Evolution by Catastrophe: Does it indicate Intelligent Design? (cont.)
By Bibhu Dev Misra (IIT, IIM)

As per the Vedic texts, a Cycle of the Yugas is completed once the sun makes a complete revolution around the mythical Mount Meru, the central axis of the world. They also tell us that a complete revolution of the sun around the Mount Meru results in a ‘day and night’ of the gods and the celestials who reside on the Meru. This implies that a ‘day and night of the gods’ is nothing but the complete Yuga Cycle of 24,000 years duration, which is equal to the value of the Precessional Year. Thus, the ascending half of the Precessional Year of 12,000 years can be viewed as the ‘day of the gods’ and the descending half of the Precessional Year of another 12,000 years as the ‘night of the gods’.

Therefore, the six days and nights of creation is equivalent to 144,000 years, while the two days and nights during which all life forms were created, is equal to 48,000 years. As per the estimates created by Gould and Eldredge, ‘speciation’ after a catastrophe takes anywhere between 5000 – 50,000 years. This is the same value that we obtain from the Genesis! Interestingly, the numbers 12,000 and 144,000 occur many times in the Revelation and have a number of esoteric meanings associated with them. 144,000 is mentioned as the number of ‘servants of God’ who will be sealed on their foreheads before the apocalypse, while 12,000 is the number of spiritual ‘tribes’ of the heavenly kingdom of God. The appearance of these numbers in connection with the creation events in the Genesis is certainly not a mere coincidence.

It is clear that the data from fossil records corroborate what the ancient, sacred texts told us all along: that there are cycles of creation and destruction, which is intelligently guided by higher forces. Not only are the time periods between successive destruction events mentioned in the ancient texts, but the time required for speciation at the beginning of a Kalpa is also correctly specified. In the face of such enormous evidences, the claim for Intelligent Design can hardly be ignored any longer.