Ethan Siegel: Even the most successful scientific theories imaginable will, by their very nature, have a limited range of validity. But we can theorize whatever we like, and when a new theory meets the following three criteria…
Tag: Ethan Siegel
New Scientist: Our understanding of the cosmos is “seriously wrong”
But don’t fret that a better understanding of the universe will leave entertaining crackpots out in the cold. Won’t happen. Can’t. Ethan Siegel explains why, in part.
Continuing efforts to erase the beginning of time
It’s quite clear that Siegel’s objection to the idea of a beginning to the universe is philosophical. Most of the nonsense one hears, generally, can be traced to unwillingness to admit that.
Should we call the Pauli Exclusion Principle quantum fine-tuning?
Absent the Principle, says astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, “most horrifically, carbon-based organic compounds — the building blocks of all life as we know it — would be an impossibility for us.”
In this version of the multiverse, you are unique
But wait! There might be an infinity of multiverses in which you are not unique. This is the only one in which your head has not exploded.
At Forbes: Cosmology’s crisis is merely “manufactured misunderstandings”
An astrophysicist dismisses the concerns as “ideologically-driven diatribes.”
At Forbes: Fine-tuning really is a problem for cosmology, about which nothing can be done
So here’s where it stands: They’re compelled to stumble and make up nonsense and the rest of us are compelled to support them, cheer them on, and accept the dismal outcome, forever if need be.
Forbes’ cosmology commentator: Maybe we ARE alone
He goes through the usual potted history of life on Earth, omitting (they always do) to notice that the human mind is a quite different sort of development than, say, sexual reproduction or flight. It’s the mind that prompts us to even ask questions about ET, yet no one has any idea what consciousness even is.
An astrophysicist makes clear why a multiverse MUST exist
You should be suspicious of any science claim that could have been thought up as a sheer work of the imagination. The multiverse is just such a concept: Somewhere, everything and its opposite happens or doesn’t, in an infinity of infinities. No math needed.
Uses and misuses of the Anthropic Principle
Theories multiply because the facts favor fine-tuning of the universe.
At Forbes: The real reason we haven’t found dark matter
According to astrophysicist Ethan Siegel: Personally, I don’t expect these direct detection attempts to be successful; we’re stabbing in the dark hoping we hit something, and there are little-to-no good reasons for dark matter to be in these ranges. But it’s what we could see, so we go for it. If we find it, Nobel […]
The fight over the universe has turned ugly, with accusations of “cheating”
We are told: “Wherever you look in the cosmos, things don’t seem to add up.” And now physicists like Sabine Hossenfelder are accused of cheating: Ethan Siegel, astrophysicist-blogger behind Forbes’ Starts With a Bang! blog, responded with a post titled “There’s A Debate Raging Over Whether Dark Matter Is Real, But One Side Is Cheating.” […]
How to talk yourself into believing in a multiverse
It’s becoming obvious that post-modern science will have its multiverse irrespective of evidence from nature and will prefer it and its component beliefs to evidence from nature. That is why some of us think that the multiverse is science’s assisted suicide.
Startling admission about the science (i.e., non-science) basis for the multiverse
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 […]
At Forbes: Maybe fine-tuning doesn’t matter as much as some claim. Many planets might support life…
From Ethan Siegel at Forbes: Based on everything we know, it seems like the conditions that make life possible are a lot more diverse and flexible than most people would expect. … Take Earth’s large moon, for example. The gravitational forces from it keep our planet rotating on the same axis over time. Our present […]