission that rock formation
does not take ‘millions of years’ as is commonly taught.2
The article describes the device in glowing terms with comments like; ‘…just
extraordinary…’, and, ‘The way the mechanics are designed just
makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely well.’ Describing
the machine as an analog computer, it states that it possesses a differential gear
(commonly associated with modern automobiles) and was capable of tracking the movements
of the sun, moon and eclipses. It’s also suspected of being capable of following
planetary movement. The intricacy of the device is compared to an 18th-century clock.
The biggest point regarding the discovery is put well in the following quotes from
the article:
The greater question puzzling scientists is how such a useful device could have
disappeared entirely from the archeological record, so much so that no record of
anything as complex appears for another 1,000 years.
London Science Museum's curator, Michael Wright states, ‘I find it as easy
to believe that this technology survived unrecorded, as to believe that it was reinvented
in so similar a form’.
… the ancients were in no way more ‘primitive’ or less intelligent than
we are today.
These quotes highlight an important point. Some of the technology we are taught
originated in the 1700’s may have been around thousands of years earlier,
but just not recorded. So the intelligence to build such devices has been
around a long time.
Technology has advanced quickly during the last 100 years primarily due to the recording
and sharing of ideas. One can quickly ‘get up to speed’ and build upon
the discoveries of others. But any one person or small group that was isolated would
quickly revert to a ‘primitive’3
state within a short time period. (How many people do you know could build a house
from scratch, or a cell phone or computer?)
Consider the amount of technological advance that has taken place in the last 300
years. We have been able to develop electricity, automobiles and computers in the
form we have today within that time frame. Mankind could have accomplished a great
deal in the first 1656 years before the Flood of Noah’s day. Of course, without
an organized structure where ideas can be recorded and shared, technology cannot
get very far. The absence of government and a police force that would punish lawbreakers
would be a major limiting factor to the advancement of technology before the Flood.
And we need to bear in mind that it was biblical Christianity and the assumptions
that flowed from it that opened the door to the blossoming of science and technology
in western Europe.4
Adam was created perfect, capable of speech (naming the animals in a very short
period of time).
Genesis 4:21–22 records metal-working, and musical instruments, within a
short time after the creation date. Such tasks require a high level of intelligence
and ingenuity, as does Noah’s making of the Ark.
So, while there may not have been laptop computers on the Ark, this new find, for
those without the veil of evolutionary thinking and ‘millions of years’
clouding their thoughts, highlights that the ancients were in no way more ‘primitive’
or less intelligent than we are today.
Related articles
References and notes
- CBC News, Scientists unlock mystery of 2,000-year-old computer.
Return to text
- See
Keys to Rapid Rock Formation, Creation 17(1):45, 1994. Also Walker,
T., Rapid Rock, Creation
24(2):38-39, 2002. Return to text
- Note that by ‘primitive’ we do not mean
the standard evolutionary ‘Stone Age caveman’ stereotype. See (a) Cardno,
S., The mystery of ancient man,
Creation 20(2):10–14, 1998; (b) Niemand, R.,
The Stone ‘Age’—a figment of the imagination?, Creation
27(4):13, 2005. Return to text
- Noah would have had considerable time to accumulate
the ‘know-how’ of his age to take with him to the new world he was about
to enter. Looking at the high level of ingenuity in the civilizations that sprang
up shortly after the Flood, like Babylon and Egypt (while other groups of those
dispersed at Babel, isolated from people possessing metallurgy and engineering knowledge,
improvised with stone tools and sought temporary shelter in caves), gives us some
idea of what that pre-Flood technology would have been like. Return
to text
Published: 22 December 2006 (GMT+10)
| It has been said that “Information is power”. When it comes to creation information we’d have to agree. Keep the ‘powerful’ evidence for God being Creator coming.  | | |
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