Are scientists ready to embrace theories devoid of evidence?

Many of today’s leading physicists are pushing for the acceptance of “evidence-independent” cosmological theories, according to a recent op-ed in The New York Times. Authors Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser (both physicists) acknowledge that experimental confirmation is “the very heart of science,” but they also argue that at the frontiers of physics and cosmology, “the situation is not so simple.”

Their first example is a contemporary physics theory known as supersymmetry, upon which string theory is based. Supersymmetry tries to unify the two great—but ultimately incompatible—achievements of modern physics: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory, which together explain much in the physical world except each other and don’t play nice. Supersymmetry accomplishes the detente by theorizing the existence of “partner particles” for every particle already cataloged. It would potentially unlock the mystery of “dark matter.”

After decades of being touted for its mathematical elegance and adored for its explanatory power, supersymmetry was finally ready for experimental verification at Switzerland’s famous particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). While the LHC made some important discoveries, most notably the Higgs boson particle (sometimes called the God particle), scientists found nothing at all to confirm supersymmetry. After many a particle was smashed, crashed, accelerated, and spun, no supersymmetric “partners” could be found—a bitter blow for physicists ready to leap to the next frontier.

In the ashes of disappointment, “the specter of evidence-independent science” arose, according to Gleiser and Frank. They note that while some scientists are prepared to forfeit their pet theory in light of a lack of evidence, others are not. Many will just double down on supersymmetry, conjecturing that we don’t have the technology yet to discover the new particles.

“Implicit in such a maneuver is a philosophical question: How are we to determine whether a theory is true if it cannot be validated experimentally?” Gleiser and Frank ask.

Similar tendencies are at work in the highly fashionable multiverse theory, which posits that our universe is actually just one of many universes (perhaps even an infinite number). Gleiser and Frank admit multiverse theory, “could help solve some deep scientific conundrums about our own universe (such as the so-called fine-tuning problem) but at considerable cost: namely, the additional universes of the multiverse would lie beyond our powers of observation and could never be directly investigated.”

It’s a cheeky bit of work, according to Discovery Institute fellow David Klinghoffer.

“The conundrum, cosmic fine tuning, is a problem for materialists because it points to intelligent design,” Klinghoffer wrote a response to the Times article. “The cost is asserting a scientific idea untethered from the available evidence. For many in the field of physics, the cost is worth it if it seems to dissolve the conundrum.” The fine-tuning problem refers to all the minute factors that must be in place to sustain life on Earth.

Klinghoffer views these machinations in physics as the inevitable by-product of prior compromises in other fields of science: “Biology retains its faith in the unguided Darwinian mechanism, despite mounting evidence against its power to generate complex life forms. Is it any wonder that this insouciance would rub off on neighboring fields, with offices just a floor above or below in the science building. … So we see how the commitment to Darwinian evolution—in defiance of the evidence, adhered to as a defense against theism—has rubbed off, directly, on physicists.”