How to Fine-Tune Arguments for God’s Existence

Faith & Science Conversation
22

Hi Jon,
There are a number of different aspects of statistics that make it inapplicable to discussions of God’s influence. Many of its limitations render it rather agnostic. I would say these limitations are in the end connected to the discussion you’ve been having with @Swamidass on information theory.

Firstly, one basic requirement for probabilistic statements in statistics is of course some aspect of repeatability. This does not mean we have to repeat the whole thing. Repeatability can be found in throwing multiple coins, testing multiple patients, drawing multiple samples for carbon dating, comparing multiple gene sequences, measuring multiple time points et cetera. But we cannot take multiple samples of the circumstances that led to the origin of the first cell(s) or that of the universe, leaving us without a robust basis for making probabilistic statements.

Secondly, a much more fundamental limitation of statistics is that it can only be used to compare the relative merits of multiple specific scenarios. This has to do with Bayesian statistics. Suppose that, given the data, scenario A is found to be extremely improbable, but still much more likely than scenarios B and C. That does not tell us that A is true or false, just that it looks better than C and D. For all we know, there could be another unknown but specifiable scenario D that would look a bit better. Also, showing that scenarios A, B, and C are all extremely unlikely does not make scenario D more likely if it remains unspecified.

A common mistake in many psychology studies is to assume that rejecting the null hypothesis (e.g., scenario A) on the basis of some probability criterion (usually p < 0.05) automatically leads to the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis (e.g., scenario B based on some pet theory). However, that reasoning is false because there could be many other alternative scenarios much more likely than B. I know a professor from my university who built half of his career on demolishing other people’s conclusions just based on Bayesian statistics!

So here’s the connection to Intelligent Design. Assigning an extremely low probability to a certain scenario A (e.g., DNA code arising through specified natural processes) does not automatically make alternative scenarios more probable. If a proposed alternative scenario B (e.g., “design”) is not formulated in terms of specifiable predictions, the calculated probability of A does not have any meaning. Or, applied to fine-tuning, assigning an extremely low probability to the parameter settings of the universe does not mean anything without specifiable predictions to compare it with.

Thirdly, there is something deeply disingenuous about employing probabilities in arguments for God. If the natural explanations turn out to capture all of the data, someone might say “wow, look at those underlying regularities, those patterns point to a Creator!” If the natural explanations appear to be unlikely, the same person might say “wow, that low probability points to design!” I think that’s fundamentally flawed. We can’t have it both ways.

As you have concluded in your conversation with Joshua, choice and randomness lead to indistinguishable results in formal statistical terms. I wish everyone would acknowledge that and stop using probabilities as pseudo-rational arguments to bolster the case for (or against) God’s existence. I want to be fair here but I can’t think of a softer way to put this clearly.

Casper

2 Likes
23

Casper

I agree with all this, when the discussion is about “evidence for God”. That doesn’t interest me, personally, so much as the question “How does God do his work?” And in that discussion, I think we can have it both ways, in the same way that regularity and irregularity are both characteristics of, if not evidence for, human behaviour.

And so I went and sat in the same office at the same times for most of my working career, and returned to the same house - but not always, because both reliability/habit and freedom mark human choices, and from the Bible’s witness, God’s too. What doesn’t indicate human action is chance, as such (we throw dice or trip up, it is true, but in the midst of purposive activity). In human terms “chance” is actually an alternative possibility to human activity as the explanation of an event. It makes sense to ask if a pile of rocks occurred by chance, or by human intention - but little sense to ask if someone made it by chance.

If we do turn to evidential matters, the ultimate explanation of “things in the world” is (broadly speaking) after millennia of argument still either a purposeful God or Epicurean chance. As I’ve suggested, both regular and irregular events are equally explicable in terms of God’s providence, but the theory of ontological chance has, it seems to me, a greater task: that of explaining both the existence of laws governing regularity, and of the coherence of irregular events as part of a functioning “cosmos”.

