Did Venus Once Support Life?

Well, several universities and science institutes partnered to create several simulations of what Venus may have been like billions of years ago. They based these models on climate models from Earth. They assumed that Venus and Earth were similar billions of years ago, before Earth’s atmosphere changed from largely carbon dioxide to nitrogen and oxygen. They also assumed that Venus had shallow seas. The more promising simulations assumed that Venus had the same topography that it has today, even though the authors acknowledge that the entire surface of Venus was overturned and altered since then, so we have no idea what Venus’ topography was like then. The more promising simulations also assumed the same rotation rate for Venus, though the authors acknowledge that the rotation rate has changed. One of the simulations allowed Venus’ temperature to be low enough to support life until 715 million years ago.

Now, as you read through that paragraph, I hope you noticed something—all the assumptions. They assume Venus is billions of years old. They assume it was similar to Earth in the distant past. They assumed Venus’ topography. They assume it had shallow seas. They place assumptions on top of assumptions on top of assumptions!

These scientists are doing what is called historical science. They are looking at Venus and trying to determine what happened in the unobservable past, based on their worldview. This isn’t the same thing as observational science, the kind of science that works in the here-and-now. Observational science, which by the way we use to build our technology and cures diseases, is directly testable and repeatable. On the other hand, historical science isn’t directly testable, observable, or repeatable. In historical science, how you interpret the evidence is based on your worldview. These scientists have an evolutionary worldview and already believe Venus is billions of years old, so they construct their experiments and then interpret their evidence through that lens and reach conclusions such as that Venus may have supported life at some point in the past. Evolutionary scientists make all sorts of speculations based on unfounded assumptions about the past and call that “science.” They gladly teach these beliefs in public school classrooms. But as soon as a Christian claims that the universe and life are the result of a Creator, that’s labeled as religion and not allowed to be taught in science classes. Yet observational science confirms that life and the universe (including the laws of nature) could not come about by natural processes! Essentially, secularists are imposing their religion on government-run schools.

When we start with God’s Word, we get an entirely different interpretation regarding Venus. Our Creator designed Venus on Day Four of Creation Week just a few thousand years ago. Since Earth, not Venus (or any other planet), was designed to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18), our presupposition implies that we wouldn’t expect to find life on Venus in the past or the present. Now this is entirely different from the evolutionary expectation, but the difference isn’t in the evidence. The difference is in the worldview and presuppositions of the person interpreting the evidence.

Learn more about supposed extraterrestrial life in our planetarium show, Aliens: Fact or Fiction? See it here at the Creation Museum in our world-class Stargazer’s Planetarium, or in the comfort of your own home on DVD.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.