This is the kind of thing she said: What about Avi Loeb’s claim that the interstellar object `Oumuamua was alien technology? Loeb has justified his speculation by pointing towards scientists who ponder multiverses and extra dimensions. He seems to think his argument is similar. But Loeb’s argument isn’t degenerative science. It’s just bad science. He jumped to conclusions from incomplete data.
Multiverse
What kind of faith does it take to believe in a multiverse?
Brian Keating: The concept of the Multiverse is an old one, one that has been approached primarily as a matter of metaphysics or philosophy. But is it scientific? And, if it is scientific, why do so many of its most ardent supporters describe their ‘faith’ in the Multiverse?
Science writer John Horgan on why the multiverse is a fantasy
Horgan: First, science is in a slump, for reasons both internal and external. Science is ill-served when prominent thinkers tout ideas that can never be tested and hence are, sorry, unscientific. Moreover, at a time when our world, the real world, faces serious problems, dwelling on multiverses strikes me as escapism—akin to billionaires fantasizing about colonizing Mars.
Science writer critiques the “many worlds” (multiverse) fantasy; Rob Sheldon weighs in
But the multiverse isn’t really about evidence or falsifiability. The theory is held in defiance of the demand for evidence and believed in such a way as to make falsifiability sound unCool. As Ball perceptively notes, “Even though most physicists dismiss or even deride it, it is often eagerly embraced by physics popularizers and their audiences.” Perhaps it is best described as a lifestyle choice.
Fine tuning of the universe: The strong force and the fine structure constant
Luke Barnes: What would happen in a hypothetical universe in which the fundamental constants of nature had other values? There is nothing mathematically wrong with these hypothetical universes. But there is one thing that they almost always lack — life.
Another evidence-free whoop for the multiverse
Let’s be clear here. We have evidence for fine-tuning in the only universe we know to exist. To argue against it, we must posit universes for which we have no evidence and maybe cannot ever have any evidence. This makes sense, WHY again? Isn’t it all becoming a bit of a scandal?
Rob Sheldon has some questions for the multiverse
Sheldon has some fun with the logical nonsense of the concept.
At The Conversation: Can the laws of physics disprove God?
This seems to be a rather light piece intellectually but it gives some sense of what the wine bar would be saying about God and science if COVID-19 crazy hadn’t put it out of business: “But God isn’t a valid scientific explanation. The theory of the multiverse, instead, solves the mystery because it allows different universes to have different physical laws. So it’s not surprising that we should happen to see ourselves in one of the few universes that could support life. Of course, you can’t disprove the idea that a God may have created the multiverse.”
Michael Egnor on why the multiverse is just a way of evading reality
Michael Egnor: The fact that the universe is tuned — that is, the fact there is any consistency at all in the laws of physics — demonstrates God’s existence. This is Aquinas’ Fifth Way, which is the proof from design.
Michael Egnor on why we don’t live in a multiverse
Egnor: The problem is, to make their claim credible, [Novella and Goff] must show that there actually are localities in the universe in which the laws of physics differ in a way that would make fine tuning likely by chance.
Science writer: Multiverse is based on zero empirical evidence
Jim Baggott doesn’t like ID either but he also doesn’t appear to understand it.
Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel tells us why a multiverse must exist
Siegel: “… if the theory of inflation is a good one, and the data says it is, a multiverse is all but inevitable.” Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon writes to offer a response.
What? A logical flaw in multiverse reasoning? Aired at Scientific American?
There is no scientific evidence for a multiverse. There are a large number of intellectuals who need it to be true. At one time, there was a large number of similar people who needed witchcraft to be true.
Peter Woit, whom we sometimes follow because he is fun, looks back on string theory
He doesn’t seem to get the fact that string theory was a religious movement that was bound to end badly. The most distressing victim is science. But then that was well before the war on math, wasn’t it?
Pumping the multiverse from dark matter
Well, from a novelist’s perspective, it sounds logical but from a science perspective, if you must invoke the “multiverse,” you are in trouble.