Creation and the Webb space telescope

[Charles Austin]

A George will column. The sentence using the word, "theologically," is underlined, not necessarily for emphasis, but so you can find it.

[Charles Austin]

THE WEBB TELESCOPE IN SPACE IS TELLING US THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING
By George Will
   BALTIMORE - At the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the Johns Hopkins University campus, a constant torrent of data pours in from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, enabling cosmologists to write ancient history. Not the history of the Greeks and Romans, who lived a mere blink ago. Rather, it is the history of everything.
   Everything began, cosmologists currently think, with a bang — the Big Bang; if it does not deserve to be a proper noun, what does? — 13.7 billion years ago. All the material in the universe, including us, is — literally — stardust (cue Nat King Cole's rendition), meaning residues of the explosion. The light gathered by Webb's mirrors expands our knowledge of how stars form. And perish: This is not going to end well.
   Launched 13 months ago, Webb is orbiting 940,000 miles away. With its 18 mirrors and its five sunshield layers unfolded, it is a tennis-court-size engineering masterpiece. To function, each mirror must, after being hurled into space on a shuddering rocket, retain this exquisite precision: If each mirror were the size of the continental United States, each should not vary more than 2 inches from perfect conformity with the others.
   Furthermore, the mirrors left Earth the "wrong" size: They were designed to contract in space to achieve a precise shape at the temperature out there: minus-388 degrees Fahrenheit.
   The wavelength of light is "stretched" as the universe expands; hence the analysis of light can date the light's source. Above the filter of the Earth's atmosphere, Webb has already gathered light that has taken more than 13.4 billion years to reach its mirrors, light from the earliest galaxy yet confirmed: It formed only 350 million years after the Big Bang.
   The U.S. lunar expeditions, the last of which was in 1972, were feats of individual bravery and engineering ingenuity. They were, however, without the scientific fascination that has driven space exploration since the discovery in 1965 that the universe is permeated with background radiation. This seems to confirm the Big Bang theory.
   Scientific propositions are, however, testable and hence theoretically falsifiable, so even familiar ones are contingent. The Big Bang theory postulates that the universe was inflated from a microscopic speck in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, at a temperature of trillions degrees centigrade. And is still expanding.
   If so, Copernicus's supposed impertinence — demoting Earth (and us) from the center of the universe — was, we now know, nonsensical: There is no center in an expanding universe without an edge.
   Astronomer Adam Frank says Webb, which was expected to support the Big Bang theory, has revealed "the existence of galaxies so old that the very origins of the universe have instead been called into question." As has, some say, the theory of an expanding universe. Not so, says Frank:
   For most of the previous 2,500 years, the universe was considered timeless and unchanging. Even by Albert Einstein, who, Frank says, "assumed that the universe now must look like the universe a trillion years in the past and future." By proving that galaxies formed before they had previously been expected to exist — "just a few hundred million years after the cosmic expansion began" — Webb has done what, Frank says, science should do, which is "force us to confront false assumptions we hadn't even known we'd made." Doing so, he says, the telescope has confirmed the essence of the Big Bang theory: "cosmic evolution." The universe has a history. As we learn how to write it, we learn about our place in it.
   Earth is "biophilic" — conducive to life — only because the Big Bang led to molecules of water and atoms of carbon, which are necessary for life. They need not, however, have been included in a post-Bang universe. For some theologically inclined people, this fact means that we are not a cosmic fluke but a cosmic imperative.
   Our sun, however, will expire in approximately 5 billion years. About when our wee Milky Way galaxy with its 200 billion stars will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy. The universe, as portrayed by the light that Webb gathers, is breathtakingly beautiful and unimaginably violent.
   Earth is biophilic only somewhat (volcanoes, earthquakes, viruses, etc.), and only briefly, as measured by the cosmos's clock. But what distinguishes us from trees and trout and every known (so far) thing in the universe is what Webb exists solely to satisfy. The Webb Space Telescope speaks well of us precisely because it has, and needs, no justification beyond the purity of its service to curiosity.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. His latest book, "American Happiness and Discontents," was released in September 2021.

[peter_speckhard]

THE WEBB TELESCOPE IN SPACE IS TELLING US THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING
By George Will
   BALTIMORE - At the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the Johns Hopkins University campus, a constant torrent of data pours in from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, enabling cosmologists to write ancient history. Not the history of the Greeks and Romans, who lived a mere blink ago. Rather, it is the history of everything.
   Everything began, cosmologists currently think, with a bang — the Big Bang; if it does not deserve to be a proper noun, what does? — 13.7 billion years ago. All the material in the universe, including us, is — literally — stardust (cue Nat King Cole's rendition), meaning residues of the explosion. The light gathered by Webb's mirrors expands our knowledge of how stars form. And perish: This is not going to end well.
   Launched 13 months ago, Webb is orbiting 940,000 miles away. With its 18 mirrors and its five sunshield layers unfolded, it is a tennis-court-size engineering masterpiece. To function, each mirror must, after being hurled into space on a shuddering rocket, retain this exquisite precision: If each mirror were the size of the continental United States, each should not vary more than 2 inches from perfect conformity with the others.
   Furthermore, the mirrors left Earth the "wrong" size: They were designed to contract in space to achieve a precise shape at the temperature out there: minus-388 degrees Fahrenheit.
   The wavelength of light is "stretched" as the universe expands; hence the analysis of light can date the light's source. Above the filter of the Earth's atmosphere, Webb has already gathered light that has taken more than 13.4 billion years to reach its mirrors, light from the earliest galaxy yet confirmed: It formed only 350 million years after the Big Bang.
   The U.S. lunar expeditions, the last of which was in 1972, were feats of individual bravery and engineering ingenuity. They were, however, without the scientific fascination that has driven space exploration since the discovery in 1965 that the universe is permeated with background radiation. This seems to confirm the Big Bang theory.
   Scientific propositions are, however, testable and hence theoretically falsifiable, so even familiar ones are contingent. The Big Bang theory postulates that the universe was inflated from a microscopic speck in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, at a temperature of trillions degrees centigrade. And is still expanding.
   If so, Copernicus's supposed impertinence — demoting Earth (and us) from the center of the universe — was, we now know, nonsensical: There is no center in an expanding universe without an edge.
   Astronomer Adam Frank says Webb, which was expected to support the Big Bang theory, has revealed "the existence of galaxies so old that the very origins of the universe have instead been called into question." As has, some say, the theory of an expanding universe. Not so, says Frank:
   For most of the previous 2,500 years, the universe was considered timeless and unchanging. Even by Albert Einstein, who, Frank says, "assumed that the universe now must look like the universe a trillion years in the past and future." By proving that galaxies formed before they had previously been expected to exist — "just a few hundred million years after the cosmic expansion began" — Webb has done what, Frank says, science should do, which is "force us to confront false assumptions we hadn't even known we'd made." Doing so, he says, the telescope has confirmed the essence of the Big Bang theory: "cosmic evolution." The universe has a history. As we learn how to write it, we learn about our place in it.
   Earth is "biophilic" — conducive to life — only because the Big Bang led to molecules of water and atoms of carbon, which are necessary for life. They need not, however, have been included in a post-Bang universe. For some theologically inclined people, this fact means that we are not a cosmic fluke but a cosmic imperative.
   Our sun, however, will expire in approximately 5 billion years. About when our wee Milky Way galaxy with its 200 billion stars will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy. The universe, as portrayed by the light that Webb gathers, is breathtakingly beautiful and unimaginably violent.
   Earth is biophilic only somewhat (volcanoes, earthquakes, viruses, etc.), and only briefly, as measured by the cosmos's clock. But what distinguishes us from trees and trout and every known (so far) thing in the universe is what Webb exists solely to satisfy. The Webb Space Telescope speaks well of us precisely because it has, and needs, no justification beyond the purity of its service to curiosity.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. His latest book, "American Happiness and Discontents," was released in September 2021.

It is also a theological statement to say that the Webb telescope needs no justification beyond the purity of its service to curiosity. From what I understand, though I don't have any quotations handy, plenty of Christians of other times and places would have argued that something with no purpose other than to satisfy curiosity would certainly need other justification of some kind and probably could not be justified. 

[Fletch1]

Faith and reason.  What/who one has as the object of their faith says much. 

When one applies reason to the unprovable, no matter how logical it appears in the moment, what does that say about faith? 

When one applies faith to the unprovable, no matter how logical it appears in the moment, what does that say about reason?

[RDPreus]

George Will is an atheist.  That makes him a fool.

[Charles Austin]

Pastor Preus, Your obsession with rejecting anything from someone you don't like has clouded your judgment. the column is not about what George Will believes or doesn't believe. The column is about what the Webb telescope is showing us. Any thoughts on that? (I don't think the telescope has any religious beliefs.)

