It’s been a month since we gave you the creationists’ reaction to the James Webb Space Telescope. That was The James Webb Space Telescope Proves the Bible. Now it’s time for an update.
Today’s gem was found at the website of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) — the granddaddy of of all creationists outfits, the fountainhead of young Earth creationist wisdom. It’s titled Webb Telescope Continues to Challenge Big Bang, and it was written by Jake Hebert, an ICR Research Scientist. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continue to challenge expectations of Big Bang proponents.
Are you a proponent of the Big Bang, dear reader? If so, Jake knows that your expectations are being challenged. He says:
The JWST is designed to “see” in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, just outside the range of visible light. Since redshifts ‘push’ most of the light from distant galaxies into the infrared part of the spectrum [Huh?], the JWST can obtain better images of these very distant galaxies than if it were viewing them in visible light. In fact, the images obtained by the JWST are even more spectacular than the brilliant images obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.
That’s a strange description of what’s going on, but we won’t worry about it. After that he tells us:
As noted in a previous Creation Science Update and Impact article, data from the JWST show that distant galaxies look more ‘mature’ and ‘developed’ than predicted by Big Bang theorists.
Jake had footnotes to two previous articles he wrote for ICR. You can click over there to look them up if you want to. He continues:
Big Bang astronomers assume light from the most distant galaxies took almost 14 billion years to reach Earth. Although this may sound reasonable, creation scientists think this assumption is open to challenge. [Hee hee!] But in any case, by Big Bang reckoning, we should be seeing these very distant galaxies — not as they are now, but as they were almost 14 billion years ago. Hence, these galaxies should appear very “unevolved” and “immature.” Yet, this expectation is routinely contradicted, and data from the JWST are making the disagreement even worse.
Jake is right, in that stars and galaxies seem to have formed a bit sooner than expected, but nothing seen so far has changed anyone’s idea about when the Big Bang occurred. Let’s read on:
Big Bang theorists [the Fools!] are being forced to quickly revise their predictions. In a previous article, I noted that, just ten years ago, NASA was claiming that the universe’s first stars formed about 400 million years after the Big Bang. Actually, I was overly generous in my estimate: NASA was apparently making this claim as little as two years ago. Yet, a Nature article published just last year stated that the first stars formed “perhaps around 250 million years after the Big Bang.” [Gasp!] So within just the last two years, Big Bang theorists have had to push back the estimated “date” for the first stars by about 150 million years, from 400 to 250 million years after the supposed Big Bang.
Shocking. Absolutely shocking. Here’s another excerpt:
Mainstream astronomers claim that stars and galaxies form ‘naturally’ over millions of years and that the Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago. So, by their reckoning, no star or galaxy can possibly be more than 13.8 billion years old. But as the supposed ages of the first stars edge closer and closer to 13.8 billion years, there is less and less ‘time’ for natural processes to ‘make’ stars and galaxies, even if one ignores the scientific problems with naturalistic star and galaxy formation theories.
Those “mainstream astronomers” are gonna be in big trouble when they find stars and galaxies that are 13.8 billion years old. Here’s more:
Second [What was “first”?], more powerful telescopes should allow astronomers to look deeper and deeper into space and (presumably, by Big Bang reckoning) further and further back in time. If the Big Bang is correct, telescopes may become powerful enough that we should be able to see ‘times’ when no stars or galaxies exist. But what if stars and galaxies exist, no matter how far out we look? What if no part of the visible universe fails to contain stars or galaxies? Will Big Bang proponents admit that the Big Bang has been disproven?
What if we look back far enough that we see angels and demons “mooning” each other? Ah well, now we come to the end:
Despite the denials of a world that is in increasing rebellion against its Creator, the heavens do indeed testify of God’s glory and their supernatural creation by the Lord Jesus Christ, exactly as described in Scripture.
Okay, dear reader. The James Webb Space Telescope is on the verge of proving that every word of Genesis is true. When that happens, whatcha gonna do?
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Therefore, oogity boogity.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22redshifts+push%22
About 7 results (0.23 seconds)
Reminds me of this: The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive…but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
– Mark Twain
King Phillip II of Macedonia threatened the rulers of Sparta: “If I invade, i will throw you out.” The reply was: “If”.
Scientists, unlike ID folks who never change their myths, so modify their views based on available evidence. So maybe galaxies formed more rapidly than previously thought. That’s interesting, not a reason to switch to mythology.
@sbeastwood
I recall when there was the puzzling result of the number of solar neutrinos. I had brief exchange with a crestionist who was saying that that proved that the scientific explanation of the Sun was wrong. He seemed offended when I called thst bizarre.
The explanation, that neutrinos were changing, and that affected the count.
I’m confused about what they think we should “see” when we look at a point in space so old there are no stars or galaxies.
And of course, no matter what direction we look in, we see the 13.4-billion-year-old cosmic microwave background, which is what the universe looked like the moment it cooled enough to become transparent to light.
I`m still waiting for the Creo explanation of how the creator did the Wiz-Bang-Shazam of turning mud into Adam. Did he use the laser neutrino conversion apparatus or another unpatented gizmo?
@Ross Cameron
How could they, or would they, or should they, or a lot?
Or not?
Why, or where, or at a spot?
Or not?
(Homage a Edward Lear.)
It beats me why a creationist, or more precisely a theist believer in a Creator deity, would balk at the Big Bang. A theory that leads evidence to show that the Universe, including time and space themselves, had a beginning, surely is better for them than any alternative.
I can only surmise that what they’re kvetching about is that the same evidence also shows that it began 13.8 billion years ago, not 6,000.
They would be wise in their paganistic telescope worship to heed the words Saint Augustine:
(He would sometime wax poetic when he wasn’t telling everyone to beat their slaves.)
If they are Catholic, the Pope should exorcise them from their demonic telescope worship right away.
Maybe because they aren’t Catholic. Fundamentalists don’t much take to Papistry. A Catholic priest was a founder of the Big Bang.
Sounds reasonable? The rest of his post relies in this fact.
@Charles Deetz 🙂
Everything is open to challenge. Invluding.
1) This is written in English.
2) Stuff happens.
and even
3) Everything is open to challenge.
But I suggest that a real challenge is more than a verbal “I challenge thst”. Why this challenge?
Funniest line ever from Hebert: creation scientists think.
No telescope can see beyond the matter/energy decoupling horizon, because the universe prior to decoupling was not transparent. Fully ionized hydrogen and deuterium nuclei, roaming about in a soup of free electrons, all with an average temperature of >3000 degrees, which has a fog-like property relative to photons trying to traverse it.
When the decoupling occurred because the electrons and nuclei cooled to temperature at which they de-ionize (because of the adiabatic expansion/cooling of the universe!) When that happened, the mean free path of photons increased immensely.
The photons emitted by the that surface of last scattering at ~3000 degrees are red-shifted into the microwave spectrum by the ongoing expansion of the universe this past 13.8 billion years, and thus appear to us now as the CMBR, which has a spectrum that perfectly fits that predicted for a Planck Black Body radiating energy at that temperature, when adjusted for the redshift of the expanding universe since the decoupling.
Longie — where have you been?
Held by pirates on Lake Michigan.