Explore
This article is from
Creation 14(4):14–15, September 1992

Browse our latest digital issue Subscribe

Has the 'big bang' been proved?

All around the world, newspaper headlines have exulted about a recent discovery of ‘ripples’ of temperature in deep space which they claim ‘proves’ the idea of a ‘big bang’. In fact, it could be said that the secular media, in a number of instances, went after this information with what could only be called ‘religious fervour’.

The ‘big bang’ is the evolutionary belief that the universe was once compressed into a tiny dot which exploded, and from this explosion came, unaided, the entire world of stars, galaxies, planets, palm trees and people.

Almost all the newspaper articles mentioned God. Either God was now not necessary, or else the ‘big bang’ itself was now God. One English news-paper said about this supposed evidence, ‘it has blown away the last shreds of necessity for a supreme being to explain how the universe came into existence … God is made redundant. Science really does now have “no need of that theory”?.’

Many theologians did their usual retreat into a ‘god of the gaps’ idea by saying that, since nobody knows ‘who lit the fuse’, it must have been God. One scientist said the discovery was ‘like looking at God’. Another called it the ‘Holy Grail’. Some Christians have said that we must now believe that the ‘big bang’ was God’s way of creating the universe.

However, it should be obvious that this is very different from what God has revealed about the origin of all things in His Word to mankind. Not only is the order of events wrong, but the ‘big bang’ is purely a mechanistic view to explain how the universe made itself without any miraculous creation.

But what was really discovered?

Alternative explanations possibile

First of all we need to understand a little about the supposed ‘evidence’ for the ‘big bang’. Many may not realize that to date, the ‘big bang’ has consisted of much speculation based on only three pieces of observation, all of which have alternative possible explanations.

One of these ‘evidences’ is the microwave radiation coming in from all directions. This radiation (the same as would be given off by heat) is interpreted as the ‘echo’ or ‘left-over heat’ of the big fireball that started everything off. This radiation has in the past been found to be extremely uniform—it’s the same everywhere!

However, because the universe itself has been found to be extremely clumpy (with great walls of galaxies, and great voids in between) then, if this happened as a result of the ‘big bang’, this background radiation should also be clumpy. In other words, the temperature of this radiation should be uneven—there should be hot spots and cold spots. Because the radiation had been found to be so uniform, even secular scientists were saying that the ‘big bang’ idea was in trouble. The search for an unevenness in the radiation became intense.

Recently, however, the press were told that the ‘big bang’ had been rescued because new measurements showed the unevenness the ‘big bang’ adherents were looking for. The press announced to the world that the ‘big bang’ had been proved, and God was now redundant.

But, what did they really find? The temperature differences that have been discovered, and which have caused such a worshipful reaction, are around 30 millionths of a degree! However, these differences may not even be real.

At a creation lecture in the USA recently, a man rose and said he was part of the team which designed the instruments used to make these measurements, and he could categorically say that they were not even that sensitive! This is confirmed in the journal Science of May 1, 1992 (p. 612): the variations claimed are ‘well below the level of instrumental noise’—they have been obtained by statistical methods which still need careful checking.

Also, from the same article, the opinion of George Smoot, the man in charge of the project, is that ‘he’s pretty sure the effect he’s seeing is real but adds that there’s always a chance it’s wrong’. Even if the measurements are real, Smoot admits ‘it can be caused by other effects, such as the motion of our galaxy through the background radiation.’

Thirty millionths of a degree, even if real, is not much to get excited about anyway. Imagine scanning a floor tile with a temperature probe. Even if the whole surface at first appears to be the same temperature, if you make instruments more and more sensitive you will eventually find some patches which are ever so slightly warmer or colder than others, as nothing is ever perfectly uniform.

Brainwashed

Even if real, Nature (March 30, 1992, p. 731) concludes that all one can say is that they are ‘consistent with the doctrine of the Big Bang’, and that it is a ‘cause of some alarm’ that the media has called it ‘proof that “we now know”? how the Universe began.’

Sadly, many will never read the scientific journals for the truth about this information, and will go on believing a lie they have been indoctrinated with by the anti-God secular media. Many people don’t realize how brainwashed they have become.

‘Big bang’ theory also seems to need the associated concepts of ‘inflation’ (an assumed early rapid expansion) and ‘dark matter’ (the belief that more than 90 per cent of the universe’s mass is made up of a mysterious, unobservable and unknown substance).

The same Nature paper also says that neither of these has any ‘true independent support, outside the cosmological arena for which they were invented.’ It goes on to indicate that those with alternative theories to the ‘big bang’ will probably be able to ‘claim the new data as support for their theories also’. Reading this calm, objective assessment in a leading journal makes it clear that no one has come remotely close to proving that there was a ‘big bang’.

Scientific theories are always changing. What seems to fit a few facts in one generation may be replaced by a totally different view which fits those facts and even more. There are already observations which do not presently fit the ‘big bang’. One prominent group of astronomers believes that the facts better fit a new version of the steady-state theory—not only no explosive beginning, but no beginning at all—an eternal universe. If the next generation of astronomers adopts that view, what will be the position of those theologians who have been pressured into believing (contrary to God’s revelation) that the ‘big bang’ was ‘God’s method of creating’?