Multiverse proponent Brian Greene on the state of the evidence

What is so appalling to the outsider is the utter stupidity underpinning the multiverse flights of fancy. Maybe not too many of us have ever thought the general run of scientists too bright, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to be shocked by the sheer obstinacy of their stupidity. But this time, it seems like a terrible car-crash in slow-motion, we'd rather not watch, but glimpse at normal speed and pass on as quicky as possible. It's not that the stupidity is congenital, of course, (although it does seem to attract more than its share of simple souls), but rather that it is enforced by a totalitarian, corporate-sponsored establishment, although some of its leading lights (darkness visible) will have the highest formal accreditations. None so blind as those that will not see. Just as, to this day, the history of nations is largely a chronicle of the depraved ministrations of psychopaths and extreme sociopaths, the history of professional establishments seems largely a sorry tale of institutionalised corruption and folly of an astonishingly crass order. Axel

Greene says here " if a proposal that invokes the multiverse gains our confidence by making correct predictions about things we do have access to, things in our universe, then our confidence in its prediction of other universes, realms we don’t have access to, would rightly grow too." Yes, but there have been models that are FALSE, that people once had confidence in too. Perhaps Dr. Greene is unaware that good science goes where the evidence best points, not where one feels confident. Bantay

Of course, when you get to this level of fantasy, seeking rationality in the authors, or even a rational interest in the subject in question, is futile. I mean, how primordially insensate is it, to consider the subject of evolution, whether genuine if trivial, at the local level, or entirely speculative at the broader level (and that in the teeth of the growing mountain of contradictory evidence), without considering the actually prior question of the life-force and dynamism (never mind the 'design'!) which must underly all living matter. Indeed, to rubbish it! Metaphysics is and always will be, by definition, a higher order of knowledge than empirical science. Their doggedly wilful nescience in this area is akin to studying the filament of a light bulb, without possessing any interest in the electrical power that illumines it. Axel

Can't they see what they are doing? Do they really think they are going to get the average Joe to believe in such nonsense? Anyone with half a brain can see what they are doing, and yet they are going to try and pretend to be scientists doing real science. This will allow them to look down condescendingly on anyone who does not trust their words as gospel truth. Truly "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." tjguy

"In order to side-step the possibility of the existence of God the Logos, many in the science community have stepped across the threshold of legitimate science fact into the arena of Science Fiction. The conundrum they are faced with there,.... since they insist there can be no "God".... has produced a virtual cottage industry of Metaphysical Vain Imaginings where hypothetical quarks and gluons interact in Imaginary Time in Black Holes of Anti-Matter and "zero volume singularities". In order to make it somehow statistically possible for life in the universe to have actually burst onto the scene from Nothing and for No Reason, these high-tech Shamans have conjured up the loveable "Fuzzball" notion of endless "String-Theory Multiverses".("You see," they tell us with a straight face, "there really must be several gazillion universes 'out there'... so that statistically, we are bound to be here!" ) Like Alice disappearing down the rabbit-hole into a Wonderland of fantasy, the new age High Priests of Scientism have conjured up and promoted their own government-funded Faith-Based Initiative where no purposeful designing Deity is allowed to exist... under penalty of law. And so, clever proselytes of empty, outer darkness... (some of whom ironically call themselves "The Brights")... have proudly added yet another oh-so-predictable story to that ancient Tower of Babel, mankind's monument to Self." Tom Graffagnino

Speculations like these have been dubbed "the borderlands of science." To be science, a proposal must be testable in principle. But if the test requires technology that might not even be physically possible, and even that technology could do no more than lend weak support, does that count as "testable"? At some point, where the testing methodology required becomes essentially imaginary, a line is crossed between science and "fun with math." David W. Gibson