In other words, “natural causes” are never an alternative to “God’s act”, any more than “habit” ia ana lternative to “human intention”, because God is a coherent explanation behind natural causes, and they do not explain themselves: one needs a “God alternative”, usually in the form of chance, as an explanation for nature itself.

24

@Casper_Hesp

Great post, Casper. I agree that we should only bring to the table things that we can hang our hat on, and not things that aren’t fully understood, in order to positively focus on what we can rightfully marvel at. I vibe with this approach.

However, I’m wondering if you may be letting multiverse-promoting atheists a little bit off the hook. New Atheists like Richard Dawkins ridicule believers for having faith in anything, when at the same time they promote the multiverse for an explanation for the existence for this universe. They need the multiverse, and therefore have faith in it, even though it’s underpinning framework, superstring or M-theory, is in peril and is admittedly not experimentally verifiable. So, yes, we don’t want to get bogged down in debating the science behind the multiverse or string theory, but I’m wondering if it’s worth mentioning that atheists do have faith, as believers do.

Also, is the following an attempt at concordance, "The Big Bang model already shows that the world as we know it had a definite beginning and that it arose from primordial formlessness… Some interpreters see a conception of a pre-existing chaos in Genesis 1:2: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”?

Thanks.

Richard

25

Absolutely.

This is not correct. What you are describing is a “frequentist” approach to probability and statistics. WIth a Bayesian approach, we can talk about the probability of single events. Going further, we can use Belief theory to reason about our certainty about one off events too Dempster–Shafer theory - Wikipedia.

This, however, is true. We cannot make strong statements about these things. Not only because we cannot repeat them, but also because we do not understand them well enough to model them.

Exactly. Also, even if A is the correct answer and True, it is could be the noise in the data that makes it looks improbable. We never know how much of then measured improbability is due to noise, and how much is due to a failure to understand the patterns in the data.

Exactly. Rather, we have to compare the fit of the two theories to the data. But if the theory is not formulated clear, this is not possible, so it is excluded as having low explanatory power.

Well put. Both directions are seen as evidence of design, which demonstrates in polemic use, design is not a specified theory.

Well put. God governs the regularities and the irregularities to world. All of it.

26

Hi Joshua, thanks for your comments and affirming my words. I’m thankful that you take the time to contribute here, being an expert on the application of statistics in your field.

I am familiar with Bayesian statistics and it also involves an aspect of repeatability. It requires specifying one’s prior belief on basis of which the likelihood of future events can be evaluated. In one way or another, that prior belief is based on what we know about similar events based on previous occurrences. Such knowledge could be gained/implemented indirectly through computational models. This prior changes as we accumulate evidence along the way. The whole idea of Bayesian updating assumes a circular process (that’s where the aspect of repeatability comes in).

I’m happy to be corrected on this, but to talk about the probability of a single event we need to obtain some knowledge about its general class of similar events to base our prior beliefs on. One way or another, that involves an aspect of repetition/recurrence (even if it’s via computer simulations).

The frequentist approach simply assumes a uniform prior probability (all possible outcomes are equally likely), so it’s kinda like an impoverished version of Bayesian statistics.

27

Not necessarily. Belief Theory demonstrates (under just 3 rational assumptions) that our degree of belief can be mapped to what we call “probability” in a Bayesian sense. Belief, however, is is not defined in terms of repetitions. This means that it is valid to assign a “probability” to singleton events, and we can think of probability as the degree to which we believe explanations of that event.

To be clear here I am using “Belief” in a technical sense, which does not mean unsubstantiated or evidence free. It is closer to our use of the word “certainty”.

However, the non-repeatability of these events makes this type of reasoning descriptive more than proscriptive. Or more precisely, it is prescriptive in how to update priors, but not in how to choose them. For example, we can start with a specific definition of atheistic or theistic priors (of a sort), and then we will find that the evidence about fine tuning will lead us to different beliefs about the plausibility God existing. Basically, the evidence makes really no difference, we are all just restating our prior beliefs.

Belief theory tells us that both sides are technically valid and rational in using probability to explain their reasoning, even though this is a one off event. There is no way to adjudicate who has the right priors though. We can chose them however we like.

