Responding to “Theoretical physicist: Multiverse not based on sound science reasoning,” Edward Sisson offers some thoughts, from his training and experience as a lawyer:
The “multiverse” proposal is just a way to escape the entire field of mathematical statistics. Yet our legal system relies on mathematical statistics in making one category of its most important decisions, profoundly affecting the lives of individuals: convictions of serious crimes using DNA statistics evidence to identify the one individual on planet earth who could have been present at the scene of a crime, by leaving DNA evidence.
The DNA found at the crime scene is analyzed, and then a statistical analysis done, leading to the conclusion that there is a “one in X billion chance” that some other human was the person who left this DNA at the scene. Yet the chance that there could have been two such persons present is many orders of magnitude greater than the chance that DNA could have arisen by chance, and so to, the various constants we observe in our universe.
Thus I have wondered why defense lawyers in criminal cases have not seized on the “multiverse” theory, and paraded its PhD advocates as expert witnesses onto the stand, to say that we just happen to live in the universe in which there ARE 2 or more such persons, and therefore, the defendant has the benefit of a “reasonable doubt” that he or she was the person who committed the crime. After all, the chances that there really are 2 or more such persons on planet earth in our universe are far more likely than the chances of our universe having the constants that it does, or that DNA itself arose by chance, etc.
According to the “multiverse” advocates, there must be thousands of individuals convicted and in jail today, based on DNA statistical evidence, who have been unjustly convicted and unjustly jailed, because — according to them — there is a “reasonable doubt” that they committed the crimes, even granting the accuracy of the DNA statistical analysis used to convict them. The “multiverse” advocates ought to be outraged at these unjust convictions, and ought to start their own “multiverse innocence project” to seek freedom for these unjustly abused individuals. According to the “multiverse” advocates, these individuals ought to be free to walk the streets among us, right now.
Indeed, criminal prosecutors are, by definition, government employees, state and federal actors. Thus, advocates of evolution without any guiding intelligence — which includes most of the scientific community today — ought to object in the strongest possible terms to any such state employee submitting statistical analysis of DNA evidence as a ground to rule out all but the defendant as the guilty committer of the crime — because the statistical analysis provided in all such cases, for conviction, is a percentage of unlikeliness many, many more times more likely and plausible, than is the statistical possibility of random change having produced life and the changes of life that we see. Therefore, according to the evolution-supporting scientific community, every such prosecutor is, in fact, a state actor promoting religion, in violation of the First Amendment, every time a prosecutor submits DNA mathematical statistical analysis to tell a jury that one person and only one person did the crime.
See also: Theoretical physicist: Multiverse not based on sound science reasoning Good points But what if multiverse theory is simply a means of fending off the impasses that fully naturalist theoretical physics is in? It doesn’t need to make sense, any more than bollards do.
Theoretical physicist has a hard time convincing peers to accept reality
Sabine Hossenfelder asks at her blog “How do you prove that Earth is older than 10,000 years?”
Rob Sheldon: “Naturalness” in physics is dead, says Sabine Hossenfelder, and that’s a good thing
and
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide
That doesn’t make any sense.
Let’s say the dna evidence says that there’s a 1 in 10 billion chance that someone other than the defendant committed the crime. However, let’s say there are countless other universes. What are the odds then?
Exactly the same… 1 in 10 billion.
Yes, if multiverse is true then there is indeed a chance that we are in a universe where there are 2 or more such persons: The odds of that are… 1 in 10 billion.
The existence or non-existence of a multiverse has no bearing on the likelihood of the defendant having committed the crime, and therefore is no aid in arguing for reasonable doubt.
But somewhere in the multiverse, it’s gotta be true, just as it appears that we’re living in an extremely unlikely universe that’s finely tuned and has spontaneously generated time, mass-energy, DNA code, life, etc. The multiverse makes the existence of anything a virtual certainty!
It (some unlikely thing or event) might be hard to find and trips between the universes is limited to 0, but the unlikely thing or event does exist.
So, in the case of the defense attorneys, that the specified crime was committed in THIS universe is billions to one against. 😉
-Q
To goodusername@1
IMHO it does make sense. When we describe a probability of 1 in a billion for an event, it then means to us that the event has most likely not have happened – because of the assumption that there is only 1 world/universe we are dealing with. The moment we allow for an infinite number of “worlds”, the small probability value becomes irrelevant (unless it is exactly zero), as there is then going to be an infinite number of worlds where that event did occur. And there is no way to tell if our world would not be one of those where it would occur.
What makes sense is if this is an infinite multiverse then no probability arguments hold water. There is a universe, in fact infinite universes in which the dna matches the suspect up to seemingly 99%(I say seemingly) but its not him.
That is possible.. Therefore it has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen infinitely.
Now, what right do we have to assume that we are Not living in those universes? None.
You see, multiverse has purchased a possible out for design & Fine tuning but it cuts its own throat by completely rendering inert the very probabilities used to formulate the theory.