The Impossibility of Verifying a Varying-Constants Multiverse

For several decades scientists have discovered more and more examples suggesting our universe is seemingly tailor-made for life. A list of many examples is discussed here. One dramatic example is the fact that even though each proton in our universe has a mass 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron, the electric charge of each proton matches the electric charge of each electron exactly, to 18 decimal places, as discussed here (the only difference being that one is positive, the other negative). Were it not for this amazing coincidence, our very planet would not hold together. But scientists have no explanation for this coincidence, which seems to require luck with a probability of less than 1 in 1.000,000,000,000,000,000. As wikipedia states, “The fact that the electric charges of electrons and protons seem to cancel each other exactly to extreme precision is essential for the existence of the macroscopic world as we know it, but this important property of elementary particles is not explained in the Standard Model of particle physics.” 

Wishing to cleanse their minds of any suspicions that our universe may not be the purely accidental thing they imagine it to be, quite a few materialists have adopted the theory of a multiverse. This is the idea that there is a vast collection of universes, each very different from the other. The reasoning is that if there were to be, say, an infinite number of universes, then we would expect that at least one of them would have the properties necessary for intelligent life, no matter how improbable it may be that such properties would exist.

I will refer to such a collection of universes as a varying-constants multiverse, since the concept is that the fundamental constants of different universes in this collection would vary.  The fundamental constants are items such as Planck's constant, the gravitational constant, the speed of light, the proton charge, the electron charge, and the mass ratio of the proton and the electron.

The question I will consider in this post is: is there any possible way that such an idea of a varying-constants multiverse could be verified?

Why a Varying-Constants Multiverse Could Not be Verified Through Telescopic Observations

You might think that we could verify the idea of a varying-constants multiverse by long-range telescopic observations. You can imagine scientists building some giant telescopes a thousand times more powerful than any ever built. If such telescopes were to allow scientists to look a thousand times farther than they ever looked before, then you might guess that one day scientists might be able to see other regions of space where the constants of nature differ. You might, for example, imagine that scientists looking as far as possible in one direction might see some distant area where the speed of light was much higher, and scientists looking as far as possible in some other direction might see some distant area where the gravitational constant was much different than it is on Earth.

But nothing of the sort has happened, and there is a reason why it cannot ever happen. The reason is that because of the limit set by the speed of light, whenever we look very far away in space, we are looking back in time. So when we look 10 billion light-years away (near the current observational limits of our telescopes), we are looking 10 billion years back in time. Scientists say that our universe began in the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago. So we have a built-in limit as to how far our telescopes will ever be able to look. We can never hope to observe anything, say, 16 billion light years away, simply by building more and more powerful telescopes.

Our most powerful telescopes (such as the Hubble Space Telescope) can look almost as far as humans will ever be able to see with telescopes, which is about 13 billion light years. There is no chance at all that by looking a little farther we will be able to see some sign of another universe. As we approach the observational limit of about 13 billion years, we are looking back a little more to the beginning of our own universe. Scientists say that various aspects of the very early universe and the Big Bang (such as what is called the recombination era) act as a barrier that will forever block us from observing all the way back to the time of the universe's birth in the Big Bang.

So there is no hope at all of being able to verify any theory of a varying-constants universe just by looking farther and farther out in space. But some have suggested two other ways in which we might be able to lend credence to a multiverse theory by telescopic observations: (1) by observing strange, unexplained motions of parts of our universe; (2) by finding evidence of previous cycles of our universe.

The first of these involves the idea that we might be able to see that some fraction of our universe is moving around in an unexplained way, possibly because of gravitational influences by some nearby universe. Such an observation is theoretically possible, but would not actually be any observational support for the idea of a multiverse with varying constants. If we observed such an unexplained motion, it would best be explained by postulating new factors and physics within our observed universe. Even if we were to be forced to conclude that our universe is being gravitationally tugged by some other universe, that would at best be support for the idea that our universe has a “sister universe,” rather than the almost infinitely more complicated idea that there are a vast collection of universes. Moreover, such an observation would provide no support for any idea that other universes have a variety of different physical constants.

