Cosmologist Sean Carroll, an atheist, has been quoted as arguing that the multiverse hypothesis, though it does not meet the standard criteria of a good scientific theory (i.e. it's not falsifiable or testable), nevertheless should be accepted as legitimate science.
He writes:
Modern physics stretches into realms far removed from everyday experience, and sometimes the connection to experiment becomes tenuous at best. String theory and other approaches to quantum gravity involve phenomena that are likely to manifest themselves only at energies enormously higher than anything we have access to here on Earth.This reminds me of a passage from William James who asserted that, "any rule of thought which would prevent me from discovering a truth, were that truth really there, is an irrational rule."
The cosmological multiverse and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics posit other realms impossible for us to access directly. Some scientists, leaning on Popper, have suggested that these theories are non-scientific because they’re not falsifiable.
The truth is the opposite. Whether or not we can observe them directly, the entities involved in these theories are either real or they are not. Refusing to contemplate their possible existence on the grounds of some apriori principle, even though they might play a crucial role in how the world works, is as non-scientific as it gets.
Carroll wants to apply James' maxim to science in the belief that it's not reasonable to restrict science only to conjectures about entities whose existence can be tested.
Thus, the multiverse hypothesis should be considered legitimate science even if it's not testable because it's an entity that's either real or it's not, and "refusing to contemplate [it's] possible existence on the grounds of some apriori principle, even though [it] might play a crucial role in how the world works, is as non-scientific as it gets."
Very well, but then why wouldn't this same standard also apply to the hypothesis that the world is the creation of God? Wouldn't the same standard also apply to Intelligent Design which is banned from public school science classrooms because it allegedly can't be tested and is therefore not regarded as a genuine scientific theory?
Carroll wants to make the multiverse a viable scientific option because it gives him a means to evade the compelling theistic implications of cosmic fine-tuning, but in order to include the multiverse hypothesis in the field of legitimate scientific inquiry he has to open up the domain of science to include conjectures about the existence and activity of a God, which is the very thing he's eager to avoid.
Tomorrow I'll return to the topic of miracles with a description of a contemporary episode that, assuming it's not a hoax, surely counts as a genuine miracle. Indeed, it would require an even greater miracle for it to be a hoax.
