At 8:06 PM -0400 10/20/03, Levin wrote:

Any theory that contradicts the Anthropic Principle (AP) would also
contradict observations and so could be rejected without any
Principle. So, AP cannot help with selection of theories or
predicting unknown facts.

Fred Hoyle's prediction of a previously unknown resonance in the
[12]C nucleus used an anthropic argument; the resonance was found.
[Hoyle, Dunbar, Wensel and Whaling, _Phys. Rev._ 92, 649 (1953)].

Does this count as "predicting an unknown fact?" I think so.

Bill

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Bill Jefferys wrote in message ...
At 8:06 PM -0400 10/20/03, Levin wrote:

Any theory that contradicts the Anthropic Principle (AP) would also
contradict observations and so could be rejected without any
Principle. So, AP cannot help with selection of theories or
predicting unknown facts.

Fred Hoyle's prediction of a previously unknown resonance in the
[12]C nucleus used an anthropic argument; the resonance was found.
[Hoyle, Dunbar, Wensel and Whaling, _Phys. Rev._ 92, 649 (1953)].

Does this count as "predicting an unknown fact?" I think so.

Of course, but the unknown fact has a deeper cause, not the mere
existence of life as we know it. So yes, this is a legitimate use of
the AP. But the AP is not itself a reason for anything. It can suggets
heuristic approaches, but we should always look for more profound
reasons. So we cannot use it to select a viable solution of
string/M-theory.

i.o.

on 23/10/03 12:02 pm, Bill Jefferys at wrote:

At 8:06 PM -0400 10/20/03, Levin wrote:

Any theory that contradicts the Anthropic Principle (AP) would also
contradict observations and so could be rejected without any
Principle. So, AP cannot help with selection of theories or
predicting unknown facts.

Fred Hoyle's prediction of a previously unknown resonance in the
[12]C nucleus used an anthropic argument; the resonance was found.
[Hoyle, Dunbar, Wensel and Whaling, _Phys. Rev._ 92, 649 (1953)].

Does this count as "predicting an unknown fact?" I think so.

It wasn't an anthropic argument, it was an argument from facts, namely
(IIRC) the existence of the carbon cycle in stars. He wasn't saying there
were multiple universes, only one of which we can observe, but that the one
universe that actually exists has certain properties which can be indirectly
deduced from other properties.

Tim