The Life of the Cosmos
by Lee Smolin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lee SmolinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-03-04
ISBN: 0195126645
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Life of the Cosmos
Book Review: A Scientist's Faith in Naturalsim Run Amuk
Summary: 2 Stars
There is no question that this book is the product of an unbounded thinker of possibilities. Lee Smolin's opening description of the history and current state of theoretical physics is highly understandable and makes a more compelling (albeit unconscious) argument for Intelligent Design theory rather than his one of "Cosmic Natural Selection." What is interesting is professor Smolin's rejection a priori of any answer lying outside the realm of human observation. He then summarily proposes to describe our universe as "naturally selected" to maximize the quantity of black holes; they of course being the "wombs" of new universes with their own black holes, etc. I have to ask, "Why must they create universes; why not leprechauns or fairies, for both of which we have minimally far more observational testimony"? To quote Davies & Brown from their "Ghost in the Atom", the many-worlds interpretation "introduces a preposterous amount of `excess metaphysical baggage' into our description of the physical world." Rudolph Peierls, formerly at Oxford, dismisses such a theory with a simple question: "Since we have no means of seeing or ever communication with the other universes, why invent them?" It is easily more probable to believe that 10 space/time dimensions really do coexist than to buy into a theory composed of: an infinite number of ever expanding (non-colliding?) universes, created by some unknown mechanism, in some unknown space, for some unknown reason. Who says faith is outside the realm of science? If a new theory is truly needed now, this seems an unlikely candidate.
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