Of course the beef I have with Carroll is that he has trumpeted the triumph of philosophical naturalism as the truth of the matter.
Has he, or is this 'he's a philosophical naturalist' in the same way that I'm an 'anti-theist'?
His own fields of study have stubbornly remained at the hypothesis stage and some scientists wonder if these fields are testable or falsifiable in any case.
I suspect that very few scientific questions are looked at with an eye to 'will they ever be testable?' - most scientists are humble enough to accept that just because something isn't testable yet doesn't mean that it never could be. I'd have a certain sympathy for someone who suggested it couldn't strictly be considered an hypothesis without at least a theoretical means of testing it.
There are two ways to face that criticism that is to announce the conditions under which they would be falsifiable or testable do not exist......or specially plead for a dispensation from the accepted scientific conventions.....as philosophical naturalism pleads for exemption from methodological materialism.....You know that there are debates among people who do really understand.
No, you could make a case that it's perfectly valid to be considering things that might, in the future, be testable science.
Carroll is too close to New Atheism and it's dogmatic assertion that true science can only flow from a firm philosophical naturalist brain to avoid suspicion that he is confusing his philosophy with science.
Too close for whom? I'm not aware of any strong thread of 'science progressing from philosophical naturalism' in any kind of atheism - most atheism, New or otherwise, comes from the fact that religion still hasn't made a case.
There is no doubt he is brilliant and perhaps he is making strides in what would be better described as Natural Philosophy or Cosmological mathematics but it is dogmatic belief that allows acceptance of one unfalsifiable....a multiverse and refusal to accept another one .....God.
Or at least it would be if he weren't saying 'this is how it might be'. If he were saying 'this is how it is', you might have a case.
The King has no clothes.
That would be more of an issue for us if it were our King and not just your straw-man with a crown.
O.
