From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews:
Not all fundamental forces are created equal. An alternate universe that lacks the weak nuclear force — one of the four fundamental forces that govern all matter in our universe — could still form galaxies, stars, planets and perhaps life, according to calculations published online January 18 at arXiv.org.
Researchers have done calculations to that effect. Why?
“People talk about universes like they’re very fine-tuned; if you changed things just a little bit, life would die,” Adams says. But “the universe and stars have a lot more pathways to success.”
It soon becomes clear that this is a pitch for a multiverse:
The paper does not help figure out if the multiverse is real, though. “We hope that eventually we’ll know,” Rees says, but “I’m not holding my breath.” More.
What’s becoming obvious is that the multiverse does not need to be real because evidence does not matter nearly as much as it used to. Once the multiversers have won the war against falsifiability and other decision-making tools in science, they can simply assume that the multiverse exists, period.
Those who claim that there is no evidence for a multiverse will be considered anti-science, not because there is in fact evidence but because evidence is no longer needed. That’s the power of post-modern science.
See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
and
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide