Lerner on the Big Bang - A Case Study on Skepticism

JWST Image from NASA

Like many, I've been dazzled by the early images of the the James Web Space Telescope (JWST), and I've loved seeing not only the images but the memes poking fun at how popular these images have become. I've found these images beautiful, inspiring and even mind blowing. The scientists who are examining these images have had similar reactions, and from what I can tell, early images and reports from the JWST may have far reaching implications for how scientists understand the universe, especially how the earliest galaxies formed.

But on August 11, 2022, Eric Lerner wrote an opinion piece for iai news suggesting that these images from the JWST basically prove that the Big Bang didn't happen. When someone shared this on Facebook, I was very interested in this, since as I understand it, this would be a major paradigm shift in our understanding of the universe as expanding. I read the article to be told that many of the surprising images from the JWST were "not necessarily pleasant" surprises. According to Lerner, who has claimed  the Big Bang didn't happen for the last 30 years, this evidence vindicates his claims and shows that scientists have been stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the evidence that the Big Bang never happened. For him, images from the JWST show galaxies that are too small, too smooth and too old for the Big Bang to have occurred, and this new evidence is causing scientists to "panic" to try to reconcile this data with the "unquestionable truth" of the Big Bang hypothesis. As evidence for this panic, Lerner cited a paper literally titled "Panic!" (that's the part of the title he quoted), and he also quoted Allison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer from the University of Kansas, saying, "Right now I find myself lying awake at three in the morning... and wondering if everything I’ve done is wrong" in a Nature article and tweet.

Now I'm not an astrophysicist, and I don't keep up on the scientific literature in this area, so I have no way to critically evaluate the evidence from the JWST in relation to current evidence for the Big Bang. But from what I do know, something seems fishy here. It seems rather extraordinary that a few pictures would shatter a theory that explains so much, and that this would induce "panic" from scientists who are said to be unwilling to accept the data. For instance, I have a hard time believing these image would erase cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is understood to be radiation left over from the Big Bang. So I decided to do some sleuthing. 

Where to start? Well, maybe just click on the link to the tweet from Kirkpatrick. Sure enough, she said exactly what she was quoted as saying, but she also changed her Twitter name to "Allison the Big Bang happened Kirkpatrick." Then I noticed someone asked her, "do you question Big Bang theory?" Here is her response: "Absolutely not! Galaxy evolution is actually a problem completely separate from the Big Bang. You can have a Big Bang and yet create no galaxies. One does not imply the other. I was referring to our current understanding of galaxy evolution." So then I go read the Nature article, from which the quote initially came. The article doesn't express any panic over the validity of the Big Bang. It instead says that there are some very surprising images that may shatter our understanding of how the earliest galaxies formed. So Kirkpatrick simply was not including the Big Bang in the list of things that now may be wrong, just the work she's done on galaxy evolution, which is very different from the Big Bang.

So what about this paper with "Panic!" in the title? Well, that turns out to be a pun on a pop band Panic! At the Disco. The full title of the paper is "Panic! At the Disks: First Rest-frame Optical Observations of Galaxy Structure at z > 3 with JWST in the SMACS 0723 Field." It's a playful title, and to whatever extent it displays any actual "panic," it has to do with the disc shape of early galaxy structures, not the validity of the Big Bang. In fact, reading the paper, I found, "However, although HST was revolutionary, morphological evolution measurements still suffer some limitations. First among these is that due to HST’s limited red wavelength coverage, we have not measured the rest-frame optical light of galaxies within the first two Gyr after the Big Bang, that is at z > 3." The paper doesn't express any "panic" over the Big Bang, let alone the fact that the universe is expanding. It's exploring the new evidence regarding galaxy structure and and morphology from galaxies at higher red shifts.

I then looked up two of the authors of this paper on twitter to see what they have to say in reaction to Lerner's article. I found this tweet from Leonardo Ferreira, the lead author, from July 20, 2022 (before Lerner's article was even published). "The implications of this are many. But this early result suggest that galaxy structure is formed *much* earlier than previously thought, changing our perspective on the merger history of galaxies and its impact on morphology. Exciting times, a lot of directions to follow up!" That doesn't sound like panic over the Big Bang at all, but rather excitement that our understanding of early galaxy formation may vastly improve. I also found that he linked to this explanation of the paper online, which is very informative. Likewise, Nathan Adams, the second author listed in the study, writes, "Indeed some people have been using [the paper] to push the notion that JWST is disproving the Big Bang. It’s not that at all, we’re just finding that disky structure in galaxies may have formed a bit earlier than first thought. Interesting and head scratching, but not quite a revolution."

So it would seem that what is actually happening here is very different from what Lerner describes. The excitement and surprise has to do with new discoveries about the formation of early galaxies. It is not panic over data conflicting with the Big Bang. The "panic" that Lerner describes appears to be imposed on the scientists he cites; it does not come from them or anything they wrote. He's assuming that the surprise described by these scientists is actually them scrambling to find a way to continue to hold onto the Big Bang despite what the JWST images are saying. And this unwillingness to question the Big Bang is then supposed to be the real reason why papers questioning the Big Bang can't seem to get published in astronomical journals. I then found out that Lerner's views have been soundly criticized for years, and they are largely regarded as "pseudoscience." Lerner's views do not appear to be a competing theory to the Big Bang at all, and Dr. Edward L Wright catalogued many of his errors on line. His claims were known to be wrong even in 1991 when Lerner's book was published.

I have no doubt that Lerner honestly believes his own views, and I have no doubt that Lerner honestly believes that the JWST images should induce "panic" over the Big Bang. It's not my desire to criticize his integrity. It's also not my desire to directly challenge his views. But what seems clear is that Lerner is absolutely not describing accurately how the scientific community is responding to these images from the JWST, and there is no evidence that these images are causing panic over the validity of the Big Bang. But I do detect some themes here that are common when those with "pseudoscientific" views bump up against well-established science:

1. Surprises and unexpected new findings are assumed to be evidence that the entire field of science is wrong, or at least that it shouldn't be considered well-established science.
2. Scientists that do not support these contrarian views are misrepresented to support the views of contrarians, either explicitly or implicitly.
3. Scientists supporting well-established science are assumed to be enslaved to unquestionable truths or even dogma that can't be challenged.
4. These contrarians assume that difficulties in publishing studies questioning accepted theory are due to the biases among scientists supporting well-established science and the peer-review process.

I see this same pattern in the climate debate, sometimes to a much greater extreme than this article from Lerner. But this article has been widely promoted by readers on social media as if Lerner is just a skeptical scientist that is now being vindicated against the scientific dogma of the Big Bang. Well, Lerner can say what he wants. But what about us as readers? How can we evaluate these claims as genuine skeptics when we lack the training to independently evaluate the evidence? At the very least, skeptics critically evaluate what they read, and critical evaluation of this article shows that it does not describe accurately how scientists are evaluating these JWST images. So Lerner's article and its viral influence on social media appears to be evidence that readers claiming to be skeptical often fail at skepticism, and there are lessons we can learn from this as a kind of case study. Just because somebody says something online doesn't mean that the author's claims are true or even make sense. Skeptics evaluate what they read before promoting it to others. Without this bit of skepticism, the probability that we're just promoting misinformation is astronomically high.