How did the world begin?
How old are the universe and the Earth, how do we know, and how do the other accounts compare? This case follows the measurements from 1927 to today, marks what is still unknown, and rates every checkable claim by the same rules.
The question How did the universe and the Earth begin, how do we know, and how do the competing accounts compare on the evidence?
What the records say
The documented story holds up: 11 of 13 timeline steps are Confirmed by the records (score 96).
5 theories checked: 3 disproven, 2 unverified. A theory is rated by its key claim.
The expansion turns out to be speeding up, and nobody yet knows why
likelyCredible: two independent tier-2 reports. See the step
Down the rabbit hole
The ground line is the documented timeline. Each tunnel is a theory that branches off it; every chamber is a step, coloured by how well the records support it. The deepest chamber is the theory’s key claim. Tap one to open it.
Main timeline
Oldest first- 1927confirmed
Georges Lemaître works out that the universe should be expanding
Lemaître, a Belgian priest and astrophysicist, derived an expanding solution to Einstein’s equations and estimated the expansion rate from the data then available, in a 1927 French paper that went largely unnoticed. In 2018 the International Astronomical Union’s members voted (78% in favour) to call the expansion law the Hubble–Lemaître law; historian Helge Kragh argues parts of the IAU’s own history were wrong.
- 1929confirmed
Edwin Hubble finds that more distant galaxies are moving away faster
Using 24 galaxies, Hubble showed a straight-line link between distance and speed of recession. His distances were too small by a factor of about 7, so his rate (500 km/s per megaparsec) was far too high, and he did not himself claim the universe was expanding.
- Jul–Aug 1948confirmed
Bondi, Gold and Hoyle propose a “steady-state” universe with no beginning
Two 1948 papers describe a universe that expands forever while new matter is created continuously, so it looks the same at all times. Hoyle called the idea of a creation in the past “against the spirit of scientific enquiry”.
T1Bondi and Gold, MNRAS, 1948summaryT1Hoyle, MNRAS, 1948summary; sect. 1 - 1953–1956confirmed
Clair Patterson measures the age of the Earth at about 4.55 billion years
Patterson used lead from the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite as the starting point and dated the Earth and meteorites together, first at 4.5 billion years, later refined to 4.55 billion. The US Geological Survey now gives 4.54 billion years with under 1% uncertainty, and notes the method assumes the Earth and meteorites formed at the same time.
- 1965confirmed
Penzias and Wilson find faint microwaves coming equally from every direction
Bell Labs’ antenna picked up about 3.5 degrees above absolute zero more than expected, the same in all directions and through the seasons from July 1964 to April 1965. A Princeton group, in a companion letter, read it as the cooled “fireball” radiation left from a hot early universe. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for it.
T1Penzias and Wilson, ApJ, 1965p. 419–420T1Dicke, Peebles, Roll and Wilkinson, ApJ, 1965pp. 414–416T2Nobel press release, 17 Oct 1978 - 1990confirmed
NASA’s COBE satellite finds the microwaves have a near-perfect heat spectrum
COBE measured a blackbody spectrum at 2.735 ± 0.06 K, with deviations under 1% of the peak, as a hot early universe predicts. A 2009 review of all measurements gives 2.72548 ± 0.00057 K. The Nobel committee called the Big Bang “the only scenario” that predicts the radiation COBE measured.
T1Mather et al., ApJ, 1990 (COBE)abstractT1Fixsen, ApJ, 2009abstractT2Nobel press release, 3 Oct 2006 - 1998 to 2025likely
The expansion turns out to be speeding up, and nobody yet knows why
Two supernova teams found in 1998 that the expansion is accelerating (Nobel Prize 2011). The cause is called dark energy; the Nobel committee wrote that what it is “remains an enigma”. In 2025 the DESI survey reported data that fit better if dark energy changes over time: 3.1 sigma combined with the microwave background, 2.8 to 4.2 sigma when supernovae are added.
Open questionWhat dark energy is, and whether it changes over time, is not settled. - Jan 2001confirmed
A crystal from Western Australia is dated to 4.4 billion years
A zircon grain from the Jack Hills is 4,404 ± 8 million years old, the oldest piece of Earth then known; the oldest known rock, the Acasta Gneiss in Canada, is about 4,030 million years old. A 2014 atom-by-atom study confirmed the age was not distorted by lead moving inside the crystal.
