Reddit mentions of An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

An excellent tribute to a great scholar and public academic. Thanks for posting!

I will point out that the author seems surprised that Gardner's only degree is in philosophy. This isn't so surprising when you realize that Rudolf Carnap was at Chicago in the 30s, and Gardner was one of his students. Carnap was one of the most eminent logicians of the last century, and his work focused almost exclusively on mathematical logic and the analysis of science. Gardner actually edited a revised version of one of Carnap's last books.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

This is by Carnap. Rudolf Carnap.

> They main competing idea for the theory of multiple universes is the Judea/Christian God.

First, according to who? There are a number of other scientific theories - multiple universes are not even one of the most scientifically accepted ones, since as yet it is purely a prediction of some theories, and there's limited evidence for them - although not zero evidence, since the observed behavior of quantum mechanical systems can certainly be interpreted as implying multiple universes.

Second, "the Judea/Christian God" is not a scientific theory, not even remotely. Schroeder's books don't provide such a theory, and nor does anyone else. The reason for that is simply that no-one has figured out how to turn claims about gods into a scientific hypothesis - something that follows from theories that fit our observations of the world.

> Try reading Gerald Schroeder's (a physicist) Genesis and the Big Bang

It sounds to me that you've read this book without much background in science or the scientific method, which makes it difficult for you to put it in context. I suggest reading a bit about the scientific method, the philosophy of science, and epistemology (the study of how we arrive at knowledge). Here's an online intro to philosophy of science - it's a bit dense, but it may give you some idea about the depth of this subject, and the dangers of relying purely on one's intuition, which you reveal when you talk about "proof" the way you have been.

On that note, you might want to investigate philosophy at a more basic level, for example via Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy. If you're willing to spend about $10, Rudolf Carnap's Introduction to Philosophy of Science is quite informal and accessible, and very good.

> Again, I'm not saying that that is any better an explanation than parallel universes just don't try to pretend that there is.

The reason that parallel universes are a better explanation than the non-science of the Judeo-Christian God is simply that they are possible predictions of successful scientific theories. You keep trying to give them the same status, but I've pointed out repeatedly why they're not. You either need to address those points, or concede that you're wrong on this.

One severe weakness of the Judeo-Christian God as a hypothesis is that it fails to be "hard to vary". David Deutsch gave an excellent TED talk on this, about explaining explanation.

The issue in this case is that as an hypothesis, the Judeo/Christian God has many details that seem arbitrary and could be arbitrarily varied - there's not much connection between the hypothesis and the subject it's supposed to explain. For this reason alone, it is unscientific.

One way to understand this is to ask the question I've alluded to a few times, which is why we're talking about one specific god with a certain set of characteristics, as opposed to the infinite alternatives. This is an important point you have yet to address.

If you are looking into philosophy of science, I recommend this as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Philosophy-Science-Rudolf-Carnap/dp/0486283186