The same thing can be said about the idea of finding evidence that our universe had previous cycles. If such evidence were found, it might lead us to think that the universe existed before the Big Bang, and that the universe is older than 13 billion years. But such evidence would not give any basis for believing in anything like a varying-constants multiverse. If our universe had previous cycles, there is no reason to think that its fundamental constants such as the proton charge would change from one cycle to the next. Science knows of no mechanism by which the fundamental constants of the universe could change (here I exclude the Hubble constant, a measure of the universe's expansion rate, which is not really a fundamental constant).

Why a Varying-Constants Multiverse Could Not be Verified By Verifying Theories Such as Inflation

Could we ever verify the theory of a varying-constants multiverse by verifying the theory of cosmic inflation, the idea that the universe underwent an exponential expansion during part of its first instant? No. I may first note that the prospect of being able to verify any theory of cosmic inflation is far dimmer than many now think. It is very doubtful that the current technique being pursued (based on looking for b-mode polarization) will ever provide any real verification. There are many sources of b-mode polarization that are not caused by inflation (gravitational lensing, dust, synchrotron radiation, and others), so trying to find a fingerprint of inflation is like trying to extract a DNA sample from a bandage that was passed around and shared by ten different people with bleeding wounds.

But even if scientists were to confirm a theory of cosmic inflation, that would not verify any theory of a varying-constants multiverse. For one thing, while some versions of the inflation theory imagine inflation producing multiple bubbles of space that might be called other universes, we would have no way of knowing whether such other bubbles of space had ever formed, as they would be forever unobservable. More importantly, we would have no license for assuming that such bubbles of space would be universes with fundamental constants that differed from our own. If one universe produced bubbles of space that branched off to become spatially separated from that universe, the most natural assumption is that such “universes” (or, more properly, other regions of the same universe) would have the same fundamental constants as their parent universe, particularly since science knows of no mechanism by which one universe could somehow produce a different universe with different fundamental constants. 

The Impossibility of Verifying a Varying-Constants Multiverse By Launching Exploratory Expeditions

There is still one other technique that might be proposed for verifying the idea of a varying-constants multiverse: the technique of actually launching a mission into another universe. One can imagine some amazing machine that might allow us to travel from our universe to a different universe. In theory, if mankind or its successors were to launch several trips to other universes, and verify that they had different fundamental constants, that might verify the idea of a varying-constants universe.

But there are huge problems with such an idea. The first is that science offers no clue as to how we ever could travel to another universe. The idea seems like pure fantasy, a thousand times more fanciful and extravagant than the farfetched idea of instantly traveling to another star through a space-time wormhole.

The second reason is that if we were somehow to create some machine capable of traveling to another universe, there is no reason to think that it would be capable of traveling back to our universe or sending signals back to our universe (either of which would be necessary for any real verification to occur).

The third reason is that if we were somehow able to create a machine that traveled to another universe, it would still be all but impossible for such a device (or people or robots traveling in it) to verify that the other universe had a set of fundamental constants different from ours. The measurement of our universe's fundamental constants has taken decades of work by scientists around the world. There's no reason to think that a machine transported to another universe would be able to verify that the fundamental constants of that universe were different.

The fourth reason is that if one imagines the scenario of a varying constants universe (many universes, each with random fundamental constants), there would be an overwhelmingly high likelihood (such as 99.999999999%) that any machine transported to such a universe would be instantly destroyed, along with any robots of humans that came along for the ride.

To understand this point, you have to consider the astonishingly high degree of fine-tuning that allows stable matter to exist in our universe. In his book The Symbiotic Universe, astronomer George Greenstein says this about the equality of the proton and electron charges: "Relatively small things like stones, people, and the like would fly apart if the two charges differed by as little as one part in 100 billion.” There are quite a few other cases of fine-tuning required for the existence of stable matter, including fine-tuning of the strong nuclear force.

So if we then imagine a machine being transported to another universe with random physical constants, we have to imagine the machine (and any one inside it) being instantly destroyed as soon as it was transported to another universe. With a 99.9999999% likelihood the coincidences which allow for stable atoms and molecules in our universe would not exist in such a universe. As soon as the machine got over to the other universe, its atoms and molecules would split apart, as the machine would (with overwhelming likelihood) no longer be in a universe which favored the existence of atoms and molecules.

