The discovery in 2022 that there are distant morphologically mature galaxies that existed 13.3 billion years ago has debunked the myth of the Big Bang as the Origin of the Universe. The latest scientific hype is that quantum mechanics as expressed through quantum gravity prove that space and time existed before the Big Bang. So, can science prove that there was a beginning of space and time? Likewise, the revelation that extra-terrestrial life exists debunked the myth of Darwinian Evolution through Natural Selection. The Big Bang Theory and Darwinian Evolution have been used by Atheists as “proofs” that God does not exist. So, what happens when their “proofs” are disproved by science? Does this mandate a politically correct version of mainstream science that cannot disprove the core tenets of Atheism? What happens to the search for truth if only politically correct or ideologically-correct science is the only form of mainstream science? Doesn’t this make mainstream science just a narrative to uphold political and socio-economic power? Also, what happens when this mainstream science is heavily soiled with scientific fraud that has been published and sanitized by mainstream scientific journals? Doesn’t this transform mainstream science into another Foucauldian regime of truth enforced by the political establishment with mainstream scientists becoming the new high priests of the endorsed materialist religion? What happens when mainstream science becomes a belief system called establishment science?
The foundation of mathematics is metaphysics. Metaphysics cannot be subjected to empirical testing, and thus mathematics is based on non-empirical metaphysics. In other words, mathematics is based on claims of truth, not truth that can be tested and proved.
Antony Kagiriosn in Anti-Foundationalism, Non-Foundationalism, and Post-Truth Christianity.
What if Calculations Show that the Big Bang is Set to Occur in the Future?
On September 1, 2022, a paper authored by 16 scientists – physicists, astronomers, and astrophysicists – was published by The Astrophysical Journal under the title, Panic! At the Disks: First Rest-frame Optical Observations of Galaxy Structure at z>3 with JWST in the SMACS 0723 Field. What is special about this paper is that it described galaxies that are estimated to have been formed 4.6 billion years ago and have a large mass that causes them to bend light to the extent that they can magnify background objects. Among the magnified background objects is a morphologically mature galaxy i.e a fully formed/developed and recognizable galaxy (or what can be called an adult galaxy) that is estimated to have existed 13.3 billion years ago.
Our galaxy – the Milky Way – is estimated to have started forming around 13.6 billion years ago according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA states that the universe came into existence about 13.797 billion years ago and it took 400 million years for the first stars to start forming. The period between the origin of the universe and the formation of the first stars is called the dark ages. Already, we can notice a problem. NASA states that our galaxy started to form during the dark ages. In 2022, two astronomers affiliated with the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy – Maosheng Xiang and Hans-Walter Rix – published their research findings in the journal Nature where they explained that our galaxy started formation about 13 billion years ago. Now, this settles the issue of our galaxy forming after the dark ages.
Nonetheless, the aforementioned publication by The Astrophysical Journal poses a unique problem. How could a morphologically mature galaxy exist 13.3 billion years ago? Morphological maturity of a galaxy is associated with billions of years of cosmic evolution, which means that this galaxy of interest would have been formed earlier than 13.8 billion years ago. Already in 2000, astronomers and astrophysicists identified a problem about the age of the universe, and this was related to the star HD140283 which was given the moniker, Methuselah. HD140283 was estimated to have come into existence about 16 billion years ago, which makes it older than the universe. So, did space and matter exist before the origin of our universe? Do older galaxies than our galaxy exist? If yes, has life existed in these older galaxies? Also, how old is the universe and how was it formed?
Most importantly, what happens to the Big Bang Theory and General Relativity which state that the universe is 13.8 billion years old? Is the Big Bang Theory wrong? If yes, what becomes of all the science whose foundation is the Big Bang Theory, especially the Theory of Evolution and the Origin of Life Science, being taught in high schools and universities? Are the current expensive scientific books and courses redundant because the Big Bang Theory has been debunked using scientific observation? Or, can the theory just be changed to reflect the new findings? Can it be argued that scientists still do not understand how the universe was formed and how old it is? If yes, then why should scientists base their arguments about the origin of life on claims that they do not understand?
In 2023, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published research by Rajendra Gupta which showed that our universe is 26.7 billion years old. Is this an attempt to change the Big Bang theory so that it reflects new findings? What about the research by Roger Penrose that the Big Bang will occur in the future – what is now recognized as the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology? Does this mean that the Big Bang occurs after the universe has formed, and marks the end of one universe and the beginning of another universe?
For now, let us consider for the moment that the Big Bang occurred after the universe was formed. In this case, when did time originate? Did it originate when the universe was formed or later when the Big Bang occurred? In Time and Event, I argue that time originated at the birth of the universe and that some particles called tachyons can travel faster than the speed of light. This reveals that I accept the concept of the singularity. Singularity simply means that every observable thing that exists in the universe has a common single origin and that this origin can be traced back in time to a single dense matter, similar to the Aristotelian concept of prima materia (prime matter or first matter). Interestingly, the concept of prima materia can be traced back to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who developed a theory of cosmogony where matter is not created nor destroyed, but is instead recycled among the four elements that he identified as air, fire, water, and earth. Did Empedocles inspire the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology? Relatedly, the Platonic concept of Forms betrays an implicit admission that matter existed, and that matter must have emerged independent of Forms. This shows that the question of the origin of matter was initially conceptualized in relation to the origin of the universe.
Modern scientists wanted to calculate when this first matter was formed. When Albert Einstein developed the general theory of relativity, he provided a mathematical formula that could be used to calculate the time when this first matter was formed. This event of formation of the first matter is called the initial singularity by Astrophysicists.
Using the aforementioned Einstein’s formula, scientists were able to calculate that the initial singularity occurred 13.797 billion years ago, which is why the Origin of the Universe was dated to have been 13.8 billion years ago. However, the observation of HD140283 (Methuselah) star and the recent discovery that a fully formed galaxy existed 13.3 billion years ago questions the validity of Einstein’s general theory of relativity (also called General Relativity). So, is general relativity wrong? If yes, could other equations of Einstein be wrong?
Science is Based on Belief and Authority
Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum gravity and cosmology. She is a science popularizer with a popular YouTube channel that at the time of this writing has 1.09 million subscribers and 401 published videos, besides raking in 122 million views since 2007. She is a mainstream scientist who uses her academic credentials to promote her beliefs about the non-existence of the human soul and her rejection of free will. At times, she has arguments with a philosopher of science, Philip Goff about instrumentalism and its privileged status in scientific epistemology.
To me, there is a serious flaw in Sabine’s application of instrumentalism to non-material objects like the soul and free will. However, for now, I will consider her field of specialization – quantum gravity. This field is contentious because it was created to solve a fundamental flaw in science – the problem that science has no provable foundation. Let me explain.
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