by Hugh Ross
Since the last issue of Facts & Faith I have received many more questions about the book by Dr. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time, which purports to offer an astrophysically plausible young-universe scenario. As I have mentioned previously, I cannot endorse Dr. Humphrey's book, though I would like to be able to encourage the work of any Christian apologist. My concern in this case is that the book will expose both Dr. Humphreys and the body of Christ to needless ridicule because of its mathematical errors and violations of observational astrophysics.
Rather than simply ask Dr. Humphreys or my readers to take my word concerning these problems, I requested four other scientists, all evangelicals trained in mathematics and physics at the graduate level, to review the book. MIT astrophysicist Sam Conner agreed to write up a detailed critique incorporating the comments of all the reviewers, including Don Page, world-renowned specialist in general relativity theory, Gerald Cleaver, string theory specialist who earned his doctorate under John Schwarz at Caltech, and Michael Strauss, an experimental particle physicist with considerable research time at Stanford's Linear Accelerator. This 42-page critique was read and edited by each of us and then submitted to Dr. Humphreys, along with a request for his withdrawal of the book from publication. So far, he has denied our request.
Starlight and Time is very popular, now in its third printing. The contents, however, are so technical that most readers will not recognize its errors. To be honest, our original critique is comprehensible only to those fluent in the language of tensor calculus. To make that critique accessible to a wider audience, we have prepared a summary version, and it is now available to anyone who writes or calls requesting it. Even this version requires some math and physics background. We're still working to bring it down to a less technical level, but that will take more time.