9. The Big Bang¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a sustained Marxist critique of the Big Bang theory, arguing that it functions as a secular creation myth, fundamentally at odds with dialectical materialism. The theory, which posits that the universe began some 15 billion years ago from a singularity of infinite density, is portrayed as a retreat from science into mysticism. Its proponents, the text contends, have explicitly likened it to the biblical Genesis, a connection reinforced by its first formulation by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, who sought to reconcile physics with Catholic doctrine.
The theory’s empirical foundations are shown to be deeply unstable. It rests on Hubble’s observations of galactic redshift, interpreted via the Doppler effect as evidence of universal expansion, which is then extrapolated backwards to a single origin. Yet the Hubble Constant, which measures the rate of this expansion and thus the universe’s age, is fiercely disputed, with estimates ranging from 50 to 85. A higher value implies an age of merely 8 billion years, creating the glaring contradiction of stars apparently older than the universe itself. Further contradictions abound: Brent Tully discovered superclusters requiring 80–100 billion years to form, far exceeding the theory’s 15-billion-year limit, while Charles Steidel and Donald Hamilton found a galaxy cluster at redshift 3.4 that challenges the ad hoc invention of “cold dark matter.” This invisible substance, along with the hypothetical Higgs field, was conjured to bridge the yawning gap between the theory’s predictions and the observed mass of the universe, yet neither has ever been detected.
The chapter excoriates the idealist philosophical premises underpinning the theory. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose are singled out for drawing false conclusions from a subjectivist view of time, leading to the self-contradictory notion of a “time when there was no time.” The only escape from this logical absurdity, the text argues, is an appeal to creation ex nihilo, which implies divine intervention. Engels is invoked to assert that “being out of time” is an absurdity; time is the mode of existence of matter, independent of any observer. The theory’s reliance on singularities—points where all physical laws break down—is dismissed as a surrender to mysticism, a mathematical abstraction with no physical reality. The law of conservation of energy is cited to argue that neither matter nor energy can be created from nothing.
In contrast, the chapter presents the dialectical materialist account of cosmic origins. Space is not empty but filled with interstellar gas and dust. The nebular hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, reinstated at a higher level by Weizsäcker and Alfvén, explains the formation of stars, galaxies, and planets through processes of condensation, turbulence, and magnetic fields. Stars are born and die; supernovae scatter heavy elements, and Earth itself is composed of recycled stardust. The heavens are not changeless, but matter in its diverse manifestations is eternal and indestructible. The Big Bang, the text concludes, has flunked the test of correspondence between prediction and observation, and will be replaced by a theory grounded in empirical reality, such as Hannes Alfvén’s plasma universe. The theory’s persistence reflects not cosmic truth but the pessimistic outlook of a society at an impasse.