Oogedy-Boogedy for the Hyde Park Set

Jim Manzi has given us a much more thorough response than my weaksauce answer to Coyne’s brief against the compatibility of science and religion. As I’m sure your sick of hearing from CF bloggers by now: “Read the whole thing.” But enjoy just a taste here:

Coyne is […] confused about the philosophical issues surrounding what is called “fine tuning” by some theists, and called “the anthropic principle” by some scientists: roughly, the observation that if any one of a large number of physical constants had even a slightly different value, then human life would be unlikely or impossible. The “fine tuners” argue that this is evidence of the existence of God. Instead of simply pointing out this is an obviously unscientific assertion, Coyne’s feels the need to invoke alternative potential scientific explanations.

First, he says that “Perhaps some day, when we have a ‘theory of everything’ that unifies all the forces of physics, we will see that this theory requires our universe to have the physical constants that we observe.” Somebody ought to highlight the problem of infinite regress to him, because this would simply raise the obvious question of why these forces of physics require our universe to have the physical constants that we observe.

[And this of course is the answer to the question Dawkins loves to pose ad nauseam, “Who created the Creator?” Deist or atheist, the problem of infinite regress inexorably stands in the way of your arriving at an answer. But I digress…]

Next, he presents a second alternative, citing “intriguing ‘multiverse’ theories that invoke the appearance of many universes, each with different physical laws; and we could have evolved only in one whose laws permit life.” The multiverse theory may or may not be true for all I or anyone else knows, but given that we can’t observe other universes, it’s about as falsifiable as my theory that these various universes were created at the beginning of time through a titanic battle between Gilgamesh and Santa Claus. Given, as we’ll see, how ultra-falsificationist Coyne is in this essay, this is a pretty thin reed for him to support his argument. He never says that he knows it to be true, and presents it as a hypothesis, but it’s clearly a meant to provide a scientific-sounding alternative to the “God did it” position. It’s oogedy- boogedy for the Hyde Park set.

Nicely put. Except for one quibble: I am very far from a theoretical physicist, but as I understand it, there are some observational predictions made by the proponents of various multiverse theories and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The point I think Manzi should have tried to make is that Coyne misreads the metaphysical implications of those multiverse theories.