In the Beginning: Science and Genesis 1-11

Class Seven - THE BIG BANG

Earlier I used a cube to demonstrate the impossibility of the many parameters that occur to allow life of any kind to happen randomly. We’ve also examined just a few of them. Let’s view a related video clip (Fine Tuning –about 7 minutes ).

The “Big Bang”

Let’s talk about the Big Bang for a minute. This will get a little technical, but we need to cover it. Just understand that we don’t know nearly as much about the universe as you might think based on what you hear dogmatically stated, as this comment by secular astrophysicist, Dr. Leon Lederman demonstrates PP:

“A story logically begins at the beginning. But this story is about the universe, and unfortunately there are no data for the Very Beginning. None, zero. We don’t know anything about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billionth of a trillionth of a second—that is, some very short time after creation in the Big Bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up. We are in the realm of philosophy.” (emphasis original)

Recall that Galileo got into so much trouble for challenging geocentricity. That was the view that because the earth was created by God, it is special and the center of creation and that the sun circled the earth. Then, Copernicus postulated that scientific evidence showed the earth is not the center of the solar system, but rather the sun was. That view, which is correct, is now known as the Copernican principle.

In our discussion of the Big Bang, we need to address first PP

redshift. The redshift measurement is a key feature of the Big Bang model of physical cosmology.

Redshift is the observed shift in the light spectrum when looking at distant objects in the unverse, and is believed to measure the expansion of the universe. Astronomers believe that the observation of the redshifts of distant galaxies, quasars, and intergalactic gas clouds provides a relative distance from the observer, with the red shift increasing in proportion to an objects distance from the observer. Therefore, supposedly the greater the redshift the further away an object is. An observed redshift occurs whenever a light source moves away from the observer, corresponding to the Doppler shift that changes the perceived frequency of sound waves. An example of the Doppler shift in sound would be the sound of a train. As it approaches you the sound gets higher. As it moves away from you the sound gets lower. The lower sound corresponds to the red shift of celestial objects moving away from the observer. That’s technical and I don’t fully understand the details, but all we need for this class is that brief overview.

We saw that the Copernican principle showed that the earth is not the center of the solar system. The Copernican principle has been expanded PP

to mean that the earth occupies no special place in the universe. So the current theory of the creation of the universe, the Big Bang cosmological model, also now known as the “Standard Model of Cosmology,” PP not surprisingly states there is no center to the universe, PP it is homogeneous with an even spread of galaxies. Hence, the universe should appear the same in all directions when viewed from any point in space.

That’s the theory, but the theory doesn’t agree with observation of the universe. What is actually observed from our galaxy PPx4

are bands of galaxies in concentric circles about one million light years apart, with nothing in between those concentric circles. Those concentric circles are formed around our galaxy! So in reality, the earth is in fact very near the center of the universe, astronomically speaking! Alton Arp (staff astronomer at the Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories for 29 years) stated: PP

“The fact that measured values of red shift do not vary continuously but come in steps – certain preferred values – is so unexpected that conventional astronomy has never been able to accept it, in spite of the over whelming evidence.”

Relative to this discussion, let’s look at another huge problem with redshifts. Recall that redshift is believed to measure the expansion of the universe, where the observation that the redshifts of distant galaxies, quasars, and intergalactic gas clouds increase in proportion to their distance from the earth, and therefore supposedly the greater the redshift the further away they are. Relative to quasars, which means quasi stellar radio sources, astronomers believe that a PP

quasar is a compact halo of matter surrounding the central supermassive black hole of a young galaxy.

Astronomers have known for decades about the strange ‘connection’ between the PP

galaxy NGC4319 and the quasar Markarian 205. PP Without any explanation so far, astronomers are still baffled, and with good reason. So what is baffling about such a clear linkage between this galaxy and its apparently close neighboring quasar? The ‘basic’ problem is that the galaxy and the quasar have discordant red-shifts, which according to the standard red-shift interpretation means that the galaxy is receding from us at a velocity of PP 1800km/sec, whereas the quasar is receding PP at 21,000km/sec. Thus, according to the Hubble redshift law, the galaxy is 107 million light years away and the quasar is 12 times further away at 1.2 billion light years! Obviously, this simply cannot be, because the galaxy and the quasar are clearly connected together by a ‘bridge’, probably of luminous gas filaments. They give every appearance of existing together. Perhaps red-shifts may not be connected with recession velocities and so may not be a reliable index to distances in an expanding universe after all. Mathematician I.E. Segal and his associates have studied the evidence for galactic recessional velocity over the course of twenty years, with results that are sharply at odds with predictions of Big Bang cosmology. Segal, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, has incurred the indignation of the astrophysical community by suggesting that their standards of statistical rigor would shame a sociologist. Regarding the Big Bang he states: PP

“The Big Bang owes its acceptance as a physical principle primarily to the uncritical and premature representation of (the redshift-distance relationship) as an empirical fact…. Observed discrepancies… have been resolved by a pyramid of exculpatory assumptions, which are inherently incapable of noncircular substantiation.”

This quote is a fitting end to our brief discussion of the Big Bang warning given by physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker PP:

“... a society which accepts the idea that the origin of the cosmos could be explained in terms of an explosion, reveals more about the society itself than about the universe. Nevertheless, the many observations made during the past 25 years or so (now 40) which contradict the standard model, are simply ignored. When fact and theory contradict each other, one of them has to yield.”

By the way, I was in the Marine Corps artillery in Vietnam (1969-70) and I can assure you I never saw an explosion create order!

We’ve covered a lot about the heavens and we could cover a lot more. But, there’s one puzzle about the heavens to which God has not given the answer. One thing that seems to be contrary to all we have studied so far and will study later about the young earth set forth in Genesis. What is it?

To answer that, let me read an excerpt from a letter from a woman I witnessed to. While listening politely, she mentioned her boyfriend was a scientist and an atheist. I provided both of them with much information, but they refused to consider it. Regarding the information I had provided, her written response stated that it contained, and I quote, PP

“ A tremendous ignoring of a preponderance of evidence counter the evidence presented, e.g., carbon 14 dating, fossil records of plants and animals that haven’t lived for millions of years... He wants you to go outside and look up and pick a star and ask yourself how long it took the light you see to get to you from that star.”