Peter, I take "curiosity" in this setting to be the inquiring mind, to be the always searching wonder of human intelligence. Do you also put down or question our search for greater knowledge of the world and the universe in which we live?

[pastorg1@aol.com]

"That apple does look delicious..."
Our first parents...

Peter (Algebra still a mystery to me and not at all curious as to it usefulness) Garrison

[Brian Stoffregen]

"That apple does look delicious..."
Our first parents...

Peter (Algebra still a mystery to me and not at all curious as to it usefulness) Garrison

And, as far as we know, it was delicious. She may have not been wrong. It wasn't the looks, or thoughts about how it might taste, that was the problem.

[peter_speckhard]

Pastor Preus, Your obsession with rejecting anything from someone you don't like has clouded your judgment. the column is not about what George Will believes or doesn't believe. The column is about what the Webb telescope is showing us. Any thoughts on that? (I don't think the telescope has any religious beliefs.)

Peter, I take "curiosity" in this setting to be the inquiring mind, to be the always searching wonder of human intelligence. Do you also put down or question our search for greater knowledge of the world and the universe in which we live?

I strongly support exploring, but I do not think it is justified in its own right. I'm not an "art for art's sake" guy either, though I do support the arts.

[RDPreus]

Pastor Preus, Your obsession with rejecting anything from someone you don't like has clouded your judgment. the column is not about what George Will believes or doesn't believe. The column is about what the Webb telescope is showing us. Any thoughts on that? (I don't think the telescope has any religious beliefs.)

Peter, I take "curiosity" in this setting to be the inquiring mind, to be the always searching wonder of human intelligence. Do you also put down or question our search for greater knowledge of the world and the universe in which we live?

Rev. Austin, your words to me perfectly exemplify the judgmentalism of know-it-all libs.  You say I don't like George Will.  You say I reject anything from anyone I don't like.  You're wrong on both counts.  I like George Will.  I've read books he's written.  He's quite clever.  He's also an atheist, which makes him a fool.  Whether I like or dislike a person has nothing to do with whether I agree with him.  Take Brian Stoffregen as an example.  I've never met him, but I find him to be a likeable person.  If I met him, I think I would like him.  But I disagree with most of what he writes.  Take you as an example.  Despite your pompous, judgmental, obtuse, stale liberalism, I think you're entertaining, even endearing.  I almost always read what you write.  I disagree most of the time, but I don't dislike you.

Now don't think this means I want to be your friend! 

[George Rahn]

George Will is an atheist.  That makes him a fool.

I don't know whether George Will is an atheist or not.  If he is, then he contradicts himself in that he believes whole-heartedly in his reasonable conclusions...which makes him not an atheist.  In that case, George Will is a fool.

[Matt Hummel]

 TBH- this dialogue illustrates to me a weakness in Lutheran Theology.

Part of my journey into the Catholic Church was Lutheranism's issues in dealing with science and nature. Specifically the hand tying that is the Two Uses of the Law. What the Webb telescope or  any other number of discoveries of that nature do is show what I can only call a graciousness in His Law. The fact that everything seems to be balanced so an intelligent carbon based life form would discover the beauty of the Cosmos and seek to find the Logos behind, above, and beneath it.

Faith and reason are not enemies. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html

[pastorg1@aol.com]

"That apple does look delicious..."
Our first parents...

Peter (Algebra still a mystery to me and not at all curious as to it usefulness) Garrison

And, as far as we know, it was delicious. She may have not been wrong. It wasn't the looks, or thoughts about how it might taste, that was the problem.

"...pleasing to the eye" didn't help.

[John_Hannah]

TBH- this dialogue illustrates to me a weakness in Lutheran Theology.

Part of my journey into the Catholic Church was Lutheranism's issues in dealing with science and nature. Specifically the hand tying that is the Two Uses of the Law. What the Webb telescope or  any other number of discoveries of that nature do is show what I can only call a graciousness in His Law. The fact that everything seems to be balanced so an intelligent carbon based life form would discover the beauty of the Cosmos and seek to find the Logos behind, above, and beneath it.

Faith and reason are not enemies. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html

Yes. Hermann Sasse once observed that Rome will never repeat its "Galileo blunder."

Peace, JOHN

[Jeremy_Loesch]

I didn't know George Will is an atheist. I do know he is a Cubs fan. That certainly qualifies for foolishness.

Jeremy