Further to “Multiverse skeptic Peter Woit clarifies, he is NOT a creationist”:
Columbia mathematician Woit has received, essentially, a call to conversion from an intolerant religion, which multiverse theory is proving to be. Intolerant, that is, of any orientation that makes traditional demands for evidence from the theories that somehow get classed as “science.”
Of course no one really believes that Woit is sympathetic to the ideas of, say, David Berlinski, Michael Denton, or Michael Behe. All of whom are derided as creationists though not one of them posits creation events. In the end, that isn’t even what this is about. It’s about the role evidence should play, as opposed to theory.
Implying that Woit must be or may as well be a creationist is a way of sending him a message.
Woit took the wrong message, as it happens, from Tegmark’s disparagement of traditional religious folk in his book, Mathematical Universe. A book about a mathematical universe as such would not likely feature such material. A book about a new concept of the universe that is religious in character—with math to suit—would, of course, feature such material.
Now the important question for Woit is, where does that leave Woit? Either he avoids criticizing multiverse theory, in order to have peace (dhimmitude) or he gets called a “creationist” (conceptually, an infidel). Consequences follow either way.
Woit, who is—one gathers—an honest skeptic, wants his voiced doubts. But today doubt may only be directed against disapproved ideas, not approved, funded ones that happen to be poorly evidenced, undemonstrable, or incoherent. And the science media have made very clear that the multiverse is an Approved idea.
It will be interesting to see what he does next.
See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips on the growth of multiverse theory and its ramifications.
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Professor Woit complains,,,
Yet, Professor Woit may be more of a dreaded ‘creationist’ than he realizes. In the Wall Street Journal he stated,,,
Despite what Professor Woit may prefer to believe philosophically, (which apparently appears to be some form of naturalism that he would prefer to believe), the success of modern science itself testifies to the truthfulness of the Judeo-Christian philosophy which gave birth to this testable form of ‘real’ science. The form of science that he wants so desperately to defend from what he rightly perceives to be the untestable form of ‘anything goes’ pseudo-science that is manifest in multiverse(s), (and is also manifest, whether he is aware of it or not, in the ‘anything goes’ pseudo-science of neo-Darwinism),,,
For instance, Professor Woit cites the work of the great German mathematician Bernhard Riemann as to being a necessary prerequisite for Einstein to be able to formulate General Relativity. But what Professor Woit may not be aware of is that the great German mathematician Bernhard Riemann was himself a devout Christian i.e. was a dreaded ‘creationist’:
Perhaps Professor Woit may think, well mathematicians are an eccentric lot, so we can’t hold that nutty Christian thing against Riemann, but the funny thing is is, when we dig deeper, we find deeply religious, Christian, men all throughout the founding of modern science, in almost every, if not every, area of modern science:
Footnote;