This is really the reason fine-tuning fails as an argument. Both the theist and the atheist can rationally consider the evidence and come to opposite conclusions regarding the origins of the big bang. Any probability we compute is dependent on the prior, but is no systematic way of assessing or setting priors.* So we cannot really use probability/belief/bayesian to adjudicating who is more “right” here.

*There is an interesting aside about why the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) priors commonly used in physics does not apply here. In questions like this there is no way to define state space, a state space can be chosen such that its MaxEnt prior is equivalent to any given non-MaxEnt prior. But I digress…

Not usually. Priors are descriptive, not proscriptive. We can set them however we want.

This is just almost accurate. Frequentist approach is derived without priors, as a idealization of repeated observational data.

Then, in an independent derivation, we can derive Bayesian inference, which includes this new concept of a “prior”. Now we discover an algebraic quirk: Using MaxEn priors in Bayesian inference reduces to frequentist math. So it turns out that the math of frequentism is a special case of Bayesian inference.

But this observations does not mean that Bayesian inference reduces to frequentism. They are derived from different starting points, and the Bayesian derivation does not require repeated observations. The math is the same, but the meaning is different. Remember, frequentism does not actually include a concept of priors. One of the values of Bayesian statistic is that it clarifies the implicit prior in frequentist math. Without the Bayesian framework (or equivalent), we might not have realized frequentism was assuming a MaxEnt prior.

And as I noted, MaxEnt is poorly defined in many domains (like qualitative hypothesis). There is no objective way of defining state space for hypothesis space. So saying that we will adopt the MaxEnt prior, that just pushes back the prior-selection problem to defining state space. So even trying to use MaxEnt really does not solve anything.

Even then, MaxEnt makes no sense as a starting point in most domains. The only place where we can show it is justified is well defined physical systems that admit will defined states and we are computing entropy or statistical distributions (as in MaxEnt distribution given specific constraints).

28

Would this way of using the term “belief” be synonymous with “assumption”?

29

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

It’s true that atheism requires faith statements of some sort to be a viable framework. However, I think that is the case for a single universe just as well as for a multiverse. Atheists only “need” multiverse theory if they feel obliged to explain the properties of our own universe. In principle, they could also simply admit of our single universe that it’s “just how it is”.

The multiverse scenario is by definition difficult to support observationally, but it does have theoretical justification. It is one of the weirdest fields of scientific study but it has a solid basis in quantum information theory. I am by no means an expert in this topic, but I think it’s good to acknowledge ideas that have theoretical merit even if they currently evade experimental scrutiny.

In the end, all atheistic scenarios require the ultimate disclaimer regarding nature “that’s just how it is, folks!” as a stopgap for theistic accounts. The question of whether that’s a satisfactory or sufficient ultimate explanation does not change. It appears that the more we find to marvel at, the more pressing that question becomes.

I am happy you ask this, because that was not my intention. I don’t think God revealed anything substantially new about the specifics of natural history to the author of Genesis 1, so I don’t find direct agreement necessary or even desirable. Besides, my doctor told me I am concordance intolerant, so I’m currently on a low-concordance diet :slight_smile: .

Instead, I like to use such references as a way to open up possibilities in our thinking about Creation. The original Ancient Near-Eastern audience was presented with the notion of a pre-existing chaos from which God created heaven and earth. If the author of Genesis was theologically okay with using a description like that, there seems to be no reason for modern believers to feel uneasy about it.

Another interesting example is Genesis 1:24 where God says, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” Apparently, the author envisioned the earth as having the capacity to bring forth life by itself and this description was an integral part of Israel’s theological heritage. It then seems rather illogical to me that there is such theological resistance amongst modern Christians to the idea of “earthly” evolutionary processes bringing forth life.

Casper

30

Hi Joshua,
I am sceptical of equivocations between belief and probability. I don’t think beliefs can be accurately represented in probabilistic terms because there is this “all or nothing” quality to them. Jesus said that having faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains… Besides, I can also be very certain in my belief concerning a probability, as I am certain that a coin toss has 50/50 probability of heads or tails. Probabilistic statements themselves (including their error bars) require belief concerning their validity.