A recruiting poster from 4000 AD ?

Because of these various reasons, we can conclude that there is no substantial possibility that any machine could ever be transported to another universe to help verify the concept of a multiverse consisting of many universes, each with a different set of fundamental constants.

Conclusion

It seems that it is quite impossible to ever verify the theory that there are multiple universes with varying fundamental constants. The theory is neither falsifiable nor verifiable. Consequently, the theory is more of a metaphysical theory than a scientific theory, as all truly scientific theories can be either verified or falsified under some reasonable scenario.  
 

A Scientific Theory is Not Confirmed Merely Because It Seems to Make a Few Correct Predictions

In discussions of scientific theories, it is often argued that this or that result will confirm some scientific theory because such a result was predicted by that theory. But such reasoning is often mistaken. The fact that a theory may seem to make some correct predictions does not necessarily show that the theory is likely to be true.

Below are some of the reasons why this is true.

A theory can be a mixture of true and false assumptions, and correct predictions can be made by the true assumptions.

Theories are often a mixture of correct assumptions and mistaken assumptions. Correct assumptions in a theory may imply certain predictions, which may prove successful. But the theory may still contain incorrect assumptions, which did not imply the predictions that turned out true. The correct predictions only tend to confirm (perhaps to at least some degree) those parts of a theory that implied those correct predictions, not other assumptions that did not imply those predictions.

For example, some people advanced the theory in 2002 that the Bush administration had secretly orchestrated the September 11 attacks, to create a pretext for war because it wanted to invade Iraq. Perhaps some of those people then said in 2003 that their theory was confirmed, because the Bush administration really did invade Iraq in that year. But in this case we have a theory making two assumptions: (1) the assumption that the Bush administration orchestrated the September 11 attacks; (2) the assumption that the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 may tend to confirm the second of these assumptions, but not the first.

So when a particular scientific theory seems to be confirmed by some prediction that eventually matches observations, we need to ask: which parts of the theory tend to predict the prediction that matched observations? Only such parts – if any-- should be considered as having been put (possibly) in a favorable light by the observations.

Multiple theories may make a particular prediction, so a confirmation of the prediction may not really support a particular theory that makes that prediction.

It is not necessarily true that a confirmed prediction tends to show that the theory that predicted it is true, because there may be many other reasonable theories that make the same prediction. For example, let's imagine a person in 2007 arguing that sinister forces on Wall Street were trying to orchestrate a sharp economic downturn, so that they could make lots of money on certain types of stock market bets called puts (which increase in value when a stock goes down). In 2008 (when such an economic downturn occurred) such a person would no doubt say, “Look, we did have a sharp economic downturn; my theory is confirmed.” But such reasoning would be invalid, because the same sharp economic downturn was predicted by various other theories, such as the theory that a housing bubble would produce such an economic downturn, and the theory that too much consumer credit would produce an economic downturn.

It is too easy to selectively present data in a way that makes a theory's predictions look true, either by massaging the “observed data,” by massaging the “predicted data,” or by massaging both, either deliberately or through unrecognized bias.

The favorite device of a theory advocate is a “predicted versus actual” line graph. Here is a very simple example of this type of graph, with the blue line showing predicted results and the red line showing observed results:

This type of graph can be used to try to show that a particular theory is matching observations. But be distrustful when you see such a graph. Why? Because it is easy to cherry-pick either the data used as the “observed data” or the data used as the “predicted data,” or both.

This is particularly true in any case where the data points are not some simple thing (depending on one observation, as in the case above), but instead require some complicated summary of multiple observations. In such cases it is all too easy for a presenter to massage the data in a way that shows a theory in a favorable light. Given a choice of five different ways of showing the “observed results” (each using a different source of data, or a different way of summarizing the data), someone can choose whichever set of “observed results” is most in agreement with his theory.

Another way in which bias can be displayed is by massaging and cherry-picking the “predicted results” shown in a graph such as the one below. Theories often have multiple flavors, which vary because of a choice of parameters that can be used within the theory. In other words, the “predicted results” from a particular theory are often very fuzzy, rather like an electron probability cloud. A presenter can pick particular values within that fuzzy cloud that most closely match the “observed results,” and plot such values as the “predicted values” on a line graph. The result will show the theory in the most favorable light, but may be misleading. For a recent specific example of this type of cherry-picking, see this blog post.

