Evidence · Case 08 · Science
Edwin Hubble’s 1929 measurement of galaxy distances and speeds
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Sources
- Edwin Hubble, “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1929. (opens in a new tab)
Edwin Hubble, “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1929.
Objections & responses
- Hubble himself never accepted that expansion implied a beginning, and expansion is compatible with steady-state models that were taken seriously until the 1960s.
Both true. Expansion alone did not settle the question; the steady-state model was a live alternative until the microwave background killed it, and Hubble stayed agnostic. Hubble’s measurement is cited as the observational turning point: the first evidence that the universe is not static, which is what everyone from Aristotle to Einstein had assumed. The next exhibit, the cosmic microwave background, is what made a hot, dense beginning the mainstream view.
- Even if the universe began, why must a beginning have a cause? Time itself began; there was no “before” in which a cause could act. Causation is a concept inside the universe.
This is the strongest philosophical reply to the argument from a beginning. The theistic response is that a cause of the beginning of time need not be earlier in time, only prior in the order of dependence, the way (on some views) a cause can be simultaneous with its effect. Whether that is coherent is a live debate among philosophers of time. This claim deliberately stops short: it says the universe had a beginning and does not, by itself, say who or what caused it. The further step is argued in the Atheism case, where this objection is met head on.