It seems we’re talking past one another here. Neglecting the priors involves the implicit assumption that they are uniform. I’m thinking about this in a mathematical sense, starting with Bayes’ theorem:

P(model given the data) = P(data given the model)*P(model) / P(data)

The frequentist approach assumes that the model under which the data are the most probable is also the most probable model, or in mathematical terms:

P(model given the data) ∝ P(data given the model)

The only way to omit the prior term P(model) in Bayes’ theorem is to set the prior probability to be uniform, i.e. P(model_1) = P(model_2) = P(model_3) = … Since all models handle the same data, i.e., same P(data), that indeed leads to the simplistic proportionality shown above.

31

Casper - an interesting point, suggesting that there is some intuitative “calculus” for natural theology. If the world had turned out to be simple (like Haeckel’s protoplasm easily forming life), the marvel would be correspondingly less pressing, yes?

A couple of other points.

I’d want to qualify that, firstly in that “formlessness” is not exactly equivalent to “chaos”, but mainly because, in contrast to the surrounding cosmologies, Genesis 1 places God as separate from the material world from the first. He is not Apsu or Tiamat, becoming what we see around us by his death or by warfare. That raises an entirely new question of how the unformed waters, earth and space above them came to be at all, and also came to be utterly obedient to God as Assigner of function to them: ex nihilo creation was implicit in the account, as the later Hebrews concluded. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” That said, the Genesis account indeed does not exclude an eternal existence for the “primal matter” (as Aquinas conceded), yet still implies God as its origin. Overthrowing the Big Bang would not displace God as sole Creator.

My second point is that you appear to be breaking your low-concordance diet with your understanding of the phrase “Let the earth bring forth”. Given evolutionary thought, that sentence in isolation might imply the earth’s creative autonomy, but in fact the text immediately goes on to rephrase the event by saying “God made the wild animals…etc”.

In an ANE context (and drawing on the parallel with Gen 2.7), “Let the earth bring forth” merely refers to the rather obvious phenomenological, or maybe rutual, fact that animals, like plants on day 3, materially come from the the stuff of the ground and return to it, just as fish come from the sea, and birds from the waters of the the heavens, on day 5.

If Michaelangelo’s biographer quoted him as saying, “Let this marble become King David!” before he set to work with a chisel, I don’t think we’d for a moment regard him as enduing the stone with the power of spontaneous sculpture.

Surely only the concordist will read back 19th century evolutionary science into a text written before there was any concept of “world” or “nature”, let alone the anachronistic concept of non-personal agency!

32

Marvel is difficult to quantify. Simplicity also has its own appeal :slight_smile: .

I accept your qualifiers. That’s exactly what I wanted to avoid. I see such quotes merely as food for thought and not as some kind of evidence to support a concordance with.

33

The reason we got into this is because I’m explaining that we do NOT need to observe multiple cases to talk sensibly about probabilities concerning these things.

You are using a different definition of belief. We can just define “belief” as our “degree of certainty” of a particular proposition at a given moment (either prior or posterior to viewing some evidence).

We find that under 3 basic assumptions, probability is equivalent to certainty (though we technical call it “belief”). This, is just math.

Now what you are saying about “all or none” you meditate connect ot Jesus.

This is a larger conversation. But your point is that we do not think about Jesus as a probability (.eg. 80% sure He rose from the dead). In the formalism of Belief theory, we could just say that you have a 100% belief in Jesus rising from the dead, that is therefore not modified by new evidence. Yes, this is not the most helpful way to describe. A better way is that this is the starting point for Christian thought and life, our foundational proposition.

This is not how it is handled in a Bayesian treatment. This is a pretty classic problem. It appears, tou are mixing two mathematical entities.