T1Wilde et al., Nature, 2001abstractT1Valley et al., Nature Geoscience, 2014abstract - Jun 2006likely
Layered reefs 3.43 billion years old are argued to be made by early life
A study of the Strelley Pool Chert in Australia argues its stromatolites (layered mounds) were built by living things, while noting this is debated. An older claim, of 3.7-billion-year-old stromatolites in Greenland, was reassessed in 2018 as non-biological. How life itself began is still an open question.
T1Allwood et al., Nature, 2006abstractT1Allwood et al., Nature, 2018abstractT2Pross and Pascal, Open Biology, 2013abstractSources disagreeWhether the oldest structures were made by life is debated, and how life began remains unexplained. - 2013confirmed
NASA’s WMAP mission ends with an age of 13.77 billion years
Nine years of WMAP maps of the microwave background, combined with other data, give an age of 13.772 ± 0.059 billion years and support the standard model of cosmology.
T1Bennett et al. (WMAP), 2013abstract - 2018confirmed
Europe’s Planck satellite puts the age at 13.8 billion years
Planck’s data alone give 13.797 ± 0.023 billion years; combined with galaxy-survey data, 13.787 ± 0.020 billion. The paper stresses that such late-universe values are model-dependent.
T1Planck Collaboration, 2018 results VIabstract; Table 2 - Dec 2021 to Aug 2024confirmed
Two ways of measuring today’s expansion rate disagree
Planck’s early-universe data give 67.4 ± 0.5 km/s per megaparsec; nearby stars and supernovae measured by the SH0ES team give 73.04 ± 1.04, a 5-sigma gap whose source, the team writes, “remains unknown”. A JWST-based team found 70.39, consistent with the standard model.
T1Planck Collaboration, 2018 results VIabstractT1Riess et al. (SH0ES), ApJL, 2022abstractT2Freedman et al. (CCHP), 2024 (preprint)abstractSources disagreeWhether the “Hubble tension” is new physics or a measurement problem is unresolved. - 2022 to 2024confirmed
The James Webb telescope finds bright galaxies earlier than expected
Spectra confirm galaxies about 300 million years after the Big Bang, “more common than what was expected before JWST”. One study called massive early candidates “an important unresolved issue”; another showed a candidate thought to be extremely distant was in fact much nearer.
T1Curtis-Lake et al., Nature Astronomy, 2023abstractT1Carniani et al., Nature, 2024abstractT1Labbé et al., Nature, 2023abstractT1Boylan-Kolchin, Nature Astronomy, 2023abstractT1Arrabal Haro et al., Nature, 2023abstract
Branches
Go down oneA branch is only as strong as its weakest step so far. The count is how many sources back each step.
“JWST disproves the Big Bang”
Did the James Webb Space Telescope show that the Big Bang never happened?
Eric Lerner’s essay “The Big Bang didn’t happen” on IAI News, a month after the first JWST images. Lerner had argued against the Big Bang since his book “The Big Bang Never Happened”.
- 164,784 YouTube views, “James Webb Telescope Proves The Big Bang Theory Is WRONG!” as of 12 Oct 2026 T4YouTube: “James Webb Telescope Proves The Big Bang Theory Is WRONG!”
- 46,621 YouTube views, Answers in Genesis “James Webb Space Telescope DESTROYS the Big Bang” as of 12 Oct 2026 T3YouTube: Answers in Genesis, “James Webb Space Telescope DESTROYS the Big Bang”
JWST found more, brighter and more developed early galaxies than predicted
Lerner: the papers report “surprisingly many galaxies” that are “surprisingly old”.
The premise: confirmedTrue: confirmed galaxies 300 million years after the Big Bang are more common than expected. But the papers treat this as a problem for models of how galaxies form, and one extreme candidate turned out to be much nearer than thought.
T1Carniani et al., Nature, 2024abstractT1Boylan-Kolchin, Nature Astronomy, 2023abstractT1Arrabal Haro et al., Nature, 2023abstractDistant galaxies look too small for an expanding universe
Lerner says the galaxies are the same size as nearby ones if space is not expanding.
The premise: likelyTrue that the early galaxies are small. Astronomer Allison Kirkpatrick said this supports the Big Bang because early galaxies “were much smaller”, as expected if galaxies grow over time.
Astronomers themselves admitted they were losing sleep
Lerner quotes Allison Kirkpatrick: “Right now I find myself lying awake at three in the morning wondering if everything I’ve done is wrong.”
The premise: likelyShe said it, but later explained she was reacting in awe at what JWST showed, not saying the Big Bang had been disproved.
