The main reason some physicists obsess over the beginning of the universe is because so much evidence points to there being one. But what if our universe grooved within an ageless multiverse—like a patch of ground from which countless flowers bloom. In this model, each universe has a big bang and keeps its own time. In the most popular version, each universe might even have its own version of physics too. Infinite possibilities yield infinite results: Some say this theory explains life itself.
We’d have to be extremely lucky for a single big bang to create a universe with the perfect conditions for life as we know it, but if new universes are springing up all the time, it’s no wonder one of those cosmic neighborhoods turned out just like ours. The universes in this garden grow or wither according to their own rules, while the multiverse around them goes on without a beginning or an end. It’s an elegant blend of change and timelessness, a floral brew many cosmologists are still sipping. More.Stop, wait, we’ve heard this What if? many times before.
Science isn’t about What if? It is about How, exactly?
These people are advertising in no uncertain terms that they are willing to cling to any old What if? of a multiverse to avoid evidence of fine-tuning of our universe. That’ll be the death of science, of course.
But post-modernist scientists choose the boutiques in which they shop for concepts, so they can be marchin’, marchin’ against the “end of science” on account of a local political squabble, choosing to ignore the slow creep of non-evidence-based thinking into science in general, to say nothing of looming identity politics wars.
Note: Popular Science ended comments in 2013. Too much “other side” to deal with.
See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide
Question for multiverse theorists: To what can science appeal, if not evidence?
and
Eureka! Scientist discovers that the post-modern left hates science the way it hates every form of external reality
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2 comments:
Thanks Denyse. I had typed a note of thanks and an anguished comment regarding the post-truth post-reality as brought out in your post and the several links I followed. However, I accidentally deleted it. So, I won't repeat it all but say that the video clip of student intimidation and their sustained mob verbal assault on Prof. B. Weinstein is highly troubling and bodes darkly for the future of Western society, since some of these foul-mouthed, utterly disrespectful, irascible young people will possibly become leaders in a few short years. ~~+~~
...and that, Peter, is a scary part in itself!
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