From Ethan Siegel at Forbes:
So why do so many theoretical physicists write papers about the multiverse? About parallel Universes and their connection to our own through this multiverse? Why do they claim that the multiverse is connected to the string landscape, the cosmological constant, and even to the fact that our Universe is finely-tuned for life?
Because even though it’s obviously a bad idea, they don’t have any better ones.
…
As I’ve explained before, the Multiverse is not a scientific theory on its own. Rather, it’s a theoretical consequence of the laws of physics as they’re best understood today. It’s perhaps even an inevitable consequence of those laws: if you have an inflationary Universe governed by quantum physics, this is something you’re pretty much bound to wind up with. But — much like String Theory — it has some big problems: it doesn’t predict anything we either have observed and can’t explain without it, and it doesn’t predict anything definitive we can go and look for. More.
If so, cosmology is over. As we noted elsewhere, the multiverse is science’s assisted suicide.
One wonders whether such strikingly honest admissions increased in frequency after Sabine Hossenfelder started telling it like it is in Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray.
The elegant papers and cool essays on the multiverse are polite social noise humming over a stark fact. The evidence shows that our universe is fine-tuned. Assuming it is not leads us away from the science and many cosmologists will boldly go.
See also: Science writer Ethan Siegel says, the multiverse is not the answer
Sabine Hossenfelder: The multiverse is “a fringe idea”
What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
and
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide
I think we should say the same about Darwin, but for some reason, it’s legitimate to consider the multiverse a laughable idea, but Darwin remains sacred teaching, which cannot be doubted without the pain of exile and exclusion.
To me it’s the power of Hollywood -shaping the culture. It’s all Inherit the Wind and the fear of ridicule that came from that. Darwinists were persecuted – so they remain the hero/martyrs of truth.
Lawrence Krauss ought to try to get arrested.
SA @ 1: “Darwin remains sacred teaching, which cannot be doubted without the pain of exile and exclusion.”
This is still largely true, especially in academia, but a revolution is taking place as we speak and it is exposing the Darwinian myth for what it truly is… just another unproven (and unprovable) theory.
as to this quote from the article:
Since when is God not a ‘better’ idea? Indeed, since when is God not the best idea possible?
I’m sure the Christian founders of modern science found the idea of God a good, even necessary, idea for the founding of modern science:
TWSYF – true. It’s a quiet revolution but it is definitely having an impact.
bornagain77 @3
Indeed. I’ve argued the point here that the multiverse is a much worse explanation for the fine-tuning than God. Here’s the last time I remember making the point…
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/heks-is-on-a-roll/#comment-616653
HeKS link at 5, that is a nice summary of most of the intractable problems associated with the atheistic conjecture of multiverses and/or parallel universes.
As to the intractable ‘inifinite regress’ problem, I might add that atheists also suffer from what we may call the intractable ‘infinite progress’ problem.
As Paul Steinhardt states in the following article. “The deeper problem is that once inflation starts, it doesn’t end the way these simplistic calculations suggest,” he says. “Instead, due to quantum physics it leads to a multiverse where the universe breaks up into an infinite number of patches. The patches explore all conceivable properties as you go from patch to patch. So that means it doesn’t make any sense to say what inflation predicts, except to say it predicts everything. If it’s physically possible, then it happens in the multiverse someplace”
Dr. Gordon has a nice summary here of the self refuting nature of inflationary multiverses,,
And as you, HeKS, alluded to in your list with the “Boltzmann Brain” problem, and as Dr. Gordon and Dr. Craig point out in the following articles, “multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen”,,, “produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale.”
And as the following author commented, given an infinite number of universes being created in (presumably) an infinite amount of time,,, pink unicorns must necessarily exist.
Moreover, besides disintegrating into absurdity, and as was somewhat alluded to in the preceding article, atheists’s postulating a multiverse of possible worlds, to the consternation of atheists, also ends up confirming the ontological argument for the existence of God.
That is to say, the materialistic conjecture of an infinity of other universes to ‘explain away’ the fine tuning of this universe also insures, through the ontological argument, the 100% probability of the existence of God, since the multiverse, by its very nature, concedes the necessary premise of the ontological argument. i.e. The necessary premise that it is logically possible for God to exist is some possible world:
A few more notes:
The Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics truly exposes materialism in all its full blown absurdity. i.e. The material particle is given so much unmerited power in the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that every time someone observes a particle, instead of the wave function merely collapsing, the particle instead creates a virtual infinity of parallel universes.
Many worlds is basically saying that, instead of God, the material particle has somehow bestowed within itself the power to create as many universes as it wants or needs to in order to ‘explain away’ the much more parsimonious explanation of wave function collapse.
One final note:
Inflation is itself a fudge factor, designed specifically to defend a favoured theory from the inconvenient attacks of the facts.
Rather than accepting that an inflationary universe obliges us to acknowledge our multiversal dopplers riding on pink unicorns, we might be better served by questioning whether we will cling dogmatically to the fudge factor that is inflation?
There’s nothing wrong with admitting that we don’t know. One of the supreme ironies of the modern science commentators is the stubborn persistence of their pretense of knowledge while endlessly pontificating on the subject of learning. Well, you cannot learn while you think you already know.
So some people with strong cosmology credentials believe that various facts lead us to the Big Bang, but the current state of our knowledge cannot explain why various features of our universe cannot be explained by this theory. Even appear to contradict it.
What’s wrong with simply saying “we don’t know“?