It’s not really a new theory actually. This idea is being a round for a while (also in science-fiction).

Funny thing is that we do not actually know for sure that black holes actually exists! More than one cosmologist is now doubting that black holes exist and that are different possible alternatives for the data. After all we can not observe a black hole (if it exists) directly but only through indirect data (gravitational lensing, x-ray jet bursts, etc…)
However I must report that most astronomers believe that black holes exist (but this might change in the future, who knows, BH may exist after all).

In any case the idea that BH might have universe in them is:
1- Not scientific (because it cannot be tested scientifically)
2- Extremely far-fetched. I doubt that most serious astronomers would take this idea in the slightest consideration.

It’s a good idea for a Star Trek episode, perhaps :P

You are absolutely right. David Berlinsky wrote an great book “The Devil’s Delusion” the is must reading for anyone interested in this subject.

Great article Mark!  I have discussed this very same topic with multiple people.  Science in this area has become more reliant upon ‘blind faith’ and un-verifiable supposition, than religion.  I always tell people that, as a Catholic, there are really only four things we accept by faith;  God, The incarnation/Virgin Birth, The Holy Eucharist and Miracle’s. 

Everything else we accept is just history.  Much of Theoretical Physics, especially Cosmological Physics, has so many area’s of theory and supposition now, which cannot and will never be verifiable.  Einstein inherently knew this.  It doesn’t mean we give up and just stop probing these deep and wonderful scientific questions, just as it doesn’t mean that because we cannot Verify God because of his transcendence, that we should stop probing into the depths of his Glory. 

The funny thing is, most minimally educated atheists and agnostics, don’t even realize the quagmire in which theoretical physics has found itself.  Most of this field now consists in very complicated mathematical equations which can never be verified.  It’s the scientific version of ‘how many angels can sit atop a pin head’.  Next time we dialog with them, maybe we should sarcastically ask them, “How many units of Dark Energy can sit atop a pin head?” :) hahahaha

Hi there,

Scientists make hypothesis and then seek to prove/disprove them.  This does not make them materialists, theists, or any other kind of ists except scientists.

Is your faith so weak that you fear the searches of scientists? 

And speaking of history, the Church has a tradition of sometimes persecuting scientists when their findings did not fit with the narrow viewpoint defined by the Church establishment.  And they ended up with egg on their face. 

How does the finding of other universes deny the existence of God?  Perhaps your definition of God needs to be broadened?

You just don’t like the idea because Dr. Colonel Samantha Carter believes it.

In all seriousness, the whole multiverse idea has always seemed to me like gnosticism in overdrive (though let it never be said that gnosticism doesn’t have its appeal on certain days).

If there are an infinitude of multiverses, then we must be living in the one where a man named Jesus happened to be virginally conceived by an omnipotent Being called the Holy Spirit in the womb of a Jewish woman named Mary. This Jesus happened, also, in the universe to be consubstantial with an omnipotent Being called the Father. Just a thought…

Sandra Currie, did you even read the article?  If you did, read it again.  It appears you have essentially projected Mark’s saying that some scientists will at times go to extraordinarily illogical leaps in order to avoid mentioning even the possibility of God back onto Mark.  It’s not Mark’s faith that is weak.  It’s that some scientists are delving into pseudo-science and calling it science.

As someone with degrees in physics and astronomy and who has made his living as a scientist all his life, I have spent most of this life flinching at the “arguments” made by some scientists against religion and how non-scientists who regard science with undue reverence use these same feeble arguments.  Reading some of these replies, you guessed it, made me flinch.
Puh-leese. Mark was commenting intelligently on one of the many speculative (and that is an undeservedly kind word) hypotheses about “multiuniverses” that seems so popular in the press, the movies, and the science fiction books about science.  Sadly, given enough press coverage, enough science fiction books, and enough movies, this pseudo science may soon become “common wisdom”.

Someday, when we die, we will all find out what fools we have been in this life and some very big fools will be eminent scientists.  I will be a fool, too, but it won’t be because of my poor understanding of science and how it fits in the scheme of things.  Good article, Mark.

Sandra Currie - What Mark is usually talking about in these articles is not scientists’ speculations or scientific hypotheses, but the assertion made from time to time on the internet and presumably elsewhere that the existence of the multiverse will disprove Christianity, or any kind of theism.  It won’t, any more than the discovery of the Americas did.

