Report on Theoretical physicists who say the multiverse exists set a dangerous precedent

Citation: Jim Baggott said that “There is no agreed criterion to distinguish science from pseudoscience, or just plain ordinary bullshit, opening the door to all manner of metaphysics masquerading as science. This is ‘post-empirical’ science, where truth no longer matters, and it is potentially very dangerous.” (Baggott, 2019)

Thesis: Science needs to define itself as a subject as a scientific explanation is based upon the views of society of its time. At one point there was no science and now it’s in a state of flux.

Explanation: It is important to understand that every knowledge subject has gained recognition after its evolution with the passage of time. So, scientific knowledge is not different at all, because it also evolutes over time, and things started to become pieces of evidence. One has to understand that scientific knowledge cannot be made on mere assumptions. You have to ensure that evidence is provided of some sort, otherwise, any claim would be considered false or untrue. The claim has to come up with some concrete evidence so that it can be proved. It means that scientific knowledge is something, which can be proved with certain pieces of evidence; otherwise, it may be considered some other kind of knowledge, other than scientific knowledge. That’s why, there was a time when there was no science, and now science has gone through great evolution, which means it is talking about things, which cannot be proved true with any shreds of evidence, but still claims are made. The concept of the multiverse is also one of those concepts, where significant evidence is not there, but still, this assumption is considered true that there are multiples universes (Siegel, 2019)

Citation:  Section 1: The Essay’s Argument 

Thesis: Gob smacking scientific explanation with hard facts or plain gibberish - Caution towards future works

Evidence point 1: The definition of scientific explanation - hard facts or conjectures. It is true that scientific knowledge is being based on various factors, where hard facts are provided at some points, whereas conjectures are also made part of the scientific assumption.

Evidence point 2: Is scientific truth simply acceptance of a popular theory or a drill-down of information to its utmost extreme, however impossible with present technology. It is a fact that physics has come up with so much knowledge and theories, which were supported by considerable evidence.

Evidence point 3: How does society, in general, treat scientific theories - empirical facts or post-truth? In the scientific field, the empirical facts and evidence are both quite crucial, as they would define how things are made up. Physics gave theories, which were proved true and one of the recent theories is about the multiverse. This theory asserts that multiverse exists, where there are more universes like this one. The issue is that such theory has not given any concrete evidence to talk about so that theory can be deemed true. Still, it is also considered a conjecture, which means that theory cannot be considered completely false as well. It is quite an interesting point in the history of science, where a claim is being made, but concrete evidence is not available yet, but the theory is also considered true even without any (SIEGEL, 2018)

Section 2: My Counterargument

Modifications required to the definition of scientific integrity to encompass all

Historical evidence to modification of the definition

When Darwin proposed that “a man had evolved from Apes” (Kuhn, 2016), and thus concluded that the species of man will evolve further into something else, he faced a lot of opposition. Today we confirm his theory as the most logical one though, at the time of its publication, this theory was not accepted as science than had not evolved enough. So, has the definition of science changed over the years?

Multiverse and its acceptance criteria in Science at present

Multiverse theories in the present day and with present technology is as difficult to prove with conclusive scientific data as was an intelligent design of evolution then. To accept the Multiverse theory as a scientific hypothesis in the light of no conclusive data due to technical limitations is applying double standards to scientific integrity. But this kind of change to the definition of science is much needed. It is certainly hard to prove a scientific theory without good enough evidence, but the issue is that there are technical limitations when it comes to the theory of the multiverse. There had been theories in the past, which were not true, but when so many experiments were made, the theories got recognition. This is not the case with this scientific theory, as it is still almost impossible to prove it. There may be a time in the future when science will be too advanced to explore other universes, but at present, it looks impossible to do so (Kuhn, 2016)

Popularize science through popular media or institutionalize it

Institutes of sciences provide proper checks and filters through a strict imposition of standards and norms to conclude a scientific principle as per the knowledge of science to date. Media though sensationalizes most theories as scientific breakthroughs do provide more extensive dissemination of the idea of science and involve the population to help think better with more minds and thus an easier conclusion to what science should become in the future. Removing media from this picture will mean that science becomes a domain of not the general public but just a few isolated souls. This would be counterproductive to the essence of science which should reach everyone (Motta-Roth & Scherer, 2016)

Section 3: Work Cited: Jim Baggott “But is it science?”

This article also explores various facts of science that how things have been transforming in the past when one scientific theory had nothing to prove itself, but later various claims were found with concrete evidence to prove it right.  However, the author has made the right point that claiming a theory like “a multiverse without any concrete evidence and empirical data; it is a dangerous trend to be started, as there is no such precedent in the past.” (Baggott, 2019)

References of Theoretical physicists who say the multiverse exists set a dangerous precedent

Baggott, J. (2019). But is it science? Retrieved November 16, 2019 from https://aeon.co/essays/post-empirical-science-is-an-oxymoron-and-it-is-dangerous

Kuhn, R. L. (2016). Testing the Multiverse: Beyond the Limits of Science? (Op-Ed). Retrieved November 16, 2019 from https://www.space.com/32452-can-science-explain-the-multiverse.html

Motta-Roth, D., & Scherer, A. S. (2016). Science Popularization: Interdiscursivity among Science, Pedagogy, and Journalism. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso , 11 (2).

Siegel, E. (2019). This Is Why The Multiverse Must Exist. Retrieved November 16, 2019 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/15/this-is-why-the-multiverse-must-exist/#d1d3e846d086

SIEGEL, E. (2018). Yes, The Multiverse Is Real, But It Won’t Fix Physics. Retrieved November 16, 2019 from https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/yes-the-multiverse-is-real-but-it-wont-fix-physics-82beaed322b