Blog

by Steve Risner

I hope you’ve enjoyed the last several posts I’ve written concerning cosmology and interesting things we see in the universe. It’s such a terrifying but beautiful and elegant place we find ourselves in. Mysteries abound. But that’s okay, it makes it far more interesting. My last post concerned redshift and the Oort Cloud. We discussed how no one really knows what redshift is and the Oort Cloud, well, is just hilarious. This week, I’d like to touch on redshift some more. It’s a really strange thing to be so universal and yet so little understood. It’s spoken about frequently because, if you interpret it with the proper assumptions, it supports the Big Bang Theory. However, if you don't believe those assumptions are correct (and they really just boil down to your worldview), the observations actually contradict fundamental principles of the Big Bang. There are so many issues with Big Bang cosmology it’s strange that few are looking to remedy these problems. Let’s take a closer look.

First, I’d like to explain a little about the Big Bang and address a very common problem many people have, including many scientists and even those who deal with the cosmos as part of their profession. This is the idea of what space is and what the Big Bang actually is alleged to be. Many believe, because of the name, that this was some three dimensional place in space that exploded or rapidly expanded and globbed together to make all the different galaxies, stars, and planets. This is not true at all. In fact, this sort of idea (which actually makes sense in terms of how we experience the world around us and matches what we observe) would turn the Big Bang upside down. It would send it crashing. Why? Because this would first of all tell us that space was eternal and it would also mean space had a boundary and that the universe would have a center. These ideas are, according to Edwin Hubble, “a horror” and are not to be tolerated. He said, “But the unwelcome supposition of a favoured location must be avoided at all costs… Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable.” He indicates the “favoured location” meaning that, according to a variety of observations, we, the earth or at least the Milky Way galaxy, appear to be very near the center of the universe. This is extremely unlikely to have happened accidentally. Therefore, the conclusion must be that we were placed near the center of the universe and this “horror” cannot work with any type of atheistic/humanistic belief system. As a result, odd ideas that can be neither proved nor observed nor falsified are imagined to help support the humanists’ religion. What is this odd idea I’m talking about? It’s called the cosmological principle or Copernican Principle. This ideas simply states that the we (the earth or Milky Way galaxy) are not in any sort of favored position in the universe although observation tells us otherwise. We would observe the same findings regardless of where we were in the universe. This is where the famous balloon metaphor comes into play. Let me explain.

Rather than the universe having expanded rapidly from a central point outward, it has been suggested that space is actually expanding like the rubber sides of a balloon. This means that “hyperspace” is actually the hollow portion of the balloon that is filling with air, while the observable universe is only on the surface of the expanding material. The material in this case is the fabric of space. You cannot get to the middle of the balloon that is filling with air. You can't see it or go to it. So this means if you travel in one direction long enough in the universe, you’ll end up where you started—there is not center and no boundaries. Is there really observable evidence for such an invention? Not a bit. But this helps the secularist hand wave away all the observable data that suggests we are somewhere near the center of the universe. They will tell you that no matter where you are in the universe, all the observations would look the same. Hence, regardless of your point of origin, you will see the universe and believe the observations that suggest you’re near the center. This is extremely convenient for the atheist because it means they don’t have to explain anything concerning the data, and you cannot possibly confirm or falsify the idea unless you are on the USS Enterprise. Its entire reason for existence is to help support atheism over special creation. And here you thought astronomy was science. I kid… a little. If you think of it, though, we have people with degrees that get a great deal of publicity on shows like Cosmos and others that have actually never been anywhere near where their degree says they’re an authority. Isn’t that remarkable?

I’m a doctor. I take care of people for a living. Would you want me to put a hand on you if I had never actually seen human anatomy or studied it in my hands? I would bet not. And when you realize some of the foundational principles they operate on are completely unfalsifiable (meaning you can’t prove it’s false) and made up out of nowhere simply to uphold their beliefs, you begin to see that “science” isn’t what you thought it was. Not anymore, anyway. If fact, this scam is even eluded to by Stephen Hawking and George Ellis when they said, “We are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology.” Dr. Russell Humphreys responds to comments about cosmological principle by well-known cosmologists this way: “The ultimate motive behind the Copernican principle is atheistic naturalism… The big bang and Darwinism are two halves, physical and biological, of an atheistic origins myth.”

What’s this got to do with redshift, you ask? Redshift is the stretching of light waves from distant objects in space. This is understood by many to be like the change in pitch in sounds from a car as it is coming towards you and after it passes you. I discussed this in my last blog post. If redshift is to indicate the universe is expanding from a single point billions of years ago, this stretching would be fairly uniform. It’s not—not at all. It’s actually arranged in a sort of stair step fashion. This means the distribution of galaxies in our universe is “quantized.” This is like if all the cars on the highway were only able to do speeds in multiples of 10 mph. In other words, they could only drive 10, 20, 30, etc mph and could not drive 17 or 28 or 55 mph. This is exactly how the redshifts appear to be distributed. This was first discovered by a man named William Tifft. A couple of astronomers named Guthrie and Napier set out to prove Tifft was wrong, but they actually ended up confirming his basic findings. If the redshifts we see are quantized, this could quite easily mean that the galaxies we see are distributed in shells around us, meaning the Milky Way galaxy. The implications here are profound, and there has been a great deal of resistance to these findings. It implies that we are very near the center of the universe, which destroys the notion of the Big Bang. It also implies that there may be no expansion of the universe happening currently, as the motion of the galaxies should actually nullify the quantization. Russell Humphreys was bold enough to say that “Redshift quantization is evidence (1) against the big bang theory, and (2) for a galactocentric cosmology (our galaxy is near the center of the universe), such as one by Robert Gentry or the one in my book, Starlight and Time.”

Perhaps I'm making up the issues with quantization, right? Peebles, a cosmologist from Princeton, said this about it: “I’m not being dogmatic and saying it cannot happen, but if it does, it’s a real shocker.” Mike Disney said, concerning if redshifts were actually quantized, “It would mean abandoning a great deal of present research.” [Science Frontiers, No. 105, May-June 1996].

Next week we'll get into this a little more. I hope this was thought provoking and helped show just how biased and completely anti-science a great deal of “leading” scientists are, especially when talking about origins. We touched on that a little here, noting that cosmologists are “experts” on things they could never actually know. That's okay, but I think that truth needs to be made more clear especially to students. God bless you and thank you for reading.

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.