Sandra;
Science is a tool that can be used by theists, atheists and/or materialists.  Materialists can and do use science to promote a materialist agenda.  I believe that is what this article is referring to.  Also, Mr. Shea made the point that St. Thomas had no problem accepting a universe which had a beginning even though he had previously believed the universe was eternal because truth is truth, but some modern materialists who fancy themselves scientists (and who write books saying science cannot prove the existence of God yet maintain this unprovable God is definitely a delusion which poisons everything) have a big problem accepting new findings that do not conform to their atheistic/materialistic/non-scientific agenda.  In that case, then yes, their faith is so weak that they fear the searches of scientists.

Scientists also have a tradition of sometimes persecuting other scientists “when their findings did not fit with the narrow viewpoint defined by the [scientific] establishment.  And they ended up with egg on their face”.  I’m thinking most especially of Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian doctor who insisted that doctors who dissected cadavers and then delivered babies without washing their hands were killing women with “germs” (when at the time every scientist “knew” disease was caused by foul air, not by almost biblical sounding invisible creatures/evil entities).  He was persecuted by the scientific community until he had a nervous breakdown and died in an insane asylum.  Of course, I believe in your post you refer to Galileo who also had trouble with the scientists of his day who was sentenced by the church to house arrest in his villa.

By all means, as Mark Shea concludes, let us USE our intellects, rather than worship them.
A caution about the “great Cue Ball of Creation” metaphor, at least if it is taken to apply to God’s creative activity: taken in this way, it seems inevitably to suggest a First Cause in the sense of TEMPORAL priority, rather than—as Aquinas has it—ontological priority or priority in being.
At the risk of offending Mr. Archbold and his readers (see the other column on today’s page), I will mention a book of my own that bears on these matters: Understanding Our Being (The Catholic University of America Press, 2008).  In that book I approach the question of God by way of the philosophy of nature (related to, but independent in its basic concepts from, modern empirical science), and then metaphysics.  Thus the reader receives, following the tradition of Aquinas, an explicitly philosophical approach, but also one that is in contact with contemporary (including contemporary scientific) culture.

its funny that you write about this today, I just started Antony Flew’s “There is a God” and he talks about this a little.  Good book buy the way.

I do not doubt the impact of scientism in some of the more obvious cases of scientists-behaving-badly we see today.  The phenomenon described certainly happens. 

But I believe Mark overlooks a mundane artifact of the scientific community that is the 500 lb gorilla here, driving most of such crazy theorizing.  In cosmology, there is absolutely no negative consequences to proposing something which sounds outlandish and which eventually gets empirically pulverized.  But the potential gains are huge: Your name will get associated with a theory which is taught in textbooks for the foreseeable future.  This is decidedly not true in some other scientifica disciplines.  So let’s not underestimate the attraction of getting to say “I thought of that first” way down the line.

I think we all search for answers because it gives us a sense of control, but I think we will eventually realize that we absolutely know nothing about the creation of the universe and or God. We do not have the intellectual ability to understand. We need faith more then knowledge.

Those who claim to know, really do not.  Scientists feel the need to know so they clone, and abort and have theories, all to have control over something they just don’t, and never will understand.
But I guess their ego needs the feel of power.

I fell the most intelligent statement is we really don’t know that much.

Sorry about the last line above, meant to say: I feel the most intelligent statement I could make is that I really don’t know a whole lot about the universe as fact, but with faith we can understand that we are not supposed to.

Wait… so the entire universe could be just one cell in agiant being’s fingernail. WOW… so then, one cell in my fingernail could be a whole UNIVERSE!

Sandra Currie on Monday, Aug 9, 2010 1:05 PM (EST):
speaking of history, the Church has a tradition of sometimes persecuting scientists when their findings did not fit with the narrow viewpoint defined by the Church establishment. 

A tradition?  Really?  Name three such scientists. 

(Proviso: their findings must misfit with actual Church doctrine, rather than with the “settled, consensus science.”)

I first came across the idea of the multiverse thanks to DC Comics back in the 1970’s.  It is how the comic book company explained the discontinuities in its comic book characters over time (e.g., why the 1940’s version of The Flash was different from the 1970’s version).  By the time the 1980’s rolled around, the company decided to get rid of the multiverse idea—so it had a whole series of comic books called Crisis on Infinite Earths which ended with the multiverse collapsing into a single universe.  At that point, I was done with comic books as part of the natural aging process.  Glad to see that physicists have picked up where DC comics left off!

