The Death of a Thousand Cuts: How Neutron Star Mergers Shattered Young Earth Creationists “Light Time Problem”
For decades, the "Distant Starlight Problem" has been the Achilles' heel of Young Earth Creationism (YEC). The logic is simple: if the universe is only 6,000 years old, how can we see galaxies millions of light-years away? If light travels at a constant speed, those photons should still be in transit, leaving our night sky dark. To bridge this gap, YEC proponents have historically relied on three primary theoretical "escape hatches": c-decay (the speed of light was much faster in the past). Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (light travels instantaneously toward the observer but slowly away), and Gravitational Time Dilation (time moved faster in deep space than on Earth during creation week). However, the 2017 detection of the neutron star merger GW170817 provided a multi-messenger "smoking gun" that effectively closed these loopholes. The Event: GW170817 In August 2017, the LIGO and Virgo detectors picked up gravitational waves ripples in the fabric of...