  1. We define a bernoulli process (coin flip) with a single parameter, the bias of the coin, or p.
  2. We define a “belief” distribution or “prior” distribution over p that describes what we think p is. If you take a MaxEnt prior, you say it is distributed uniform between 0 to 1. The easiest mathematical form for this would be a Beta distribution with alpha=beta=0.
  3. Next we look at data to update our “belief” or “prior to a posterior”. We will look a certain number of heads and tails, 1 and 0, respectively. Turns out the math works out so we just increment alpha for every heads we see, and the beta for every tails.

A few comments.

  1. With a weak prior, it really does not matter what the prior as long as you have a lot of data.
  2. A MaxEnt prior makes no sense. A priori, if you look at a coin, you know how it works and can check if it has both heads and tails. It is absurd to say ahead of time that “we have no idea if this is really an unbiased coin or not”. Rather, we should really start with a prior centered on 0.5, something like alpha=beta=10.
  3. The “prior” or “posterior” can really be understood as “what we think the true bias of the coin is”, which is DIFFERENT than the frequentist definition. This is just one thing (the bias of the coin), with no repetitions. Bayesian inference treats this as a separate entity than the data (which is repeated).

I agree, but how do you know that? You know that only because of Bayesian theory, not frequentist theory. As soon as you are doing this, you are using a framework totally different than frequentism. And this framework does not depend at all on repeated observations.

This is totally arbitrary. I already gave you one example where this failed (the biased coin), but this is even more arbitrary in philosophical discussions.

In the fine tuning argument, how would you set the prior concerning God vs not? How many theories would you place in each camp?

34

Yes, I would not use a definition of belief that equates it with “degree of certainty”. But that indeed taps into a larger conversation. For the purpose of the discussion I’m fine with equating belief with probabilistic priors, but that would exclude considerations of theism/atheism or other belief systems.

This pertains to something I was actually trying to get at. By what logic did you come to the conclusion that 0.5 would be the best prior to start with? To make that assessment anything more than a guess, you would need to have knowledge concerning the conditions of repeated instances of coin flipping (i.e., what varies and what is kept constant). Such knowledge allows you to get a hold of the outcome distribution over many repetitions (even if simply through mental imagery). The repetition aspect is therefore sneaked in through the backdoor when you choose your initial prior. For example, if instead you would be looking at the photon count of a certain source on the sky, you would have to implement completely different logic to produce an initial guess of its outcome distribution.

As you said before, we don’t have such precise knowledge concerning the conditions that gave rise to the first cell, which is the reason we currently can’t reliably model the outcome distribution of that process (same holds for fine-tuning).

I was describing the frequentist approach, which is indeed rather arbitrary. But given enough data it will still often converge on the right answer. It doesn’t fit with your example of the biased coin because that one implements Bayesian logic.

It’s impossible to set such a prior in any meaningful way. As I said, I don’t think such belief systems can be quantified in probabilistic terms. I think it’s better to leave probabilities out of the discussion when we consider theism/atheism.

At the very least, to formulate an initial prior, we need to be able to model/imagine/predict the outcome distribution over a number of trials (as in the case of the coin). That still involves an aspect of repetition, even if not directly observed. Does that make sense? We cannot do any of those things with Creation as a whole so we don’t have a probabilistic grip on fine-tuning.

35

A distribution centered on 0.5 is the best prior because it matches what we know of coins. It is our prior belief.

I can see that, but that is the technical definition of “Belief” in bayesian inference, and it does not depend on repetition.

It makes “sense” but it does not square with Bayesian inference. What you are describing is intuitive, but it is just not how the theory is formulated. It does not depend on repetition. Period.

That being said, I still entirely agree with your final conclusion, for a different reason.

We do not know the distribution of fine tuning constants conditioned on God or not. We just do not know this, and have no foreseeable way to get this. As you say, “we don’t have a probabilistic grip on fine-tuning”. This is why iit just is impossible to present a prescriptive analysis.

Though we can do a descriptive analysis of how people process the info based on different priors, to come to different conclusions. We find that the fine-tuning “argument” is basically everyone running around stating their starting assumptions.

36

@Casper_Hesp
Besides, my doctor told me I am concordance intolerant, so I’m currently on a low-concordance diet

It is very unfortunate that you are concordance intolerant. Maybe you should see if there is a treatment for that condition.

