WLC Reacts! to Physicist Michio Kaku and Older Galaxies

Dr. William Lane Craig watches and responds to a video of theoretical physicist Michio Kaku about the James Webb space telescope and newly discovered, much older galaxies.

DR. KAKU: Well, that's the problem. The James Webb space telescope is upsetting the apple cart. All of a sudden we realize that we may have to rewrite all the textbooks about the beginning of the universe. Now, it takes many billions of years to create a galaxy like the Milky Way galaxy with a hundred billion stars – many billions of years old. But the James Webb telescope has identified six galaxies that exist half a billion years after the Big Bang that are up to 10 times bigger than the Milky Way galaxy! That shouldn't happen. There should not be primordial galaxies that are bigger than the Milky Way galaxy that are only half a billion years old. Something is wrong. We may have to revise our theory of the creation of the universe.

DR. CRAIG: What Professor Kaku points out here is an anomaly discovered by the James Webb telescope that more mature galaxies appear earlier in cosmic evolution than they should have. What this calls into question is not the beginning of the universe predicted by the Big Bang model. What it calls into question are our models of galaxy evolution. To illustrate, a few years ago I spoke at an astronomy conference in South Africa on galaxy morphology. The astronomers at this conference were all experts in the evolution of the shape and origin of galaxies. At that time there had been a major paradigm shift about how spiral galaxies come to form. I think what the James Webb telescope suggests is that our models of galaxy evolution are flawed and in some way need to be revised. So we can look to the future to figure out how this anomaly is ironed out, but this doesn't do anything to overturn the evidence that the universe is expanding and had a point of absolute origin at some time in the finite past.