Even Britain’s Guardian newspaper is wondering about multiverse crackpot-ology now

Though I still like, out of the several excellent refutations of the multiverse I have seen, Dr. Gordon's the best,,,

The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory and The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video http://vimeo.com/34468027 Here is the last power-point slide of the preceding video: The End Of Materialism? * In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all. * In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle. * In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose. * Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible.

,,,since Dr. Gordon's refutation clearly shows that when materialism is pushed to the extreme, so as to try to explain the origin of the universe itself, then it results in the epistemological failure of science itself,, I would like to narrow the focus on the Guardian article as to the poverty of empirical confirmation, as pointed out by Jim Baggott in the article, for string theory (M-theory). String theory is not devoid of its detractors, no less than Peter Woit, PhD. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia, finds string theory absurd:

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law: Peter Woit, a PhD. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia, points out—again and again—that string theory, despite its two decades of dominance, is just a hunch aspiring to be a theory. It hasn't predicted anything, as theories are required to do, and its practitioners have become so desperate, says Woit, that they're willing to redefine what doing science means in order to justify their labors. http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092756

Dr. Woit reviews Jim Baggott's new book here:

Farewell to Reality - June 2013 http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6002

Or if Dr. Woit and Jim Baggott don't carry enough clout for some people to believe string theory is full of hot air, Roger Penrose, a close collaborator of Stephen Hawking in the refinement of the space-time theorems of General Relativity, back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, to show that even space-time had an absolute beginning,,,

Big Bang Theory - An Overview of the main evidence Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36. Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

,, even Penrose takes severe issue with Stephen Hawkings use of M-Theory in his book 'The Grand Design' to try to come up with a 'Theory of Everything':

'What is referred to as M-theory isn’t even a theory. It’s a collection of ideas, hopes, aspirations. It’s not even a theory and I think the book is a bit misleading in that respect. It gives you the impression that here is this new theory which is going to explain everything. It is nothing of the sort. It is not even a theory and certainly has no observational (evidence),,, I think the book suffers rather more strongly than many (other books). It’s not a uncommon thing in popular descriptions of science to latch onto some idea, particularly things to do with string theory, which have absolutely no support from observations.,,, They are very far from any kind of observational (testability). Yes, they (the ideas of M-theory) are hardly science." – Roger Penrose – former close colleague of Stephen Hawking – in critique of Hawking’s new book ‘The Grand Design’ on Justin Brierley's 'Unbelievable' radio show

Or if that is not good enough, Hawking gave the game away for his 'omnipotent' claims for M-theory with this quote that he gave in response to a question from Larry King at the beginning of a interview Larry King had with Hawking about his book when his book first came out:

Larry King: “If you could time travel would you go forward or backward?” Stephen Hawking: “I would go forward and find if M-theory is indeed the theory of everything.” Larry King and others; “Quietly laugh”

Bur again, I find the most direct, concise, refutation to Hawking's (and other theoretical physicists) musings about M-Theory, string theory, and such, to be put forward by Dr. Gordon in his non nonsense style:

BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world. Neither is it the case that "nothing" is unstable, as Mr. Hawking and others maintain. Absolute nothing cannot have mathematical relationships predicated on it, not even quantum gravitational ones. Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency - a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what "breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.,,, the evidence for string theory and its extension, M-theory, is nonexistent; and the idea that conjoining them demonstrates that we live in a multiverse of bubble universes with different laws and constants is a mathematical fantasy. What is worse, multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen in the context of a multiverse - where it is alleged that anything can spontaneously jump into existence without cause - produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale. For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the "Boltzmann Brain" problem: In the most "reasonable" models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science. Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

What's interesting in all this 'mathematical fantasy' swirling around M-Theory as the ultimate theory of everything is that Godel proved that,,

Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821

,,,mathematics cannot be held to be 'true' unless an assumption for a highest transcendent infinity is held to be true. A highest infinity which Cantor, and even Godel, held to be God. ,,, And, in closing, I would like to point out, once again, that the resurrection event of Christ, provides a very credible, empirically backed, reconciliation between the finite materialistic world of General Relativity and the infinite Theistic world of Quantum Mechanics into a 'Theory Of Everything':

The Center Of The Universe Is Life - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://vimeo.com/34084462

Perhaps some may have written the shroud of Turin off long ago as a forgery because of the carbon dating, but, for those who don't know, the Carbon Dating of the shroud has now been overturned:

New Evidence Overturns Shroud Of Turin Carbon Dating – Joseph G. Marino and M. Sue Benford – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxDdx6vxthE

Supplemental note:

Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041205

bornagain77

Of related note to the Guardian article, and it's lead off reference to the Higgs Boson. This just came out on physorg this yesterday: Is the Higgs Boson (aka the infamous God Particle) also finely tuned for life? Apparently so!

Rethinking the universe: - June 17, 2013 Excerpt: "It all has to do with one of the main theoretical puzzles in fundamental physics," explains Barr. "Why is the mass of the Higgs particle 17 orders of magnitude smaller than its 'natural' value?" Two explanations have been proposed, and both of them predict new phenomena that should be seen by the LHC. But so far, there is no hint of them. "That is why our radical proposal nearly 15 years ago is attracting increasing attention," he adds. Their idea is that the Higgs boson mass has to have an "unnaturally" small value for life to be possible. In other words, if it didn't, we wouldn't be here.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-rethinking-universe-groundbreaking-theory-multiverse.html

bornagain77