If the Two Books doctrine is true and I think it is, there must be some agreement or concord between the Two Books of Science and Theology. Certainly the Beginning is one of them.

1 Like
37

Hi Joshua, thanks for the interaction. Lol it struck me that all of this must sound as a nonsensical technical discussion to those who merely pass by. It sure is a digression but it’s still interesting for me to think about the epistemic underpinnings of Bayesian logic.

[quote=“Swamidass, post:35, topic:35336”]
A distribution centered on 0.5 is the best prior because it matches what we know of coins. It is our prior belief.[/quote]

You have left my question unanswered. How do we arrive at that prior belief concerning coin flipping? How can someone justify the prior belief centered on 0.5 without appealing to any type of iteration in which certain elements are assumed constant (laws of physics, shape of the coin) and others are assumed to vary within a certain range (initial size and direction of the coin’s momentum and angular momentum)? It seems to me logically impossible to do this differently, but I would be interested in a demonstration that shows otherwise.

Within a Bayesian framework, any non-arbitrary prior depends either on an iterative theoretical model or on previously observed outcomes (or on both, of course). This is the aspect of repetition I had in mind and we cannot form a robust prior without it. If you disagree with this, could you provide me with a specific counterexample? I’m sincerely interested in deepening my understanding here.

Greetings,
Casper

38

Hi Casper,

Maybe this reply will give you a little break from your technical discussion with Joshua. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure what you mean here. We know we exist in a universe, while the existence of a multiverse is purely speculation.

Only, atheists generally no longer exclaim, “That’s just how it is”, which they never felt was satisfactory and knew that believers had a leg up on them with God explaining the universe, precisely because they have faith in the existence of a multiverse as an explanation for our existence.[quote=“Casper_Hesp, post:29, topic:35336”]
The multiverse scenario is by definition difficult to support observationally, but it does have theoretical justification. It is one of the weirdest fields of scientific study but it has a solid basis in quantum information theory. I am by no means an expert in this topic, but I think it’s good to acknowledge ideas that have theoretical merit even if they currently evade experimental scrutiny
[/quote]

I had to do research on the multiverse a couple of years ago for an apologetics paper I wrote challenging Richard Dawkins’ arguments against the existence of God in his The God Delusion. As it turns out, the multiverse is controversial even with theoretical physics. Just check out Peter Woit’s blog Not Even Wrong, which is also the name of a book he wrote criticizing String Theory, which most multiverse theories are built upon. There now seems to be a legion of physicists who describe ST and it’s analogs’ research as producing no predictions or any observable effects. Similarly, multiverse theories have accumulated their own mass of critics, thus i’m not sure what you mean of they having a, “solid basis in quantum information theory”. So, while I understand your reluctance to cast aspersion on poorly understood ideas that may end up being true, I think that, in order to offer a meaningful apologetic to those mass of believers, or scientifically educated potential believers, who rely on research-level physicists to explain to them these things, we should put out there the level of faith that atheists must have in clinging to their ideas that explain existence outside of God.

All that said, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to have someone write a blog updating us with a balanced assessment of string and multiverse theories.

1 Like
39

Richard

Thanks for this. Depending on what interpretation of quantum theory you choose, there is also a solid basis in it for God and a single universe. But if a believer makes that judgement, it’s nevertheless a speculation - indeed, a theological speculation. Some other interpretations lead philosophers to speculate in their own field, making philosophical speculations.

The question then is, if an atheist cosmologist or physicist or mathematician speculates about an eternal multiverse, what kind of speculation is that? It certainly has no right to be called a scientific one, over and above the other speculations, unless we have already decided that atheism is the default position for science.

That being so, it’s worth asking why there is massive funding and many university departments dealing with speculative string theory, but not funding for philosophy or theology departments to research their speculations. Of course, one result is that if all your young researchers get trained in string theory and/or many worlds rather than divine compositionalism, then that will almost inevitably become “the scientific consensus”. But it will still be speculation.