- confirmed
Lerner’s 2022 essay says the JWST images contradict the Big Bang
He argues the galaxies are “too small, too smooth, too old and too numerous” for an expanding universe, and match his own non-expanding model.
StartStrength so far:confirmed· 1 source on this step - confirmed
Spectra confirm galaxies at record distances, 300 million years after the Big Bang
JWST spectra confirmed galaxies at redshifts 10.3 to 13.2 in 2023 and 14.32 in 2024. Measuring redshift is itself a measurement of cosmic expansion.
T1Curtis-Lake et al., Nature Astronomy, 2023abstractT1Carniani et al., Nature, 2024abstract= HoldsStrength so far:confirmed· 2 sources on this step - confirmed
Some early candidates did not hold up
A galaxy thought to be at redshift about 16 was found to be at 4.9, its colours mimicking a far more distant object.
T1Arrabal Haro et al., Nature, 2023abstract= HoldsStrength so far:confirmed· 1 source on this step - likely
A 2022 fact check rates the claim “mostly false”
Physicist Jason Steffen said the evidence is “still overwhelmingly in favor of a hot Big Bang”. JWST does not observe the microwave background, the main evidence, as even an old-earth Christian ministry pointed out.
▼ WeakerStrength so far:likely· 2 sources on this step - disproven
Key claim: the JWST images show the Big Bang did not happen
The peer-reviewed JWST papers measure expansion redshifts and treat the surprises as a problem for galaxy-formation models. One asks whether the issue lies in the standard model itself, so details of the model are open; the hot Big Bang is not overturned.
T1Carniani et al., Nature, 2024abstractT1Arrabal Haro et al., Nature, 2023abstractT1Boylan-Kolchin, Nature Astronomy, 2023abstractT2Newswise fact check, 26 Aug 2022▼ WeakerStrength so far:disproven· 4 sources on this step
Bullshit meter
- Key claim: the JWST images show the Big Bang did not happen. Disproven.
- Key claim contradicted by tier 1? Partly. The surprise is real and peer-reviewed: early galaxies are brighter and more common than models predicted. The conclusion is not supported: the same tier-1 papers measure expansion and confirm galaxies 300 million years after the Big Bang.
Fluff meter: possibly planted
- Can’t be traced to an original record. Absent: it points to real JWST papers.
- First appeared from new or anonymous accounts. Not measured.
- Coordinated identical wording. Not measured.
- Cited source doesn’t exist. Not measured: the papers Lerner links were not all checked.
- Later contradicted. Present: spectroscopy (2023–2024) confirmed expansion redshifts, and a fact check (2022) rated the claim mostly false.
● present · ○ absent · – not measured. Lists signals only. It never accuses anyone.
Personal interest meter
- Eric Lerner, is President and Chief Scientist of LPPFusion and author of “The Big Bang Never Happened”, a rival non-expanding model. T2Newswise fact check, 26 Aug 2022
“Has a documented interest” only, each one sourced. Never an implication of guilt.
Correlation meter
- The cosmic microwave background, found in 1965 (main step 5), measured by COBE (step 6), the main evidence against the steady state, and the evidence JWST cannot see (jwst branch). T1Mather et al., ApJ, 1990 (COBE)abstract
- Planck’s 13.8-billion-year age, main step 11, and accepted by the old-earth branch; the young-earth branch disputes it. T1Planck Collaboration, 2018 results VITable 2
- Christian groups disagree with each other, Reasons to Believe (old-earth) rejects the 2022 JWST claim, while Answers in Genesis (young-earth) titles a 2025 video “James Webb Space Telescope DESTROYS the Big Bang”. T3Zweerink, Reasons to Believe, 1 Sep 2022
- Dinosaur soft tissue, cited by Answers in Genesis as young-earth evidence, while Reasons to Believe published a book arguing it fits old ages. T3Answers in Genesis, review of “Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth”, part 1
- The 4.4-billion-year zircon, main step 8 and the young-earth key claim. T1Wilde et al., Nature, 2001abstract
Links to other cases appear once those cases exist.
Who worked on this
This case was assembled by the site from public records. Contributions are not open yet. Nothing here is invented, so the counts are zero.
This is the first published version of the case.
Sources
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- T1E. Curtis-Lake et al., “Spectroscopic confirmation of four metal-poor galaxies at z = 10.3–13.2”, Nature Astronomy 7, 622 (published 4 Apr 2023); abstract read. www.nature.com
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