It’s exhausting, really exhausting. I’m a person who really likes science (not to be confused with a Scientologist), celebrates its advances, and tries to be reasonably informed about it. And I’m quite pleased to see that there seems to be a growing interest in this from society. It undoubtedly contributes to this many milestones echoed by the mass mediaas well as the recent case of James Webb.

However, I am very aware of my limitations and even more of a responsibility for each of the letters I write in what I publish. A habit I’m lucky enough to share with all colleagues in this house, and one I see in many other communications professionals. In many, but not all, and this includes both experts and certain media in general. In these cases, clickbait and even incorrect but startling information are the main protagonists..

And these days we are witnessing another case of such unfortunate and habitual behavior, given that a large number of media claims that images captured by James Webb contradict the Big Bang theory, i.e. the most widespread and accepted of the theories that would explain the origin of the Universe. If true, it would be more than relevant news as it would force us to re-evaluate the investigation into her origins. If it were true, of course. The problem is, it isn’t.

Theories (and in many cases calling them theories is generous because they fall short of conjecture) that seek to discredit the big bang have been common for decades, I remember reading the first sometime in the mid-eighties, and it’s generally positive that they’re brought up if it’s out of rigor. The problem arises when, without the slightest basis but for warning, random unrelated elements are taken and drawn from them to conclusions that are not actually supported by the data being argued.

As I said earlier, in recent days we could see several publications suggesting that some of the images captured by James Webb deny the big bang. But that is not true at all. What some pictures have done is question certain conclusions about the effects of the big bang on the formation of the universe. Something that was not only not strange, but was actually more than imaginable.

Let’s look at it in reverse to understand it better. Throughout their history, human beings have deepened their knowledge of the human body and its interactions with other life forms. Given the technical limitations of each moment, the development of said knowledge is gradual. Girolamo Fracastoro theorized in 1530 about some “invisible seeds” that caused the spread of certain diseases. And it was not until more than a century later, in 1659, that Athanasius Kircher could observe bacteria for the first time. And it took another 15 years before Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek confirmed this discovery in 1674.

Advances in the means used are a key element in the development of science and most likely its use will lead to corrections of the original theory. Kircher was able to decipher what the invisible seeds Fracastoro pointed out were. He didn’t modify the previous theory, he updated it, and this has been repeated many times over the years. Until the mid-1980s, it was not known that there was a bacterium (Helicobacter pylori) capable of surviving the extreme conditions found in the human stomach.

Images taken by James Webb they tell us that there are a much higher number of ancient galaxies than previously predicted, but instead of understanding that this casts doubt on the theory of the effects of the Big Bang and the initial formation of the universe, they decided that it was more striking to confirm that this new data did not match the Big Bang theory. Why? Well, as they often say among the youngest, because potatoes. Or actually because of clickbait.

With information from Cnet