Starlight problem

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Galaxies over 12 billion light years away.

For those living in an alternative reality, Conservapedia has an "article" about Starlight problem

There is a broader, perhaps slightly less biased, article on Wikipedia about Starlight problem

The starlight problem is a complication for young earth creationism involving the amount of time it would take for light from distant stars to reach earth. Because light travels at a finite speed, only stars within a few thousand light years of earth should be visible in the creationist model of history. This is not the case though, since quasars currently 28 billion light years away have been detected,^[1] which, allowing for the metric expansion of space,^[2] puts the lower limit on the age of the universe near 13 billion years (light does not travel the distance ct in time t; this property originates from integrating local principles of special relativity over a curved manifold (i.e. spacetime)).

1 C-decay
2 White hole cosmology
3 Omphalos hypothesis
4 External links
5 See also
6 Footnotes

[edit] C-decay

Main article: C-decay

To solve the starlight problem some creationists have proposed a change in the speed of light, this proposition became known as C-decay. The idea was first systematically advanced by creationist Barry Setterfield in his 1981 book The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe. Setterfield claimed that at the date of creation light traveled millions of times faster than it does today, and has been decaying exponentially since. While sounding slightly reasonable the idea proposed by Setterfield is fundamentally absurd and ever since the idea's inception has been universally denied by scientists. The idea was supported into the late eighties by creationists whose claims became more and more bizarre in attempts to prop up their failing model until it finally collapsed under the weight of evidence against it. In 1988 the theory was given up by the major creationist organization Institute for Creation Research who, in an attempt to distance themselves from the scientific debacle that C-decay was, became vocal critics of it.^[3]

A change in the speed of light would quite literally end the world as we know it. The speed of light is not an arbitrary speed with no effect on outside systems but is in fact a component in one of the most fundamental equations is the universe, the equation for matter; e=mc² where e is energy, m is matter and c is the speed of light.^[4] This means that any increase of the speed of light would in turn increase the amount of energy released by the reactions of matter. Because the sun relies on the reactions of matter, most notable nuclear fusion, a change in the speed of light would alter the energy output of the sun: if light were traveling as fast as some creationists demand the energy output from the sun could be expected to increase over 800,000,000 times.^[5]

[edit] White hole cosmology

Main article: White hole cosmology

[edit] Omphalos hypothesis

The Omphalos hypothesis or argument provides an unscientific and unfalsifiable explanation for the starlight problem. The argument relies on the logically weak argument goddidit by claiming that the starlight we see is not natural but was in fact created in transit by god.

Many creationists have rejected this explanation on theological grounds because it implies a purposely deceitful god.