I agree the multiverse, though compelling, is not supported by a shred of evidence beyond speculation.  Maybe there is a multiverse.  Maybe not.  However, we probably need to apply the demand for evidence evenly across the spectrum of knowledge.  A believer might say the universe appears designed and finely-tuned; therefore, it was created.  But this isn’t supported by a shred of evidence either (beyond speculation).  Maybe there is a God.  Maybe not.  Now, we’re talking about two different things (the multiverse and God); however, the same rules should apply to evaluating both claims.  Since when does the scientist’s “speculation” become the believer’s “faith”?  By the way, Mark, I also remember the Crisis on Infinite Earths (and Marvel’s “Secret Wars”).  You brought back a flood of memories about my geeky adolescence.  I’ve since moved on to more adult science fiction (and tons of non-fiction); but my inner-geek is alive and well!  It’s a good think my wife likes nerds…

However, we probably need to apply the demand for evidence evenly across the spectrum of knowledge. 

No, because the kinds of evidence differ among the three rungs of knowledge: [natural] science, mathematics, and metaphysics. 

What evidence is there, for example, that an objective world exists outside my mind?  Every possible bit of “scientific” evidence presupposes the existence of such a world.  What sort of scientific evidence is there to support the claim that a conjoining and splitting topology on a functions space is minimally conjoining and maximally splitting? 

Metaphysics is hard, and its proofs are more like mathematical proofs than they are like physical proofs. 

A believer might say the universe appears designed and finely-tuned; therefore, it was created. 

That’s a modern, post-scientific error.  A believer might also argue from the existence of motion in the world, or of efficient causes, or of order, or of telos.

YOS; [natural] science is based on a process or observation, measurement and repeated verification.  Mathematics is a tool used to quantify that science.  Both are intimately linked and take much of the same approach to information.  I would argue that mathematics is not so much a separate “rung” of knowledge than a methodology used to describe that knowledge.  You may disagree.  Metaphysics, on the other hand, can be anything from astrology to crystal power.  It’s totally subjective and cannot be independently verified in any meaningful way.  Yes, there are divisions in science, but there is also overwhelming consensus based on the weight of accumulated evidence.  The scientific method provides a roadmap for acquiring and evaluating knowledge, so today’s divisions become tomorrow’s proven facts.  This has been the case throughout scientific history, and it will continue well into the future provided we don’t wipe ourselves out.  Metaphysics, on the other hand, has no comparable roadmap.  It often amounts to someone claiming special knowledge without the burden of having to back it up with evidence.  You include it as one of the “rungs” of knowledge; an apparent ordinal progression that goes from the natural/physical to the mathematical and, then, to the transcendent and metaphysical.  I think this is an artificial construct meant to elevate metaphysics above objective reality for the purpose of exempting it from reasonable scrutiny.  And YOS, I never claimed that there was “scientific evidence to support the claim that a conjoining and splitting topology on a functions space, minimally conjoining and maximally splitting.”  Didn’t you read my post?  I agreed there was no evidence to support this.  I merely argued that the same demand for evidence (of the multiverse) should be applied claims about God.  Again, your argument to the contrary is just an attempt to exempt your beliefs from reasonable scrutiny.  By the way, how do we know these scientists weren’t divinely inspired with knowledge of the multiverse?  Or, for that matter, how do we know the multiverse is incompatible with the existence of God?  But the big question is: why demand evidence for one claim and not for another (aside from the arbitrary, artificial, and totally unconvincing reasons you cited)?  That was my whole point.  And, yes, I realize there are many reasons people give for believing.  But the ones you mentioned (the existence of motion in the world, or of efficient causes, or of order, or of telos, etc.) all go back to the same basic assumption; that the universe appears designed and finely-tuned; therefore, it was created.  I agree metaphysics is hard; but please explain how metaphysical proofs are in any way similar to mathematical proofs.  I’m not challenging you sarcastically.  I’m genuinely intrigued.  This is a new idea for me, and I’m interested in where it goes…

An asian american physicist once said that we are like fish in a pond. We see the surface but dont know why that sometimes it becomes disturbed and sometimes the lotus leafs move around.The fish have scientists that speculate and come up with things and these ideas become sort of the accepted norm. But one day a fish near the surface is scooped up by a boy.

The fish takes a good look around. Then he is dropped back in. The fish tells everyone what he saw. There is a whole world up there.There are giant beings with long arms and hands, giant buildings, wind that moves the lotus leafs, water falls from the sky and disturbs the waters in the pond. Well, the scientific fish dont believe any of it. The pond is the universe.

