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Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldnt play a crucial role in legitimate scientific theories. I argue that the way we evaluate multiverse models is precisely the same as the way we evaluate any other models, on the basis of abduction, Bayesian inference, and empirical success. There is no scientifically respectable way to do cosmology without taking into account different possibilities for what the universe might be like outside our horizon. Multiverse theories are utterly conventionally scientific, even if evaluating them can be difficult in practice.
This paper evaluates some important aspects of the multiverse concept. Firstly, the most realistic opportunity for it which is the spacetime variability of the physical constants and may deliver worlds with different physics, hopefully fulfilling the
The physical processes that determine the properties of our everyday world, and of the wider cosmos, are determined by some key numbers: the constants of micro-physics and the parameters that describe the expanding universe in which we have emerged.
Some scientists take themselves and their work very seriously. However, there are plenty of cases of humour being combined with science. Here I review some examples from the broad fields of physics and astronomy, particularly focusing on practical jo
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a good model. When addressing global properties of the Universe or its