Another way in which bias can be shown in matching observed results with predicted results is simply by choosing the start point and the end point of the data being graphed. For example, if I have a theory that bonds tend to out-perform stocks, I may use a start point of January 1, 2000 and an end point of Dec 1, 2008. That will show a huge advantage for investing in bonds as compared to investing in stocks. But a different start point and end point would tell a very different story. A similar technique can be used to try to show the likelihood of a particular scientific theory. A supporter can choose to graph whatever start point and end point shows the closest match between the theory and observations, even though different start points and end points on the line graph would show a much smaller degree of agreement.

Even if a theory is the only theory that predicts an observed phenomenon, that does not mean the theory is true, because there may be many possible theories not yet imagined that can explain the phenomenon.

One type of reasoning sometimes made is: x is the only theory that predicts the observed phenomenon y, so x must be true. But that does not follow. The human imagination is weak, and our ignorance is enormous. Almost any observed phenomenon can be explained in many different ways, but the puny human imagination may be able to think of only one or two of those ways. Back during the days of the Black Plague, the theory of “God's wrath” may have been the only theory that explained why so many people were dying, but it would have been wrong at that time to assume such a theory was correct on that basis.

With sufficient ingenuity, unbelievable theories can be contrived to make predictions that match observations.

Sometimes it is possible for a theory to make some correct predictions, even though the theory isn't plausible. One of the most famous examples is the Ptolemaic theory, a theory of the solar system. The theory held that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. To make such a theory match observations, the theory included a complex model of planetary motions, in which planets orbited in small orbits called epicycles that were part of much larger orbits. The predictions of the Ptolemaic theory seemed accurate for centuries, but the theory was quite false.

There are modern-day equivalents of the Ptolemaic theory -- theories that are very suspect because of their excessive complexity and contrivance.

 Implausible, contrived scientific theories are like this

 (Source: wikiuniversity, Howard Community College)

Scientific theories are only well-confirmed by predictions when the theories make very many predictions that have been confirmed by observations.

Thinking that a scientific theory has been confirmed because it makes a few correct predictions is like thinking that you've proven you're a great baseball player because you've pounded out a few base hits. You've only proven yourself a great baseball player if you've made hundreds or thousands of hits. Similarly, the only scientific theories that are well-confirmed by predictions are those that have made hundreds, thousands or millions of predictions that have been confirmed.

We have a great example of such a theory: the theory of gravitation. The theory is based on a simple exact formula that you can use to compute the degree to which massive bodies attract each other. Scientists and engineers (and the computers on spacecraft) have used this theory thousands or millions of times, and the predictions made by the theory have always proven true. A robot spacecraft could never reach Mars and land on Mars unless the predictions of the theory of gravitation proved true thousands of times, nor could the Apollo astronauts have landed on the moon and returned.

Another such theory is the theory of electromagnetism. The theory is based on a simple exact formula you can use to compute the attraction between two electrical charges. Scientists and engineers have used the formula thousands or millions of times, and it always gives the right answer.

Compared to these theories, any theory that claims scientific validation because it seems to make a few correct predictions is like some kid who claims to be a professional actor because he acted in a few high-school plays.

According to the standard I mention here, we might have a reason for regarding many well-known scientific theories as being on rather shaky ground, as they do not make a huge number of predictions that have been confirmed. For example, we might regard as a very shaky theory the theory that life first arose on planet Earth merely because of a lucky chance combination of chemicals. Such a theory does not make a huge number of predictions that have been confirmed, and in fact, does not seem to make any prediction that has been confirmed.

More Doubts About BICEP2: The Dubious Part of Their Main Graph

At a time when many cosmic inflation theory fans are jumping the gun and popping champagne corks over Monday's BICEP2 study results, calling it an epic breakthrough, I hate to be a killjoy. I like to join a party as much as the next man. The problem is that I keep finding reasons for doubting the claims made about the study, that it provides evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation. My main reasons were given in this blog post, and some lesser software-related reasons were given in yesterday's blog post. Now I will discuss a very big additional reason for doubting the claims being made about BICEP2, a reason I haven't previously discussed: their main graph has a very dubious feature, a curve that is quite misleading.

