This article is peculiar. Its author spends the majority of his time confirming that our universe is, in fact, extremely fine-tuned (as a matter of fact, the precision of its life-supporting physical laws is orders of magnitude greater than the total number of atoms in the universe), but then proposes in the last several paragraphs a supposed alternative to God called the "multiverse"--and fails to demonstrate in any way WHY this belief is legitimate or empirically supported.
Here is the first major problem with your article... first you say:
"the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing"
And then you contradict yourself by suggesting:
"That multiverse idea is not a notion invented to account for the miracle of fine tuning."
...So which is it, Mr. Hawking? Did our universe spontaneously come into existence out of nothing? Or was our universe born when membranes collided in higher dimensional space? You see, you are being disingenuous to your readers who are less knowledgeable on this subject. You are not REALLY arguing that our universe was produced from nothing. You are arguing that interactions in higher dimensional space produced our universe. It's a clever deception, but nonetheless foolish.
I should also point out that your choice of the word "theories" in regards to what you perceive as "evidence" for Super-String Theory is inaccurate. Whether it be M-Theory or 26-dimensions, both HYPOTHESES were tested and riddled with holes. Neither hypothesis succeeded in becoming the "Theory of Everything". It is true that parts of the equations bridged some of the gap between the macro and the micro, but other hypotheses have done the same. The test is not whether it can answer SOME of our questions, the test is whether it can TRULY and flawlessly bridge General Relativity and Quantum Theory.
Additionally, the cutting edge of quantum mechanics tells us rather plainly that quantum events don't REALLY come from nothing, there is a lot more involved than you and your readers might think.
Whereas you argue that because the probability of our universe supporting life is infinitesimally small, we can simply propose a near infinite amount of universes to solve the problem--there is a much simpler explanation: God. He is self-existent and all-powerful. There is no simpler explanation than God. Occam's Razor.
Now, let's suppose for a minute that your "multiverse" hypothesis is correct. Choose 11 dimensions or 26 dimensions, the number doesn't matter for this exercise... what your are proposing is a finite number of dimensions. You are also proposing, much to your readers' surprise, that there is a single all-encompassing dimension (the 11th dimension in M-Theory). Oddly enough, two or three of the necessary attributes of this "all-encompassing dimension" is that it is: 1) eternal and outside time, 2) omnipresent within and around the lesser dimensions, and 3) self-existent. The theory also infers that the highest dimension has: 1) an infinite, unlimited source of power and energy to create lesser universes (omnipotence), and 2) an infinite, unlimited source of knowledge and information potential to explain the information contained in each universe...
What you've basically done, Mr. Hawking, is change God's Name to "multiverse". Its attributes aren't really any different from God's. What you've also done is revealed your hand--even the "great" philosopher and scientist, the world-renowned Stephen Hawking, cannot escape the fact that a self-existent something MUST exist that is infinite, eternal, transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
Amazingly well done Mr. Ray!
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