The Multiverse: a brief history.

 Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, music, and all kinds of literature, particularly in science fiction, comic books and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternate universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel universes", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "parallel realities", "quantum realities", "alternate realities", "alternate timelines", "alternate dimensions" and "dimensional planes".

The physics community has debated the various multiverse theories over time. Prominent physicists are divided about whether any other universes exist outside of our own.

Some physicists say the multiverse is not a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry. Concerns have been raised about whether attempts to exempt the multiverse from experimental verification could erode public confidence in science and ultimately damage the study of fundamental physics. Some have argued that the multiverse is a philosophical notion rather than a scientific hypothesis because it cannot be empirically falsified. The ability to disprove a theory by means of scientific experiment has always been part of the accepted scientific method. Paul Steinhardt has famously argued that no experiment can rule out a theory if the theory provides for all possible outcomes.

In 2007, Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggested that if the multiverse existed, "the hope of finding a rational explanation for the precise values of quark masses and other constants of the standard model that we observe in our Big Bang is doomed, for their values would be an accident of the particular part of the multiverse in which we live."

File under "well said" LXXVII.

 

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

George Orwell

Storytelling masquerading as science (again).

Evolutionary Imagination and Belief Drive False Claims of a “Four-Legged Whale”

Casey Luskin 

The media are currently abuzz with claims of a newly discovered fossil from Egypt: a “four-legged whale.” Here are some prominent headlines:

• NPR: “Scientists Discover Fossil Of A 4-Legged Whale With A Raptor-Like Eating Style”
• Newsweek: “Scientists have found the fossil of a deadly 4-legged whale that had a jackal-like head and lived both on land and in the sea”
• New York Post: “Fossil of previously unknown four-legged whale found in Egypt”
• BBC: “New species of ancient four-legged whale discovered in Egypt”

And so on. The headlines are accompanied by an artist’s depiction of what was supposedly found. See above. The image is attributed to one of the co-authors of the technical paper, geologist Robert W. Boessenecker. 

“That’s Right, Folks”

The NPR story warns:

We regret to inform you that your nightmares are about to get worse. 

A team led by Egyptian scientists have dug up a 43 million-year-old fossil in the Sahara Desert in Egypt of a now-extinct amphibious four-legged whale.

That’s right, folks — a whale with legs.

The problem with these claims? That’s right folks — they didn’t find any of the fossil’s legs. Everything you just read about this fossil is the product of imagination. In fact, if you check the technical paper you’ll learn that they found very little of the fossil at all. Figure 1 from the paper, which can be seen online here, shows the bones that were discovered shaded in red. Zoom in and look at the drawing in the middle. You may notice, as I said, a curious absence of red-shaded leg bones. 

Also absent: the pelvis, the vast majority of ribs and vertebrae, and the front portion of the snout. Undoubtedly the organism had these bones, but to call this a “whale with legs,” or to unequivocally depict it as some species transitional between terrestrial mammals and whales (as seen above), is to impose a huge amount of evolutionary imagination on the situation. 

Was It a Whale?

Consistent with all of this, the paper notes in the abstract that what they did find was “a partial skeleton,” later stating, “The new species is based on a partial skeleton.” A complete description of the bones is provided later in the paper as follows:

an associated partial skeleton of a single individual including the cranium, the right mandible, incomplete left mandible, isolated teeth, the fifth cervical, and the sixth thoracic vertebrae and ribs. The holotype is the only known specimen.

Perhaps this organism had four legs. Perhaps it had flippers. Perhaps it was closely related to whales. Perhaps it has nothing to do with whales. No one really knows. The simple fact of the matter is that we know hardly anything about this creature because, again, so very little of it was found. Forcing this species into an evolutionary paradigm to fit preconceived ideas about cetacean evolution, and promulgating headlines about a “four-legged whale,” is beyond belief. Actually, I take that back. Belief — belief in an evolutionary paradigm — is the thing that’s driving these headlines. 

Imagination. Belief. That’s putting it politely, which I insist upon doing. We all have imaginations, and we all have beliefs. So in that sense this is understandable. But if I weren’t so polite, a variety of other terms could be used to describe telling the public this fossil represents a “four-legged whale.”

Is it any wonder that people don’t trust overhyped evolutionary claims made by the media, or by some scientists?

So what you're saying is...

  Christendom's emissaries keep trying to persuade me that their conclusions are the orthodoxy,while mine are heretical but I can't help noticing the mental contortions necessary to hold on to this 'orthodoxy' of theirs. For instance during a debate that I was recently watching between a member of the Lds church and a pair of protestants (Calvinists to be specific), one of the protestants ( displaying an astounding lack of self-awareness) attempted to use psalm90:2 as a defeater to the lds claim that God was once a man. Every time I try to use the same verse to establish permanent divinity of Jehovah with Christendom's representatives it is casually brushed aside. They would recognise the incongruity of worshiping a god that emerged from his own creation when the ancient pagans do it. But of course when they in effect to the very same thing,well,that's different. They chide the Muslim and lds  for worshiping a deity that is like a man in outward appearance while inviting them to worship a god who is a man in actuality not merely appearance. The polytheist's pantheon of specialised interdependent deities is deemed a clear violation of occam's razor as an explanation of the origin of man and the universe, while a triad of self-existent interchangeable divine persons is not and on and on.