The BICEP2 paper has two versions of the graph, one that is logarithmic and another that is not. Below is the non-logarithmic version, which makes it easier to see how the discovered data does not match what is predicted from the theory of cosmic inflation:

In this graph the black dots represent the new BICEP2 observations of b-mode polarization. The vertical lines are error bars representing uncertainty in the data. The bottom dashed line is a prediction of b-mode polarization made by one version of the theory of cosmic inflation (a “wishful thinking” version chosen by the BICEP2 team, as I will explain in a minute). The solid line represents contributions to b-mode polarization projected to occur from gravitational lensing. The upper dashed curved line represents the b-mode polarization that could occur from a combination of gravitational lensing and the version of the inflation theory that was chosen by the BICEP2 team to make their data match inflation theory.

Now the untrained eye can spot a big problem with this graph: the observations do not match what is expected. While the first two black dots match the top dashed line (as does the last black dot), several of the other black dots are way above the top dashed line, in particular and seventh and eighth dots. On this basis, we are entitled to say: inflation theory falls way short.

But here is a very important fact about this graph: the bottom curved hill-shaped dashed line (the supposed contributions from cosmic inflation) is not “the” prediction from the theory of cosmic inflation. It is instead the prediction from a particular version of the inflation theory carefully chosen by the BICEP2 team so that their observational results can be matched to inflation theory. The version in question is one that drastically contradicts conclusions made with a 95% confidence level last year by a much larger team of scientists, using the Planck space observatory.

The “prediction from inflation” that appears as the hill-shaped red dashed line on the above graph all depends on a particular data item called the tensor-to-scalar ratio, which cosmologists represent with the letter r. In a scientific paper co-authored last year by more than 200 scientists, the Planck team concluded with a 95% confidence level that this tensor-scalar ratio is less than .11. But in the graph above the BICEP2 team chose to disregard these findings, and use on their graph an extreme version of the inflation theory in which the tensor-scalar ratio is .2 (200% higher than the maximum value set by the larger group of scientists).

Why would the BICEP2 team have done that? Because it allowed them to produce a graph showing a partial match between their observations and the predictions of a cosmic inflation theory. A triumph of wishful thinking. It's rather like a husband reassuring his wife by showing her a graph in which his projected income rises by 50% for each of the next five years.

But what would the key BICEP2 graph have looked like if they had accepted the limit set by the much larger Planck team? The graph would have looked rather like the graph below, except that the left half of the top red dashed line would have to be dropped way down, and none of the observations would be anywhere near close to matching the predictions from inflation (except for the last one, at a point in the graph where inflation is irrelevant, and all contribution is from gravitational lensing). 
 

The BICEP2 team could have produced a graph like the one above (but with the left half of the top dashed line dropped way down, to equal the green line plus the solid red line). That is exactly what they should have done. They might then have made an announcement like this:

We have some interesting new observations. But we're sorry to report that, respecting the limits set last year by a much larger team of scientists, our observations provide no evidence to back up the theory of cosmic inflation. 
 

Instead, the BICEP2 team chose to put in a bogus red dashed line in their key graph, representing a farfetched, extreme wishful-thinking version of the cosmic inflation theory, one that relies on a version of inflation with a tensor-scalar ratio (r) about twice as high as the maximum allowed value according to the larger Planck team. Rather than candidly showing such a red-dashed line as just one possible version of inflation, they put it on the graph as if it was the only version of inflation. 
 

It was a great way to grab press headlines, but not very honest or candid.

When we use the predictions of inflation using the Planck team's estimate of the upper limit of the tensor-scalar ratio (with a 95% confidence level), corresponding roughly to the green line in the graph above, we are led to think that the BICEP2 team's observations provide no support to a theory of cosmic inflation.

Postscript: This post uses the assumption that smaller values for the tensor-to-scalar ratio (r) cause the "hill" of the inflation prediction to drop much smaller, a point that is clear from looking at this site. 

Best Practices Software and Cowboy Coding

Note: I have revised this post to remove its original references to the programming sins of one particular programmer. I have decided to take mercy on this person, and remove all references to his coding sins. 

