NewsWatch

Webb Telescope Continues Challenging Big Bang

ICR.org, 1/26/23, “Webb Telescope Continues to Challenge Big Bang” [Excerpts]: Data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continue to challenge expectations of Big Bang proponents.

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, the JWST can obtain better images of these very distant galaxies than if it were viewing them in visible light.

Data from the JWST show that distant galaxies look more “mature” and “developed” than predicted by Big Bang theorists. Big Bang astronomers assume light from the most distant galaxies took almost 14 billion years to reach Earth. 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.

Big Bang theorists are being forced to quickly revise their predictions. NASA was claiming that the universe’s first stars formed about 400 million years after the Big Bang. Yet, a Nature article published just last year stated that the first stars formed “perhaps around 250 million years after the Big Bang.”

The supposed dates of the formation of the earliest galaxies are also being pushed back. That same Nature article stated, based on analysis of JWST data, that galaxies were already in existence “a few hundred million years [i.e. about 300 million years] after the Big Bang.” Yet Big Bang scientists are now claiming, just months later, that the first galaxies could have formed as early as 200 million years after the Big Bang.

Are you seeing a pattern? Big Bang theorists have to keep “pushing back” the times at which the first stars and galaxies supposedly appeared, because no matter how deep we look into space, stars and galaxies already exist! 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.

http://bit.ly/40v5F3B

Japan Faces Demographic Disaster

IntellectualTakeout.org, 1/31/23, “Japan Faces Demographic Disaster” [Excerpts]: Japan’s Prime Minister has warned that his country will fall over an economic and social cliff unless it reverses its population decline. “Our country is on the brink of being unable to maintain the functions of society,” said Fumio Kishida at the beginning of this year’s Diet session.

Mr. Kishida’s apocalyptic statement is by no means news. Japan’s population has been shrinking for years. Rural towns are being abandoned. The number of people in nursing homes is constantly rising. Schools are closing because there are no children to fill the classrooms.

In 2020, researchers predicted that Japan’s population would decline from 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million in 2100. In 1973, at the peak of the baby boom, 2.09 million children were born; in 2022 the number of births was below 800,000.

Their options are limited...they can bribe Japanese women to have more children. At the moment this appears to be Mr. Kishida’s plan. 

There is an obvious, if unwelcome, solution: to restrict abortion. Abortion is decreasing in Japan (partly because the population is shrinking) but there were still 141,000 of them in 2020. Would 140,000 more babies turn around Japan’s demographic decline? No, but it would help. Would this be popular? Absolutely not. Abortion rights activists would fight it tooth and nail.

http://bit.ly/40c0nuq

North Korea Tops List of Worst Persecutors

WNG.org, 2/11/23, “North Korea tops list of worst persecutors” [Excerpts]: The Hermit Kingdom is once again the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, according to Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List. The Christian nonprofit compiles the list using input from teams of researchers and lawyers.

North Korea has topped the list for many years, only displaced last year by Afghanistan due to the Taliban takeover. North Korean Christians routinely lose jobs and face imprisonment, torture, or death if discovered. A new “anti-reactionary thought law” has increased already severe punishments.

http://bit.ly/40ou2kd