[natural] science is based on a process or observation, measurement and repeated verification.
.
So are many things.  Is a police detective a scientist? 
#
Mathematics is a tool used to quantify that science.
.
No.  It is more than that. 
#
Both ... take much of the same approach to information.
.
They do not. 
Physics [broad sense] studies the abstracted qualities of physical bodies and proceeds by **induction** from the observations to the theory. 
Mathematics studies the abstracted qualities of ideal bodies and proceeds by **deduction** from a priori axioms.
.
I would argue that mathematics is not so much a separate “rung” of knowledge than a methodology used to describe that knowledge.  You may disagree.

Yes, I do disagree.  My masters degree is in mathematics.  Very little of what I did in grad school was “describing” the knowledge of natural science. 
.
Mathematics is useful to physics (though not to Darwin, whose theory was in no way mathematical [so was it ipso facto not scientific?]).  But math is also useful in land surveying, book-keeping, accounting, baseball, carpentry, engineering, etc.  The that does not make math a branch of surveying. 
.
Math is pursued for its own sake, not because physicists since Descartes have wanted to use for their own sake.  (Descartes believed that if the physics could be expressed in math, physical theory could be proven as absolutely as mathematical theorems.  Haha.  No, really. He did.)  After all, natural science is useful in making televisions, but that does not make physics a branch of TV manufacturing. 
#
Metaphysics, on the other hand, can be anything from astrology to crystal power.  It’s totally subjective and cannot be independently verified in any meaningful way. 
.
No.  And No.  Astrology was a science.  (It even used lots of math.)  The locations of the planets relative to the Zodiac were not subjective. The theory that the planetary stars were the gods was just as scientific (by your previous reasoning) as the modern reasoning. 
.
Crystal power is not metaphysics.  It involves crystals, which are physical bodies, and their alleged powers - which are supposed entirely natural—They are the hidden (unknown) powers of a material body.  It may be bad science; but it is not metaphysics at all. 
.
Nor is metaphysics “subjective.”  Of course, the Scientists redefined reality such that color, sound, taste, pain, etc. were subjective, mainly because their new methodologies and goal [domination of nature] required them to focus on those aspects of nature which are metrical and controllable; but that does not make non-metrical properties less real. 
#
I never claimed that there was “scientific evidence to support the claim that a conjoining and splitting topology on a functions space, minimally conjoining and maximally splitting.”  ....  I merely argued that the same demand for evidence (of the multiverse) should be applied claims about God.
.
You wrote: we probably need to apply the demand for evidence evenly **across the spectrum** of knowledge.  The spectrum of knowledge includes mathematics.  Mathematical theorems are not proven by “evidence.”  I simply presented an example.  If you prefer: No amount of scientific measurement of actual diameters and circumferences of round objects will ever produce an irrational number like pi.  Likewise, the methods of science have no bearing on the knowledge of music, or justice, or beauty.  So why should the methods of science have bearing on any other metaphysical or mathematical body? 
#
the ones you mentioned (the existence of motion in the world, or of efficient causes, or of order, or of telos, etc.) all go back to the same basic assumption; that the universe appears designed and finely-tuned; therefore, it was created. 
.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the arguments.  The argument from telos is not that the world “appears designed” or is “finely tuned.”  It is that nature is ordered to ends; i.e., that there are natural laws.  From this, one deduces various conclusions.  (IOW, Darwin’s Laws, to the extent that they are scientific laws at all and not metaphysics, provide mild support for the existence of God; whereas low probability apparent exceptions [like fine tuning] would not. 
#
please explain how metaphysical proofs are in any way similar to mathematical proofs. 
.
Physical science proceeds =inductively= from facts about physical bodies to physical theories.
Mathematics proceeds =deductively= from axioms about ideal bodies to theorems. 
Metaphysics proceeds =deductively= from facts about the world to metaphysical conclusions.  It studies being as such. 
.
Thus, while physics observes motion in the world and tries to induce theories of how physical motion acts (e.g., s=0.5at^2), metaphysics starts with the motion and deduces the logical consequences to explain why there is motion at all. 
.
The “multiverse” [sic] is supposed a physical being [if it exists] and therefore falls under the rules for physical measurement and test.  “God” is supposed a non-physical being and therefor falls under the rules for metaphysical reasoning.
#
how do we know the multiverse is incompatible with the existence of God?
.
It isn’t.
#
The scientific method provides a roadmap for acquiring and evaluating knowledge
.
Of a certain kind.  It cannot evaluate justice, beauty, music, etc., all of which are non-metrical. 
#
Metaphysics, on the other hand, ... amounts to someone claiming special knowledge without the burden of having to back it up with evidence.
.
No.  See http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.html
#
I think this [the “rungs” of knowledge] is an artificial construct meant to elevate metaphysics above objective reality for the purpose of exempting it from reasonable scrutiny.
.
But it is not exempt from reasonable scrutiny.  See the _Summa theologica._ Nor was Aristotle being artificial, except in the root meaning of artificial.  Nor is “objective reality” the only aspect of reality.  Red is just as real as length.  Pain is just as real as location. 
#
how do we know these scientists weren’t divinely inspired with knowledge of the multiverse?
.
The medieval Christians believed that God had revealed himself in two books: the Bible [with the Holy Traditions] and the “Book of Nature.”  However, the Book of Nature was read with the methods of natural philosophy.  That which is thought divinely inspired in the Bible is not the dynastic history of the House of David or the apparent shape of the Earth, but rather transcendent truths regarding moral and ethical behavior, the nature of God, and so forth: matters not readily found in the “other book,” of Nature. 
.
For example, Aquinas believed that special revelation was needed to establish that the world [space-time continuum] had a temporal beginning (Summa PtI,Q46).  He did not think this could be established in philosophy and had to be taken on faith from the Bible: “In the beginning, God created…”  (Of course, turned out he was wrong.  But he lived long before physics demonstrated a beginning for space-time in the Big Bang theory.)  But you will note that it is a mundane truth about physical matter.

