Taking Science on Faith

[countrycousin]

is an op-ed piece in the NY Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html

The apparent aim is to improve the dialog between the religious and science.  I'm all for the aim, and Davies has impressive credentials, but

Comments

[countrycousin]

re: Occam's Razor violation to assume multiple universes:

Sure. But Occam's Razor is more of a guide on how to proceed to find good theories than it is itself a law of nature. So I'll agree with him, but so what.

I agree with him that it would be much better to find self-consistent descriptions of our universe and its operation that had only a few arbitrary constants. If we haven't got there yet, it would be, in some sense, giving up to assume we couldn't proceed further and say that everything left was due to the arbitrary boundary conditions that gave rise to our universe.

To turn the argument, I object to the Intelligent Designer concepts because it leads to saying that anything we don't currently know about the process of evolution is due to the Finger of the Designer. Since we have a large number of people emotionally committed to demonstrating the presence of the Finger, it interferes with rational consideration.

To avoid that problem with the Multiverse concept, one has to keep looking for schemes that reduce the number of arbitrary constants, even though the Multiverse concept implies that some of the search might be fruitless. (Some of most search is fruitless.) Just think of the endless arguments at funding agencies and budget sessions. ;<)