If I am a theist or a multi-theist I'd probably vote for the Big Bang.

I find this interesting because it seems to be the exact opposite to the usual claim that the universal physics constants are "fine tuned" for life.

To consider the concept of "fine tuning" I try to imagine any other Universe with different Physics and Chemistry evolving to produce Life. Wouldn't any intelligent forms think the evolution to briefly bring about their existence seemed fine tuned? Even in this Universe if a lifeform has evolved elsewhere that was not carbon-based but , say, silicon-based assume for a time the Universe was somehow fine tuned to serve them?

It seems to me, being just one of a small population of thinking lifeforms (on the Universal scale) on a tiny little planet where "intelligent beings" began assuming their/our planet was The Only World qualifies as "provincial".

Frankly it reminds me of the old joke about "The Height of Conceit" which is a flea floating down a river on it's back with an erection yelling "Raise the Drawbridge!"

I don't see how one necessarily follows the other.

The various multiverse hypotheses do not contradict the Big Bang theory.

Also, this is unrelated to the rejected plasma cosmology touted by Eric Lerner (which makes no mention of multiverse).

The only thing that "space telescopes" have revealed is: just how blind we still are.

Like it or not, we will never understand that elephant. Nor will we ever actually see it. However, may we never stop trying to look!

Let us also re-remind ourselves that we cannot actually see. From the very first time that Galileo pointed his device at an "empty" area of the sky and found it to be filled with invisible stars, let's always remember that our speculations about the universe are always going to get utterly trashed by the next unexpected discovery.

Let no one arrogantly say, "I've got the answer!" Instead: "Well, another day has passed, and I haven't been proven to be utterly wrong yet!"

For cryin' out loud sundialsvcs, the Body of Human Knowledge is not binary! It isn't a choice between "We know everything" versus "We know nothing". It is a progression and your apparent willingness to dismiss progress as utterly inconsequential serves who? There is a difference between critical skepticism and blanket skepticism. Need anyone remind you of the advances in any subsection of the Body of Knowledge, ie Medicine, Cosmology, Geology, Archaeology, Particle Physics, Computing, etc etc etc in the last hundred years?

Actually, @enorbet, I have no problem with "blanket skepticism" in this case. Every time we point a space telescope in a new direction, we find something else that we cannot explain. We may well find another challenge to long-held beliefs and "theories." We should not be afraid of that. We should instead expect it.

In science, especially in these highly-exotic areas of the discipline such as these where we are all "extremely 'out on a limb,'" we should remain very cognizant of "confirmation bias." Most especially when one theory piles up on the back of another theory, each "confirming" the other. There is actually very, very little that we can actually say that we "know." To me, there's nothing wrong with "throwing a pan full of cold water in our face," every now and then, just to help keep things in perspective.

sundialsvcs, need I remind you that the team who first discovered Dark Energy as an hypothesis (that expansion is accelerating) was fully expecting to measure how much expansion was slowing down instead? That's just one example. It is especially in these areas "on the edge" where nobody serious is emotionally invested in Theory. Scientists of this type are most commonly like children in that they have never lost their childlike curiosity and sense of wonder.

There are many, many cases in science where discovery has been so unexpected that the data was assumed to be in error. Nobel prize winners, Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964 were so convinced the static they were receiving was error they actually, after checking every electronic instrument for calibration, turned their attention to the hon-type antenna and climbed up in it, removed pigeons and scrubbed off years of pigeon poop. Had a handful of Princeton scientists not realized what it likely was because of their experiments, we might have waited decades to discover the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, the earliest visible light.

Scientists don't fear upsets. They live for them.

"Uneducated speculation"?

Do you mean, like, the Theory of Evolution? People forget the 'theory' part!

LOL!

Even educated speculation is many steps below scientific theory in odds of validity. Average Joe definition of theory is basically just speculative imagination, very little substance, if any. Conversely, to qualify as a scientific theory requires rigorous testing on a protracted and grand scale. For example the odds that the events theorized to pinpoint the Higgs Boson are well over 10 million to 1. Gravity is similarly theoretical.

You can count on Evolution being real at least as much as you can count on falling down instead of up. It is extremely important to recognize that the discovery of DNA, something Darwin couldn't have imagined in a fever dream, could have utterly destroyed the scientific theory of Evolution. Instead it massively bolstered Evolution, definmed a fundamental mechanism, which is actually more than we have for Gravity.

Again, the old lay confusion between theories and hypotheses. They are completely different animals! A hypothesis relates to something that may or may not be true but which, if it was, would explain an otherwise anomalous experimental result. Once you have created the hypothesis, you devise experiments to test it by looking for further effects that will only materialise if your hypothesis is true. If you find such effects, your hypothesis is confirmed. And if it keeps getting confirmed, it eventually comes to be regarded as fact.

A theory (in the scientific sense of the word) is an explanation of why the facts are as they are and how they are related to one another. The more different facts a theory can link together, and the more widespread the branches of science from which those facts come, the more powerful and elegant the theory is considered to be. Because theories are explanations and not putative facts, they are never really disproved. Instead what tends to happen is that things pop up that don't fit with current theory (like the mysterious energies emitted by uranium compounds which appeared to affect photographic negatives) and then the theory has to be reworked or in some cases completely replaced.

As far as "Evolution" goes ... I have a hardcover edition of On The Origin of Species and have actually read it(!) cover to cover. Darwin was extremely conscientious – including his selection of the last word of his title. And he was a very good writer, too.

It is easy to observe "species-level evolution" in action, as an innovative mechanism for adaptive change to one's unpredictably-changing environment. The disciplined speculation which follows from this might well lead to new discoveries. But, it is impossible to know. And this is simply understood. Darwin "stays within the lanes" throughout this piece. He knew the audience that he was writing to, and they likewise understood him. Both of them accepted the same rules of engagement.

Where people become confused is when they fail to understand these rules: the idea of "scientific philosophy," or "the philosophy of science." They fail to realize that this is what Darwin simply took for granted that his readers were thoroughly familiar with. He assumed that they implicitly understood the rules of the game: that you pursue a line of reasoning, speculatively, as far as you can take it before encountering an obvious contradiction. None of this was meant to imply that "you were right," as any such conclusion was known to be unobtainable.

Philosophical pursuits allow you to explore an unknown problem-space without dropping the string that leads you back to the mouth of the cave. ("Which is huge!") But it is implicitly understood that they cannot judge it, nor show it to be true nor false.

We see that "man and monkeys" are very similar in many ways, and we can speculate about this, but we can never demonstrate that one "evolved from" the other. We can see that whales have "unexplainable bones" in their bodies, but we cannot demonstrate that they ever walked on land. We will never have the answer – only wonder.

We can't demonstrate that Gravity is a force like Newton thought, or an emergent quality of SpaceTime as Einstein proposes but we surely know we don't fall up and cant throw a tennis ball into orbit by hand. In fact, we know the exact number of Escape Velocity and how to employ the gravity of heavenly bodies to slingshot spacecraft to exact velocities and directions to land on a comet with all bodies moving at amazing, non-intuitive speeds in complex vectors. It's a wee bit more than "only wonder".

Incidentally and a propos to this thread, we calculated the 5 Lagrange points implicated by the gravity bound system of Earth/Sun and spent billions of dollars, and massive man/hours betting JWST would stay in place for many years because of one of those hypothetical points. I'd say we bet with The House.