Distant Galaxies — Because Scientists Said So!

Many years ago, I was given a twelve-inch vinyl record album from the "Talespinners for Children" series called "Moon Voyage". I had never heard of the "Talespinners" series before, and never obtained any of their other material. "Moon Voyage" was actually quite good, playing like a kind of historical radio drama and giving stargazing history. If I had a record player, I would consider buying it again.

Perhaps we should start up a company called "Talespinners for Evolution"? There's money in evolutionary stories, you know. And they tell so many of them.

For example, astronomers decided that due to the red shift, a certain galaxy must be the oldest one in existence. They conveniently forget "horizon problem", and ignore other items, such as the brightness of stars in the galaxy, the fact that galaxies exist so far away fouls up the cosmology on the age of the universe, its appearance and other details. By arbitrarily assigning certain values to their observations and cherry picking data, these astronomers can call that galaxy "the oldest" and drive the press into a frenzy. Then, people who bow at the altar of Scientism will joyfully trumpet this latest "proof" of an old universe — all based on lack of science and critical thinking.

An international team recently announced discovery of a new record for the most distant galaxy and claimed they were viewing this galaxy at "an epoch only 700 million years after the Big Bang."¹ However, the leap from a distant light measurement to millions of years and a Big Bang history came tightly packaged with scientific-sounding but unsupported statements that attempt to explain this galaxy's secrets.

Led by Steven Finkelstein, the team scanned several dozen candidate galaxies, looking for one that would provide the tell-tale spectrum confirming great distance. They found only one, which they've given the sterile designation "z8_GND_5296" and labeled as the most distant galaxy. Its starlight is redshifted at z = 7.51 according to the report in the October 24th issue of Nature—the prior record holder was a galaxy measured at z = 7.21.¹ Higher numbers designate further shifting of light spectra toward the red, an effect very likely caused by an expanding universe.

You can read more about the unscientific waltzing around unpleasant facts at "Secrets from the Most Distant Galaxy".