1 Like
40

Hi Richard, thanks for your reply.

The point I was trying to bring across was that, independently of whether only a single universe or a whole multiverse exists, atheism requires faith statements to tie it all together. The multiverse does nothing to bolster the metaphysical weaknesses of that framework.

I think they are making a logical error when they do that. The multiverse would not be an ultimate explanation for nature, because it would still represent nature itself. So someone can simply proceed to ask “why is the multiverse as it is?” (e.g., able to generate a life-sustaining universe like ours) and an atheist would still be forced to answer “just because.”

There surely are those who are sceptical of string theory, of which Peter Woit is a very loud example. It’s good to have people like him, to keep the conversation going. But there is also a solid base of theorists in the physics community who have done respectable work in this area and I think it is demeaning to view them as religious loons instead of as hard-working scientists. Speculation can be and should be part of the scientific process, as long as it is undergirded with actual theory. Such theory can of course be criticized too, but that is part of the process. This pertains to what Jon said, something with which I strongly disagree:

I’m very sad to see this kind of sentiment. There should be room in science to speculate concerning cause-and-effect relationships within the natural world, even if these are not (yet) directly falsifiable. As long as they are considering an actual physical framework for an eternal multiverse, I don’t see why this should be considered anathema within science. On the contrary, I think they are working on extremely interesting questions and I’m happy they are receiving funding. In fact, the theory of Emergent Gravity (on which I wrote an article here on BioLogos ) is based on concepts from String Theory! That theory actually produces observational predictions which can be tested. Theological/philosophical speculations are fundamentally different because they consider God and metaphysics which lie beyond the reach of the scientific method by definition.

This is an extremely uncharitable way of representing the scientific process in that field. You seem to imply that a huge chunk of the community of theoretical physicists is just following the money instead of actually thinking critically, evaluating/developing theoretical concepts, and developing new ones wherever needed… It’s very unfortunate that you see it that way.

1 Like
41

Casper, I don’t think I’m suggesting anything controversial - just being realistic.

Science is the study of “nature”, whatever that is, but which certainly involves the question of laws that operate throughout the physical universe we perceive, etc. Yet current theory strongly suggests that the origin of nature in its entirety was a Bang at point t^0, from which time both the matter, and the laws, and the space-time in which it exists began to come into existence.

There are currently only 3 ways to deal with that. The first is to shrug and say that stuff just happens, which few find satisfactory.

The second is to suggest a non-material origin for the matter, laws and time requiring a non-scientific explanation (for example, creation by God, by far the commonest view amongst humanity worldwide).

The third is to speculate that “nature” of some sort can be extended beyond the Big Bang in the form of an eternal multiverse, thus allowing a science to develop beyond the current scope of “nature” (in all probability involving different matter, laws and time). To this end preliminary (and expensive) work in mathematics and cosmology is dedicated, relying on those interpretations of quantum theory, for example, which most lend themselves to the multiverse explanation rather than, say, to a mind-primary reality. For this research program, since it is the only scientific game in town, all those involved are being trained and employed.

Now, if it should happen to be that this third view is wrong (or “not even wrong” according to one of the minority of dissenters, Woit), hard evidence for it will not in the event be found, but as a result research efforts for it will have to increase, not decrease, as there is no other available quasi-naturalistic route to go down. We have heard many times how the true scientist will always look for a natural cause, even when in this case nature appears to have run out, and in this case it’s either a case of looking harder for the multiverse, or saying “Hey guys, we’ve reached the limit of science - better call in the theologians.” Which won’t happen, will it?

In that case, even if no kind of “nature”, beyond the time-and-space-limited one we study, were ever found, the multiverse would still have to be the scientific consensus, based purely on the promise of future discoveries as it is currently. All of which is fine in terms of the individual scientist’s quest for knowledge through speculation and research: but given the authority of science in our society, “The scientific consensus is that we are part of an infinite multiverse” will seldom be understood publically - and still less in the profession - in terms of what it is: speculation by a guild with no other options that “nature” may not have the limits science has so far discovered it to have.

1 Like