Defending Creation

Blog

  • Redshifting and the Big Bang Theory

    Astronomer Michael J. Disney describes Big Bang cosmology this way:

    Big Bang cosmology is not a single theory; rather, it is five separate theories constructed on top of one another. The ground floor is a theory, historically but not fundamentally rooted in general relativity, to explain the redshifts—this is Expansion, which happily also accounts for the cosmic background radiation.

    https://www.americanscientist.org/article/modern-cosmology-science-or-folktale

    Redshifting has been assumed to be an evidence of the expansion of the universe. But is it?

    Back in the 1930s, Cal Tech professor Richard Tolman proposed a test for determining if Redshifting and the expansion of the universe are linked.

    Tolman calculated that the surface brightness (the apparent brightness per unit area) of receding galaxies should fall off in a particularly dramatic way with redshift—indeed, so dramatically that those of us building the first cameras for the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1980s were told by cosmologists not to worry about distant galaxies, because we simply wouldn’t see them. Imagine our surprise therefore when every deep Hubble image turned out to have hundreds of apparently distant galaxies scattered all over it (as seen in the first image in this piece).

    Tolman couldn’t be wrong: his physics is as sound of a bell. So, if the universe really is expanding, which seems likely, why do all the galaxies, irrespective of their redshift, appear to have the same identical surface- brightness? High redshift galaxies are no less than 4000 times brighter than they ought to be. There’s no escaping from that. 4000 times! (https://mjdisney.org/2022/07/at-the-beginning-of-time-what-the-james-webb-telescope-might-see/astronomy/)

    AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME; what the James Webb telescope might see

    Physicist Eric Lerner agrees that the surface brightness data support the non-expanding universe hypothesis:

    …we find that when the effect of telescope resolution is taken into account, the r–z relationships for disc and elliptical galaxies are identical. Both are excellently fit by SEU [static Euclidian Universe] predictions.

    https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/477/3/3185/4951333?login=false

    What does this mean? The theory of General Relativity predicts an expanding universe, but redshifting data does not confirm expansion. If the universe is not expanding, the ground floor of the Big Bang theory has just been destroyed!!

    A second implication: When astronomers measure the size of the universe, they use several techniques of the “cosmic distance ladder” to estimate distances from the Earth. The fourth and final step of the “cosmic distance ladder” estimates distances based on redshifts and the implied doppler effect. That fourth step is no longer valid. Surface brightness observations prove that redshifts are not analogous to the doppler effect.

    A third implication has to do with the concept of “time since creation.” If the universe is not expanding, then the idea that measuring redshifts lets us look back in time is invalid.

  • The Limitations of Naturalism

    Scholar and author Charles Murray has just published a new book titled “Taking Religion Seriously”, which documents his intellectual journey, with supporting evidence, from skeptic/agnostic/atheist toward Christian faith.

    Here is one critic of Murray’s faith journey:

    The critic’s philosophy is pure Naturalism. He is claiming that only natural explanations can count as valid evidence.

    The problem is there is much in life that is not explainable if you limit yourself to natural explanations. Take, for example, the concepts of Evil and justice.

    Most people believe there is such a thing as right and wrong, good and evil, if for no other reason that that they themselves have been a victim of someone else’s evil action. Perhaps being beaten, being treated unfairly.

    In fact, you can go to the playground and hear five-year-olds saying things like: “That’s not fair.” Even children know evil when the see it.

    Why is this so? What explains it better, the atheist world view or the Biblical world view? Can the atheist explain where this understanding of right and wrong comes from? Can it be explained adequately in naturalistic terms?

    Most people also agree that it is a good thing when evil is punished, for example, when the criminal is arrested and put in jail. People crave justice.

    Why is this so? What explains it better, the atheist world view or the Biblical world view? Can the atheist explain where this craving comes from?

    “It evolved” is not responsive, until someone can convincingly prove that there is a gene for evil recognition and a craving-for-justice gene, and then can argue that these genes confer an evolutionary survival advantage.

  • What the typical educated person believes about creation

    Wilfred Reilly is a college professor and author who writes interesting posts on X (formerly known as twitter). I think its fair to say he holds beliefs that are typical for the educated.

    In this post, he states that the Big Bang theory and the Theory of Evolution are satisfactory answers to the big questions of life (Why is there something rather than nothing? How did we get here?).

    But the Big Bang theory is not a valid starting point. The theory can only explain things AFTER 1) an unimaginable amount of energy exists in the singularity, and 2) someone or something causes the expansion of that energy. As Charles Murray
    puts it, (https://x.com/charlesmurray/status/1980267185701638423 )

    As far as I can tell, every physics-based cosmological explanation of the universe boils down to “Grant me an initial miracle, and I’ll explain everything after that.”

    It’s also wrong to assume that the Big Bang theory has much explanatory power. It uses imaginary objects!

    He’s also wrong about what the theory of evolution can explain. No informed person thinks life came from non-life.

    This is a world view issue. He has evaluated and dismissed the possibility of creation without really looking at the evidence.