I feel that it is important for science communicators to acknowledge that the “22 billion years” is just an idea being thrown around, not an established scientific fact overturning all our previous 13.8GY calculations. It’s based on images from JWST that are slightly “redder” than we expected, but they are so dim we don’t even have a full spectrum for them yet. It would be pretty hard to reconcile 22GY with the Lambda-CDM model which does use very precise measurements and calculations on the Cosmic Microwave Background. It would be a big deal if all those calculations turned out to be off all by the same amount. There are alternative (equally-speculative) ideas being floated to explain the red images, such as “dark matter stars”.
I fear that when gnostics see headlines like that, all they see is confirmation of their belief that scientists don’t know what they are talking about. “Last year they told us universe was 13 billion years old, now they tell us it’s 22! If the number can change so wildly, there is no reason for us to think that the current number is accurate either, so we can safely ignore it.” Or: “Twenty years ago they told us we are entering an ice age, now they tell us we are getting global warming. They can’t get their story straight, for all we know next year they will start talking about “global freezing”, so we can safely ignore all their warnings.”
Now, science is a process of incremental improvement, where an idea can be overturned if proven to be wrong. There is always an ongoing search to find alternative better explanations - this is good! But these popular science headlines too easily sensationalize these fringe efforts and make it sound as if they have already overtaken the mainstream. And the constant deluge of such headlines has made a large segment of the population turn away from science entirely, potentially causing harm to us all. IMO in reality there hasn’t actually been a big paradigm shift since the 1920s. It’s important to communicate that!
I feel that it is important for science communicators to acknowledge that the “22 billion years” is just an idea being thrown around, not an established scientific fact overturning all our previous 13.8GY calculations. It’s based on images from JWST that are slightly “redder” than we expected, but they are so dim we don’t even have a full spectrum for them yet. It would be pretty hard to reconcile 22GY with the Lambda-CDM model which does use very precise measurements and calculations on the Cosmic Microwave Background. It would be a big deal if all those calculations turned out to be off all by the same amount. There are alternative (equally-speculative) ideas being floated to explain the red images, such as “dark matter stars”.
I fear that when gnostics see headlines like that, all they see is confirmation of their belief that scientists don’t know what they are talking about. “Last year they told us universe was 13 billion years old, now they tell us it’s 22! If the number can change so wildly, there is no reason for us to think that the current number is accurate either, so we can safely ignore it.” Or: “Twenty years ago they told us we are entering an ice age, now they tell us we are getting global warming. They can’t get their story straight, for all we know next year they will start talking about “global freezing”, so we can safely ignore all their warnings.”
Now, science is a process of incremental improvement, where an idea can be overturned if proven to be wrong. There is always an ongoing search to find alternative better explanations - this is good! But these popular science headlines too easily sensationalize these fringe efforts and make it sound as if they have already overtaken the mainstream. And the constant deluge of such headlines has made a large segment of the population turn away from science entirely, potentially causing harm to us all. IMO in reality there hasn’t actually been a big paradigm shift since the 1920s. It’s important to communicate that!