I used to think the Big Bang theory was supported by multiple lines of scientific evidence, and impossible to challenge. When you watch anything related to astronomy on TV, it will probably be based on the Big Bang theory. In Counting To God I argued that the creation of all time, space, and matter from nothing was evidence of God.
The evidence of God is still there, stronger than ever, but the support for gradual cosmic evolution disappears when you look behind the curtain. The latest evidence does not agree with the Big Bang theory, and the theory is now rejected by many scientists, including many Atheists. In this post I’ll describe the Big Bang theory, and then the science. To me, science now points to an even more miraculous creation, the creation described in Genesis. As usual, you decide.
According to the Big Bang theory, a one-time, supernatural event took place 13.8 billion years ago. That event was the instantaneous creation of space, time, and all of the matter and energy that ever has existed and ever will exist. The theory is that an ultra-hot and ultra-dense fireball gradually expanded and cooled, and gravity slowly pulled the matter together over billions of years to form stars, planets, and galaxies. As generations of stars burned and exploded, the extreme heat and pressure created heavy elements – elements heavier than helium in the periodic table (oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and so on) – that are critical for life.
That’s the theory. Let’s look at facts (sorry the list is so long, but the subject fascinates me):
Mature Distant Galaxies. This shocked me. Galaxies far away are receding from us, and the speed with which they are receding is generally proportional to their distance from us. (Hubble’s Law). According to secular Big Bang models, this means that when we look at distant galaxies we are looking back in time. According to the Big Bang theory, the galaxies farthest away were formed shortly after the Big Bang. The models generally predict that it takes billions of years to form a mature galaxy with billions of stars, and that the heavy elements gradually increase as stars explode.
We have found distant galaxies that are fully mature. One team of astronomers found 15 distant galaxies that (according to their models) are 12 billion light years away on average. In other words, they believed they were looking back in time 12 billion years, to less than two billion years after the Big Bang. These galaxies are fully mature in shape; they are massive, with a hundred billion stars or more each; and they are filled with heavy elements. Another team discovered a galaxy supposedly 560 million years old with ratios of heavy elements similar to nearby galaxies.
Mature distant galaxies contradict the Big Bang model. They fit the biblical model, where God “stretches out the heavens like a curtain…” Isaiah 40:22. The Bible states in 10 places that God stretched out the heavens.
Blue Stars. Blue stars are the most massive stars. Stars with more mass are hotter and burn much quicker. Rigel (the star in Orion that is the “foot” on the right) is estimated by secular astronomers to be around 8 million years old and at the end of its life. A star like our sun, which itself is bigger than 95% of all stars, will burn for a thousand times longer than a typical blue star. If the universe is billions of years old, blue stars should be long gone, and any new ones formed should be fantastically rare. Yet blue stars are all over our galaxy. I love to look at magnificent bands of blue stars in other spiral galaxies. (It’s easy to do, just google “spiral galaxies” and click on “images”). The abundance of blue stars, both in our galaxy and in other galaxies, contradicts the Big Bang model.
Arms in Spiral Galaxies. While you’re admiring those spiral galaxies, notice the “arms” of tens of billions of stars stretching out from the center. Our Earth is in the Orion arm of the Milky Way. According to secular astronomers, our galaxy has made about 20 complete rotations in its roughly 12 billion year life.
Nice theory. But, if it were true, the stars wouldn’t still be in the spiral arms. Over time the stars would have wandered and filled in the disks of the galaxies. Those sharply defined arms disprove the Big Bang theory.
Double Stars. Stars like our Sun are typically found in groups of two or three. Double stars, also called binary stars, are very common. New research shows that most double star systems will spiral into collapse – the stars will run into each other – in less than one hundred thousand years. This contradicts the Big Bang model of double star systems existing for billions of years.
No Exotic Particles. The ultra-hot and ultra-dense fireball of the Big Bang should have produced exotic particles. We don’t find any. When energy “condenses” into matter, it creates equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. We don’t find anti-matter in the universe. Under the Big Bang theory, one of the most common particles in the universe should be a magnetic monopole, a particle with a single net magnetic charge. Magnetic monopoles have been created in the laboratory. They have never been observed in space.
The Horizon Problem. When we look deep into space, all areas are almost exactly the same temperature. The Big Bang theory predicts cold spots and hot spots. Since light could not have traveled between regions on opposite sides of the universe, they should not have the same temperature; they haven’t been able to exchange energy. To get around this, many secular astronomers believe the universe went through a brief period of massive “inflation.” Inflation is really a philosophical belief, and not science, since it can never be reproduced or observed. Some mathematical models of inflation did make predictions, and all of those predictions have been proven false.
Stars and Planets from Clumps? According to computer simulations, gravity won’t hold grains of dust together until the ball is at least a kilometer in diameter. In other words, you need planets to get planets, and stars to get stars. Secular scientists brush over this problem, but have yet to show how planets and stars can be formed by gravity.
Magnetic Fields. Planets that are billions or even millions of years old shouldn’t have magnetic fields. The total electric energy “stored” in the Earth’s magnetic field has decreased by 14% since its first careful measurement in 1829. This decay fits creation models, which attribute the decay to electrical resistance in the core of the Earth.
Dr. Russell Humphreys has done incredible work in this area. In 1984 he proposed an alternative magnetic model involving God aligning water molecules during the creation week. It accurately predicted the magnetic field strengths of Uranus, and Neptune, as well as the decay rate of Mercury’s magnetic field. Even more impressive, a number of his predictions were made in advance, and then confirmed by satellite measurements.
Comets. Comets have finite life spans; they gradually burn up or collide with the Sun or a planet. They can’t have existed for billions of years, and in most cases not for millions. Secular astronomers imagine an “Oort Cloud” containing a trillion or so potential comets, at the far outer reaches of our Solar System, to replenish the supply. However, as even Atheist Carl Sagan admitted, there is not one shred of scientific evidence for the existence of the Oort Cloud.
I am not an expert in all of these areas, and it is certainly possibly that I have gotten some things wrong, or that later research will change the statements above. Nevertheless, I think the verdict is in. I am now convinced the Big Bang theory, the prevailing model of gradual cosmological evolution, has fatal flaws. It’s not as ridiculous as Darwin’s theory of biological evolution (how could any sane person believe the human brain “evolved” by chance?) but it has huge problems that most people don’t know about. In Counting To God I noted the 1965 discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, faint radiation coming from everywhere, and suggested it was overwhelming evidence of the validity of the Big Bang theory. I didn’t know about these problems (and many problems not listed here), and I didn’t know the background radiation can also be explained as the limiting temperature of space, as starlight being reflected off space dust.
The universe can’t have existed forever. (Second law of thermodynamics, look it up.) Like models of gradual biological evolution, models of gradual cosmological evolution don’t fit the facts. We are left with a magnificent creation, a universe of enormous complexity, beauty, and size. The facts suggest it was all created just thousands of years ago, exactly as described in the Bible:
“I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host…” Isaiah 45:12.
The Bible is true, right from the first page. In a later post I’ll show how important that is for Christianity.
Thanks for reading. Please share the good news of true science. Together we can change the world.