Trying To Mix Physics and Religion Can Get Embarassing

Letting money from religiously motivated people drive discussions of physics can lead to absurd crazy-talk.

Some people at Rutgers have decided to show what can go wrong when you have the Templeton Foundation funding “philosophy of physics”. They’ve scheduled a two-day Rutgers Mini-Conference on Multiverse, Theodicy, and Fine-Tuning, during which the speakers will consider the following two topics:

• Everettian Quantum Mechanics and Evil

  The problem of evil has been around for a long time: How can an all-powerful and all-good God allow evil of the sorts we see in the world? If the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, though, then there is a lot more evil in the world than what we see. This suggest a second problem of evil: If Everettianism is true, how can an all-powerful and all-good God allow evil of the sort we don’t see?

• A Probability Problem in the Fine-Tuning Argument
  

  According to the fine-tuning argument: (i) the probability of a life-permitting universe, conditional on the non-existence of God, is low; and (ii) the probability of a life-permitting universe, conditional on the existence of God, is high. I demonstrate that these two claims cannot be simultaneously justified.

From Not Even Wrong.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics is another name for the "Many Worlds Interpretation".

The "fine-tuning" argument argues that physical constants in our current version of the laws of the universe which are derived from a variety of other physical constants, must have precise and absurdly "unlikely" values to cancel out and produce the measured values.

Every now and then I consider absurd questions too, like whether unicorn meat would be kosher. But, I don't try to hold legitimate academic mini-conferences discussing the issue.