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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CE260.1:

If the spin of planets, galaxies, etc., came from the fact that the big bang matter was spinning when it blew up, then the conservation of angular momentum demands that all planets be spinning in the same direction. Since some planets and moons spin in a retrograde motion, the big bang is disproved.

Source:

All About GOD Ministries, 2002. Big bang theory. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

Response:

  1. The claim is based on so much ignorance and so many misunderstandings that it is hard to know where to begin.
    1. The big bang was not an explosion. Space itself expanded (and is still expanding).
    2. The big bang is quite a different subject from the formation of solar systems. Rotations within the universe are not expected to be related to any rotation of the cosmos. Galaxies probably arose from slightly denser regions of the early universe, which coalesced and combined due to gravitational and viscous interactions. Since these early density fluctuations were apparently random, we expect galaxies to have random orientations. Solar systems within galaxies have still different origins and additional random influences on their orientations.
    3. Conservation of angular momentum doesn't require that everything spin the same way. It requires that a change in spin in one object be compensated for by an opposite change in spin in one or more other objects. Retrograde planets are not a violation of angular momentum because other bodies in the early solar system could account for the compensating spin.

  2. If the big bang were an explosion, we would expect different spins. When something explodes, pieces fly out spinning in all directions.

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created 2003-9-7, modified 2004-2-15