Problems With The “Big Bang” Model

The three main evidences usually given for the “Big Bang” theory are:

1. Light from most galaxies is red-shifted (the light wave frequencies of the spectra of elements are reduced compared to their accepted values on Earth), which is interpreted to mean that the galaxies are moving away from us. (This is explained as a “Doppler effect,” comparable to the lowering of sound wave frequencies as an ambulance speeds away from a person listening.) The amount of red-shift is thought to indicate the speed of the galaxy, which is considered to be related to its distance from Earth. (The faster galaxies have moved farther away from us.)

   However:

   1. Other explanations are possible for the observed red-shifts.
   2. Many space objects with high red-shifts (e.g., quasars) appear to be connected or associated with other objects of low red-shifts.
   3. Strangely, red-shifts do not exhibit a continuous spectrum of values, but tend to cluster at specific, evenly-spaced values.

2. In 1965, Bell Telephone Laboratories researchers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a low temperature (2.7K) “cosmic background radiation” consisting of microwaves spread out uniformly in the sky. These microwaves were thought to be the remnant of the hot “Big Bang,” and are claimed to be “proof” of the theory.

   However:

   1. As noted astronomer Fred Hoyle comments (p. 181), the theory in fact predicted a microwave background between ten and a thousand times more powerful than is actually the case.
   2. The initial prediction of the “Big Bang” theory was that the background radiation would have a temperature of 30K; Eddington in 1926 had already calculated that the temperature of space produced by the radiation of starlight would be found to be 3K (Tom Van Flandern, cited in Brown, p. 60).
      

3. The abundances of certain elements in the universe, especially helium, lithium, and beryllium, is said to be predictable based on the “Big Bang” model.

   However:

   1. The theory was in fact adjusted to fit the amount of helium and other elements observed. “. . . no element abundance prediction of the big bang was successful without some ad hoc parameterization to ‘adjust’ predictions that otherwise would have been judged as failures” (Tom Van Flandern, cited in Brown, p. 60).
   2. The lack of helium in certain stars (B type stars) and the presence of beryllium in other stars contradicts the theory.

In addition to the problems with the three main evidences of the “Big Bang,” as discussed above, the following difficulties exist with the theory:

1. You can’t get something from nothing!
   

   “Don’t let the cosmologists try to kid you on this one. They have not got a clue either—despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. ‘In the beginning,’ they will say, ‘there was nothing—no time, space, matter or energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which . . .’ Whoa! Stop right there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, then there is something. And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off. Then they are away and before you know it, they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats. . . . You cannot fudge this by appealing to quantum mechanics. Either there is nothing to begin with, in which case there is no quantum vacuum, no pregeometric dust, no time in which anything can happen, no physical laws that can effect a change from nothingness into somethingness; or there is something, in which case that needs explaining” (David Darling. 1996 [Sep 14]. “On creating something from nothing.” New Scientist, Vol. 151 No. 2047, p. 49).

2. The universe has a high “information content.”

   The great physicist Max Planck said that in nature “a certain order prevails—one independent of the human mind. . . . There is evidence of an intelligent order in the universe. . . .” (cited in Bird, p. 402). But explosions do not produce order and complexity. “There is no mechanism known as yet that would allow the universe to begin in an arbitrary state and then evolve to its present highly-ordered state” (Don H. Page, 1983, cited in Morris and Morris, p. 208).

   The “Big Bang” would have produced simply an outward spray of particles and radiation. The rapid expansion would have made it impossible to form “nuclei of condensation” promoting gravitational collapse; particles would have continued to expand homogeneously (evenly), and would not have formed intricate galaxies, stars, or planets. “The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology” (James Trefil, 1988, cited in Brown, p. 63). “The origin of stars represents one of the most fundamental unsolved problems of contemporary astrophysics” (Charles J. Lada and Frank H. Shu, 1990, cited in Brown, p. 62).

   As one scientist said, “The standard Big Bang model does not give rise to lumpiness. . . . If you apply the laws of physics to this model, you get a universe that is uniform, a cosmic vastness of evenly distributed atoms with no organization of any kind” (Morris and Parker, pp. 258-259). The “lumpiness” (or inhomogeneity) problem, in fact, is extreme: galaxies, clusters, and even superclusters exist in the universe along with significant “empty spaces.” Throughout the universe, galaxies form huge hierarchies. The recently discovered “Great Wall” is composed of tens of thousands of galaxies lined up in a wall-like structure (Brown, p. 63).
   

3. Every known space object or system of objects rotates (has angular momentum or rotational motion), which is not expected from an explosion producing only outward (radial) motion.

   “The primeval explosion is supposed to have resulted in a uniform radial expansion of energy and matter. One of the most basic conservation laws of physics is the principle of conservation of angular momentum, which states, among other things, that uniform radial motion could never give rise to curvilinear [rotational] motion. How, then, could the linearly expanding gas soon be converted into orbiting galaxies and planetary systems?” (Morris and Parker, pp. 259-260).
   

4. The “Big Bang” theory has required a major theoretical adjustment to the amount of matter in the universe: for stars and galaxies to be able to form through gravitational collapse, it was proposed that there must somewhere be a lot more matter in the universe than had so far been observed — in fact 90% (or more) of the universe’s matter must be what is called “cold dark matter.” Unfortunately this required matter has still not been located; this is referred to as the “missing mass” problem.
   

5. A significant minority of astronomers reject the “Big Bang” entirely. “. . . a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory” (noted astronomer Fred Hoyle, p. 186). The evidence for a “Big Bang” “is totally obliterated but the less there is of scientific support, the more fanatical is the belief in it” (Swedish astronomer and Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén, cited in Slusher, p. 72).

References

Bird, W. R. 1991. The Origin of Species Revisited. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.

Brown, Walt. 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. (6th edition). Phoenix: Center for Scientific Creation.

Hoyle, Fred. 1983. The Intelligent Universe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Morris, Henry M. 1997. That Their Words May Be Used Against Them. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research.

^___ , and John D. Morris. 1996. The Modern Creation Trilogy. Green Forest, AZ: Master Books.

^___, and Gary E. Parker. 1987. What is Creation Science? (revised edition). El Cajon, CA: Master Books.