Let's look at the difference between two very different types of programming: best practices software and cowboy coding.

Best-practices Software

Best-practices software is software developed according to software industry guidelines for quality. Examples of these best-practices include the items below. There is not always time to follow all of these practices, but the overall quality and maintainability of the code depends on how many of these standards are followed:

1. Each source file contains a comment specifying the type of code in that file.
2. Each method, subroutine or function contains a comment explaining what is done by that method or subroutine. The only exception to this rule is when the name of the method, subroutine, or function leaves no doubt as to exactly what is being done.
3. There is a short description of each argument to any method that takes arguments, except in the case when the name of an argument leaves no doubt as to what that argument is.
4. There are comments explaining the logic in any particularly complicated or hard-to-understand parts of the code.
5. Variables are given names that help to document what they stand for.
6. Good coding practices are followed by each developer.
7. Once the code is finished, it is placed in a version control system. Whenever a source code file is changed, the new version is checked into the version control system, with a comment discussing what changes were made.
8. The code is developed by a team of developers, who can cross-check each others' work.
9. Once the code is written, documentation is written explaining how the code works and how it can be modified.
10. A team of quality assurance experts (known as the QA staff) are finally brought in to rigorously test the code to find any bugs in it.
11. Once the code has been released, a meticulous record is kept of all changes in the code and all reported bugs, along with which of the bugs were fixed.
12. Any known defects or limitations of the code are clearly documented.
13. Each subsequent release of the code is given a new version number, with a description of exactly how the code changed during the latest release.

Practices such as these are followed by mission-critical software, or software on which great amounts of money are riding, or software on which lives depend. For example, if a company were writing software for a nuclear reactor, or software for an expensive space mission, or software for guiding a jetliner, it would tend to follow most or all of these best practices.

However, there is a totally different way of programming that is often used, a quick-and-dirty way of programming. This way of programming is sometimes called cowboy coding.

Cowboy Coding

Cowboy coding is what happens when a single developer produces some code, typically in a quick-and-dirty method. The cowboy coder isn't interested in any quality guidelines that will slow him down. He typically grinds out some software without doing much to document it. He may make no use of version control. He may then release his work without having had anyone check it other than himself. Typically the cowboy coder just kind of says, “It seems to work well when I try it – let me know if you find anything wrong with it.” A typical cowboy coder makes little or no attempt to produce written documentation for his software, and may take no care to document different versions or to document exactly which bugs were fixed. 

 

Now cowboy coding certainly has its place. Lots of programs are not mission critical, and need not be developed using best practices. It would be overkill to follow the best practices listed above when creating some little graphic utility for doing something like allowing a user to add text to an image.

However, it must be noted that cowboy coding is a severe danger if it is used for some critical part of a hugely important scientific study. This is because cowboy coding isn't very reliable. Maybe it does the right thing, and maybe it doesn't. It can be hard for anyone to tell except the original cowboy coder, and probably he doesn't even know. This is no exaggeration. Poorly documented software code is very hard to read, even if you are the original developer. Countless cowboy coders simply don't know whether their cowboy-coded projects work correctly. I've cowboy-coded quite a few little projects, and then when I went back to them much later, I could often hardly figure out any more what exactly they were doing.

The Huge Problem of Cowboy Coding in Scientific Studies

There is a very big problem that modern scientific studies often rely on dubious software solutions that have been cowboy-coded. Modern science involves incredibly high amounts of specialized data processing. Scientists cannot buy off-the-shelf software to handle these specialized needs. This is because each scientific specialty requires its own specific type of software, and the market for such software is so small that few software publishers will cater to it. 

What very often happens is that scientists will often write their own software programs to handle their own specialized needs. Such efforts are often one-man cowboy-coded efforts that do not come anywhere close to meeting the best practices of modern software development.  We have many scientists writing amateurish code that any full-time software developer would be ashamed to put his name on.  But such code might become a critical linchpin in some scientific study that uses up millions of federal dollars. 

We need new standards to minimize this problem. One possibility is to include software professionals as part of the peer review process for scientific studies. There are major scientific studies that are 30% science and 70% data processing. But in the peer review process, only scientists review the study. This makes no sense. Software professionals should be included in the process, to a degree that depends on how much data processing was done by the study.