It requires faith to believe in Big Bang

I was happy to read Euel Lane’s challenges regarding my letter about Big Bang theory. Perhaps I can respond to some of these.

Mr Lane speaks of the importance of knowing the difference between theories and hypotheses. I agree. But it is even more important to know the difference between theories and ideas that get labelled as “theories”, but which are really faith positions.

Browsing around I find an online BBC resource designed for GCSE physics students. The web page is titled: “How do we know the Big Bang actually happened?”

One hallmark of a theory that has been turned into faith is that it is proclaimed as fact even though it is unproven. The BBC resource does just that for the Big Bang model, teaching it as fact and offering no alternatives.

Another hallmark is that problems with the theory are diminished. The Big Bang theory is particularly dubious as it resorts to “unknowns” to explain “unknowns”. For example, the traditional model cannot explain the motion of galaxies, so an unproven entity called “dark matter” is invoked. The BBC resource makes no mention of “dark matter”, “dark energy”, “inflation” or any of the other assumptions upon which the theory depends.

A further hallmark is that observations are only interpreted one way. The same resource tells us that redshifts (light waves from other galaxies becoming redder) reveal that galaxies are speeding away from us – and therefore the universe is expanding. But astronomers such as Halton Arp have offered evidence to the contrary. This is not discussed.

Essentially the Big Bang theory is a card castle of doubtful assumptions. Therefore, to treat it as fact requires faith. In this way, the students are taught a faith position.

Perhaps some of them will go on to share Richard Dawkins’ faith that “the universe evolved out of literally nothing” (The Ancestor’s Tale).