I’ll begin by saying that the scientific method is an approach to gaining and evaluating knowledge. 
.
Of certain kinds of knowledge; viz., regarding metrical aspects of physical bodies.  It can tell us about bouncing photons, but not about “red” (which is subjective).  It can tell us about compression waves and vibrating strings, but not about The Waldstein Sonata. 
#
while mathematics is a separate field, I guarantee that it is also an important tool of the natural scientist. 
.
The privileging of math as the discourse of science was one of the six elements of the Scientific Revolution.  It began in the middle ages, however.
#
Modern evolutionary biology relies heavily on quantitative methodologies. 
.
The science of genetics uses a lot of math.  (The aptness of statistics as a surrogate for mathematics is an interesting problem, but to the side.)  So does biochemistry and biophysics.  But how exactly do you measure “fitness” or even “reproductive success”? 
#
If I understand correctly, metaphysics starts with the phenomenon in question and deduces logical consequences to explain why it exists.  OK.  But there’s at least one step missing.  First, we can deduce multiple possible causes of any given phenomenon (at least, I can); some ridiculous, others more reasonable. 
.
Almost there: science searches for the efficient cause of motion; metaphysics deduces the logical implications of motion.  In a sense, they proceed in two different directions: one back up the causal tree, the other down the implications.
#
It’s very easy to build self-contained and internally consistent explanations of things.  It’s quite another to subject those presumed explanations to real scrutiny outside of ourselves. 
.
Test of proposition: mathematics is a self-contained and internally consistent explanation of things.  Do we need to subject mathematical objects to “real scrutiny outside of ourselves”?  And if not mathematical objects, then why metaphysical objects? 
#
I’m sure glad we don’t make medicine or try criminals using metaphysical reasoning.  We used to, and it was called the Dark Ages. 
.
The periods from AD 500-800 and from 900-1000 are called the Dark Ages because so much of its documentation was destroyed by Saracen, viking, and Magyar marauders.  It is dark to us.  That doesn’t mean that the grandchildren of Romans and Greeks suddenly became stupid.  It is likely our postmodern age will be seen 2000 years from now as a dark age because our electronic documentation will have degraded and become unreadable, and most of our acidized paper will have oxidized. 
.
When do you believe that criminals [sic] were tried using metaphysical reasoning?  When was medicine practiced by metaphysical reasoning?  Can you cite some empirical evidence?  [You know, like objective, sciencey stuff?] 
#
metaphysics ... comes down to two things:  (1) claiming special knowledge without having to back it up and (2) saying “something exists, therefore it was created…”.
.
What special knowledge did Aristotle claim in writing the Metaphhysics?  Who ever claimed “something exists, therefore it was created”?  Cite specific arguments by specific individuals.  Or does the demand for objective proof only apply to certain propositions? 
.
I could try to lay out my understanding of one metaphysical argument, should you have the patience.  But I am not a professional. 
.
Metaphysics (and philosophy in general) is harder than calculus or other advanced sciences, and one of the most profound reasons for this is because people very easily think they understand things that they do not. People are far less able to look at difficult equations and think they understand what is going on than they are able to look at the words of the first way and think they know exactly what is going on after a first read.—James Chastek
http://thomism.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/coynes-claim-to-miss-no-subtleties-in-st-thomass-arguments/
#
the scientific method begins with an OBSERVATION (of phenomenon) and deduces possible causes.  This is called a HYPOTHESIS.  At this point it’s still a lot like your metaphysics. 
.
It is not at all like metaphysics.  Metaphysics does not propose hypotheses to explain observations.  It takes observations and deduces conclusions from them, going in an entirely different logical direction.  Aquinas’ famous ‘first way’ is called ‘the proof from motion.’  It is not a theory of motion; not an hypothesis seeking to explain local motion.

