You create your own trend by cherrypicking the data to obtain whatever number you want.
Setterfield obviously did that because he leaves out any early results than were *slower *than the current figure. Presto, instant “trend.”
One click is all it takes. Even for creationists, this is a gimme.
I think part of the argument is semantics. There’s the “speed of light”, which is variable for the same reasons that the speed of sound is variable. Then there’s “c”, commonly if inexactly referred to as ‘speed of light in a vacuum’, a physical constant. I have seen no evidence that “c” has ever changed, even if our ability to measure it has improved the accuracy over the centuries.
And in terms of space expanding, even if an object is not moving through space, when we look far enough away objects are redshifted to appear to be moving beyond the speed of light, right? I mean if we’re moving away from each other at 0.5c and the space in between is expanding at >0.5c then from our perspective it would appear to be traveling faster than c, correct?
I am not a physicist, but from what I can gather the Big Bang didn’t happen at a particular point in what we now see as space.
ie The Big Bang didn’t happen 13 billion years ago behind or in the direction of, say, a particular constellation visible from present day Earth.
It happened 13 billion years ago all over the place, and the size of our universe is in no way constrained to being 26 billion light years (ie twice the radius) across.