I am one of those who are skeptical of the Big Bang Theory.

It actually started with learning that space is flat. If the rate of expansion is ultimately balanced by gravity, wouldn’t it make more sense to consider some form of cycle, where they are both sides of some larger process?

It would seem that the measure of space, based on light, curves outward, between galaxies, equal to the rate it curves inward, based on gravity, within them. Which would be Einstein’s orginal cosmological constant. The balance to gravity.

Given that light expands and gravity contracts, this might be a factor of what is being measured. That the two balance out poses some interesting possibilities….

As science, the Big Bang Theory cannot be falsified. Every time there is a gap between prediction and observation, some enormous force of nature is proposed and everything is well.

Before Inflation, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, the first patch was when they realized the redshift increases proportional to distance, in all directions. Which makes it appear that we are at the center of this expansion and the universe. So it was changed from an expansion in space, to an expansion of space, because spacetime!

Which would seem to totally ignore the central premise of General Relativity, that the speed of light is measured as a Constant, in all frames. If it is being redshifted, obviously intergalactic light is not Constant to intergalactic space!

Two metrics of space are being derived from the same light. One based on its speed and the other based on its spectrum. Since this expansion is relative to the speed, that would seem to be the denominator.

About the only argument I get against this point is that speed is measured locally, while the expansion is global. To which I point out it has to expand locally, in order to expand globally. The balloon has to expand under the inchworm too. So there are two metrics being related to one another. If the expansion was treated as the denominator and the speed the numerator, than it would be a “tired light” theory.

We are at the center of our point of view, so an optical cause of redshift would be worth considering.

It has been observed that multi-spectrum light “packets” do redshift over distance, as the higher spectrums dissipate faster. Though this would mean we are sampling a wave front, not individual photons traveling billions of years and that opens a whole other can of worms for physics.

If it is an optical effect, than the background radiation would be the light of infinite sources, shifted off the visible spectrum. The solution to Olber’s paradox.

As for Dark Energy, somehow it has been translated to the rate of expansion increasing, but since the rate presumably started off at close to the speed of light, that is the usual garble.

What was predicted is that the rate of redshift and thus expansion would decline at a steady rate, yet what was observed is that it drops off rapidly, but then levels out to a more stable rate. To use a ballistics analogy, it would be like the universe had been shot out of a cannon, but then after it slowed a bit, a rocket motor kicked in, to sustain the steadier rate.

Though what we are actually observing, from our point of view outward, is that this rate starts off slowly, but then starts to compound and eventually goes parabolic. Which would be quite normal as an optical effect and not require something like 70% of the universe to be invisible.

Given the James Webb is designed to explore the background radiation, I am going to guess that it appears to come from innumerable sources, not a singular event.

Though trying to question the model seems pretty futile, so no telling how that gets explained.