The progression from observation to hypothesis to theory to law is a little mixed up, at least on the positivist paradigm.  It works like this:
LAYER 1: bservation and sensory experiences.  (The term “fact” is a participle of a verb: factum est, “that which has the property of having been made.”  It is a “made” observation.)  Science restricts itself to metrical observations, so there is an additional layer of icing: the measured fact.  The measurement is not however the physical reality: different measurement procedures of the same thing will yield different facts.
LAYER 2: Natural laws, expressed preferentially in the language of mathematics; like s=0.5at^2 or Maxwell’s equations etc.  These describe regularities in the observations, what the medievals called “the common course of nature.” 
LAYER 3: Physical theory, which are narratives that “make sense” out of the observations and from which the natural laws may be deduced and the facts be predicted.  One may of course predict additional facts, and find them borne out.  But this is the fallacy of asserting the consequent.  Carnap tried to salvage induction, but Popper assailed and demolished the positivist paradigm.  A physical theory can be in principle falsified.  Facts and laws cannot be.  The instrumentalists like Poincare, Mach, Duhem, and others regarded physical theory as no more than a convenient and compact way to remember the facts and laws; but they were neither true nor false, only useful or not.  Duhem’s essay on the nature of physical theory is interesting in this regard; esp. his description of an experiment whose results would prove an hypothesis to one scientist but disprove the same hypothesis to another scientist, depending on whether they accepted Laplace’s concept of pressure or Lagrange’s concept of pressure.

Lots of big talk here. Most of it i cant follow a train of thought.Where is heaven? Its a real place. How come scientists cant find it? Big scientific words arent helping out.God says he can span the heavens. A span is the distance from the end of thumb to the end of little finger when spread out.

Either god is big or the universe is small, compared to the size of god, or both. No one has mentioned the Kobe experiment. Does anyone know what they found out there? Well, ill tell you. They found black body radiation. Does anybody know what that means? Well, ill tell you. It means the universe is inside of a closed container.

The new Jerusalem is waiting in heaven to be put down here. Its a physical place. So where is it? Heaven must be another dimention. A place where there are physical things. The Ark is there. God took that to heaven, to another dimention. So, there MUST be other dimentions than just heaven and the universe.

And no, a black hole doesnt lead to another universe like in the movies. Black holes leads to sudden death. Your body is taken apart atom by atom and stuck to the objects surface. Not a very glorious way to die. I was suckered in going to see Event Horizon yrs ago.A movie for those who dont know. I walked out cause it was boring and stupid. The event horizon is the last place we can see an object befor its sucked into the black hole.

