This post by J. Warner Wallace appeared at his Cold Case Christianity blog. It features 5 reasons why the multiverse hypothesis is not a good explanation for the astonishing degree of fine-tuning we find in the cosmic constants and quantities in the universe that allow complex, embodied intelligent life of any conceivable kind.

Here is the list:

1. This Explanation Lacks Evidential Confirmation
2. This Explanation Requires Fine-Tuning
3. This Explanation Relies on Speculative Notions of Time
4. This Explanation Results in Absurdities Common to “Infinites”
5. This Explanation Acknowledges an “External” Creative Cause

Let’s take a closer look at numbers two and three:

This Explanation Requires Fine-Tuning
If there is a multiverse vacuum capable of such creative activity, it would be reasonable for us to askhow the physics of such an environment could be so fine-tuned to create a life-permitting universe. As Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne observes, any proposed multiverse mechanism “needs to have a certain form rather than innumerable possible other forms, and probably constants too that need fine-tuning in the narrow sense . . . if that diversity of universes is to result.” Theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, when assessing “eternal inflation” models as a source for the multiverse, admits the same problem of fine-tuning: “The problem is, for our theoretical models of inflation to work, the initial state of the universe had to be set up in a very special and highly improbable way. Thus traditional inflation theory resolves one set of issues but creates another—the need for a very special initial state.”

This Explanation Relies on Speculative Notions of Time
Theorists who propose a pre-existing vacuum must account for the nature of time in this setting. All descriptions of this vacuum describe it as temporal (with bubble universes emerging or quantum events occurring over time). But the Standard Cosmological Model indicates time, as we know it,began with our universe. Physicist Alexander Vilenkin describes the dilemma this way: “There is no matter and no space in this very peculiar state. Also, there is no time . . . In the absence of space and matter, time is impossible to define. And yet, the state of ‘nothing’ cannot be identified with absolute nothingness.” Multiverse explanations must provide an account for the temporal nature of the vacuum lying at the core of their theory.

Regarding  Wallace’s first point, here is MIT physicist Alan Lightman talking about the multiverse’s evidential problems in Harper’s Magazine.

He writes:

The… conjecture that there are many other worlds… [T]here is no way they can prove this conjecture. That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.

Sound familiar? Theologians are accustomed to taking some beliefs on faith. Scientists are not. All we can do is hope that the same theories that predict the multiverse also produce many other predictions that we can test here in our own universe. But the other universes themselves will almost certainly remain a conjecture.

It’s not a good explanation of the data, it’s just desperate speculation. Don’t be one of these people that finds a way to believe what you want to believe. Look through the telescope for yourself. Believe what you can see with your own eyes – that’s the right way to get to the truth.