In“This Week’s Hype” (Not Even Wrong, August 5, 2011), Peter Woit assesses recent “evidence” for the multiverse, addressed here by Rob Sheldon as well:
I noticed today that BBC News has a story headlined ‘Multiverse’ theory suggested by microwave background that assures us that:
The idea that other universes – as well as our own – lie within “bubbles” of space and time has received a boost.
After taking a look at the PRL and PRD papers that are behind this, it’s clear that a more accurate title for the story would have been “‘Multiverse’ theory suggested by microwave background – NOT”. As usual, the source of the problem here is a misleading university press release, one from University College London entitled First observational test of the ‘multiverse’. Somehow the press release neglected to mention something one might think was an important detail, the fact that this “First observational test” had a null result.
More.
But how could failed tests possibly matter when popular science mags increasingly assume the multiverse is true, without reservation?
The days are long gone when Fred Hoyle conceded that his Steady State Universe had failed an evidence test. After the multiverse, no one bothers with the limited kind of reality that a search for evidence entails any more.