@James George
You misunderstood Chastek.  He wasn’t talking about special knowledge in the sense of revelation or gnosis, but simply about knowing the language and methods of a science before one claims to rebut it.  If all you mean is being savvy to the lingo, then all fields require special knowledge. 
.
You also continue to apply the Baconian paradigm to things that are not natural science.  “Hypothesis” doesn’t really fit except in an analogous sense.  But if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. 
.
That Aristotle was a student of Plato does not mean he accepted Plato’s concept of the forms or even very much of Platonism.  Aristotelian formal causes are very different from Plato’s - and don’t think that even Plato’s formalism can be dismissed so easily.  Parmenides is our mutual enemy, and both Platonic realism and Aristotelian realism are in opposition to Parmenides. 
.
The empirical tradition began with Aristotle, who famously said that all knowledge begins with sense experience.  You seem to think it ends there, too.  All reasoning begins with that which is better known but less understood and proceeds to that which is less well known but which is better understanding.  For example, Aristotle begins his discussion of knowledge with a discussion of eating. 
.
When you say that Science “proceeds from cause to effect to consequence and back to cause” you are describing the process of “composition and reduction” formulated by Robert Grosseteste, Rector of Oxford and Bishop of Lincoln, called by some the grandfather of the scientific method.  Except that Grosseteste proceeded from empirical phenomena to causes and then from causes to effects.  Galileo called this the “demonstrative regress.” 
.
When you say you “take a wholly empirical and objective approach to reality” you mean “to material reality.”  No science can demonstrate its own axioms, however, so your approach cannot be all-encompassing even of its own domain.  And outside its domain… What is the wholly empirical and objective approach to redness or beauty or justice or truth? 
#
Metaphysics and philosophy, on the other hand, don’t necessarily have any real world counterpart.  And while they are derived from a process of deductive reasoning, they are nonetheless qualitative and subjective.
.
But what makes you think that the “qualitative and subjective” are not part of the real world?  Color is real.  Beauty is real.  Truth is real.
#
your previous posts seems to indicate that you think metaphysics and philosophy somehow trumps empirical evidence 
.
Nope.  There is only one truth.  (Although that’s a Christian belief.)  So what nature, math, or metaphysics reveals cannot be in contradiction.  Metaphysics trumps natural philosophy only in the sense that it is prior in logic: that is, it deals with matters which natural philosophy must take for granted.  (For example, that an empirical universe exists cannot be proven empirically.) 
#
Plato trusted the “eye of the mind” to deduce the true nature of the shadows.  An empiricist would turn around and say ‘Hey, we’re in a cave.  A fire is casting our shadows on the wall.  Let’s get out of here.”  Plato (apparently) distrusted that.
.
No, it was called The Allegory of the Cave because it was a, you know, allegory.  That is, a story used to illustrate a deeper concept.  It was not a real cave with real shadows, and if it was not real, how does empiricism enter the picture? 
#
This fundamental aversion to actual observation is why medieval doctors trusted astrology and sought to balance humours. 
.
Do you have evidence that medieval doctors trusted astrology?  Or that astrology was supposed to be anything more than the best science of the time?  Perhaps it was the gravitational attractions of the planets.  It was certainly not metaphysics and was contrary to religion.  Certainly Augustine denounced it; and Oresme in the 14th century worked up a mathematical proof against it, inventing fractional exponents in the process.  Likewise, Galen’s theory of humours came from ancient Greek science, not from metaphysics.  If you are claiming that science has often been wrong in the past, I take no issue. 

And this same aversion to empirical evidence clouded the legal process.  It had to. 
.
All I asked for was empirical evidence of what actually was, not quasi-metaphysical speculations about what “had to” be.  A good source is Toby Huff’s book, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West, which includes a consideration of medicine and law as well as science. 
#
I still say there is no good reason why claims about the multiverse should demand evidence while the existence of God does not. 
.
But they differ in the kinds of evidences that are pertinent. 
There is a sketch of one proof on the Web, here:
http://m-francis.livejournal.com/135327.html#cutid1
You have to scroll down to find it.  It is only a sketch.

Thinking themselves wise, they became fools

Hi James, thanks for the Kobe update. I looked online and cant find anything but a paragraph or two about it. My guess, and its probably a good guess, is, that the Kobe people retracted their blackbody finding because they were getting flack from the science fish. Its happened befor and it will happen again. Pauli was a science fish. He did more to stifle science than he did to further it. He shot down everyones new ideas, and lots of them backed down and didnt persue because of Paulis big standing in the fish pond. Creation is inside a box. I always figured as much.

Are you saying these thremal imbalances stay imbalanced? I dont need to remind you of the laws of thermodynamics. This whole earth when taken as a whole is in equilibrium.The whole of the universe taken as a whole is in equilibrium. Nothing added, nothing taken away. So there a cold spot and a hot spot, so what? Everything, all matter is conserved, in one state or another. Unless i was absent one day from science class when they said matter isnt conserved.

Yes , thanks loads friend

I think it was Forrest Gump who best summarized my feelings at this point when he said: “Is it Mama, or Lt. Dan? I don’t know. . . “