Or can you?

@12344:

Actually, this further weakens the ID stance. It shows that there are a range of "values" through out the universe. Eventually, those values would end up being just right at some time and place for life to be possible. It simply comes down to the vastness of the universe and probability. If you flip a coin constantly for a billion years, you will eventually 1,000,000 heads in a row.

As soon as we discovered we were 'missing' 95% of the matter and energy of the universe I think we have been preparing ourselves for the inevitable - that the 'laws' of physics are but crude assumptions of a primitive species... though one clearly with potential.

Wow. Who needs Lorentz invariance?

On top of this, some Perdue researchers are claiming that they have found changes in the rate of radioactive decay that match solar activity -- the working hypothesis is that a larger solar neutrino flux *slows* the rate of decay.

Their quote is "So, what we're suggesting is that something that can't interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."

Physics still has plenty of surprises in store.

Arent't we sad to realize how many things we would find out if we just could keep living?

The late 19th century comes to mind - a period when experimenters were discovering all kinds of "crazy unexplained" phenomena which forced theorists to reevaluate. Michaelson-Morley, the photo-electric effect, black-body radiation - all led in the end to Quantum Mechanics and to Relativity.

It would be fascinating if red shifts, dark matter, and fine structure variation - resulted in a similar paradigm shift in the 21st century.

@Dogsi and @12344

This is neither evidence for or against ID. In fact evidence for or against ID does not exist. The difference between the "it happened" school of thought and the ID school of thought is that one assumes that a designer created a universe and the other assumes that a designer did not. Neither of these assumptions are provable. Debate is utterly futile.

@Dogsi - actually it would take far longer than a mere billion years. Probability of getting 1 million consecutive heads would = 0.5^1,000,000 - which is a tiny number. I have seen an estimate of the time it would take to achieve this and they put it 10^249,988 years whilst a billion years would just be 10^9...

I wouldn't want to be the lab rat stuck with this testing.

Interesting read yes. The current theoretical physics framework, in so far as it attempts to explain every single detail that the universe throws at us, is beginning to look increasingly like a futile endeavour.

This may just be a desperate scientist's plea, but a discrepancy of this kind, so fundamental to our understanding, only points to us having, ironically, worked with a non-fundamental set of laws. Because laws which change from one place to another simply aren't laws of the universe. Strong recommendation to physicists: get yourself huger and better brains.
IMO we, as a species can be said to have found a final physical theory, only when such a set is found as does not change throughout the universe, and which takes into account the universe's origin. Verdict based on current article: We are a long long way away, and we are stumbling and fumbling as we try and get there.

@12344, can't let your comment go by without a refutation so here goes: Yet another display of the misunderstanding typical of the ID proponent, failing to see the anthropic principle, failing to separate cause from effect.

Sigh, I rather miss Scotty, even if he was Canadian...

The article just points to (rather obvious fact) that current science is a very very limited lens observing the universe. I expect that many more wonderful discoveries await.

Yet again the perfect balance of the parameters needed to support life show the hand of a designer. Once might be chance but this is not the only such value needed to make Earth such a wonderful place for living organisms.

I knew it!!!

The definition of the fine-structure constant given is only true in the cgs system. In general the fine-structure constant is the square of the charge of an electron divided by two times the permittivity of free space times the Planck constant times the speed of light. In the cgs system four pi times the permittivity of free space is defined as 1.

This research does nothing to determine the existence of God. The comments section proves that the ID people will latch onto anything and everything as evidence. Why? Because they believe in god, that's why. In fact, all scientific research produces another question, or, more likely, many questions.

It is not possible to prove the existence or non-existence of God. We have determined the origin of the universe to be the big bang. So what came before that? Did God create it? What came before God? Endlessly.

MY question is this. If there is a God, does he care or involve himself in the affairs of our tiny little planet. Obviously not, unless he is a sadist. For my proof, I do not need to look to the far reaches of the universe. I look at the broken lives of blameless little children all over the world.

Science continually proves that all we see is a result of the arbitrary forces of nature. Religion is just a fancy name for superstition.

@ Bryan Goh

I wouldn't call a quasar minutiae, nor looking out 9 billion years in each direction

Perhaps we approach the study of our universe the wrong way? I am not usually a proponent of religion, but what if God, or some Grand Architect decreed that the universe should behave at the macro level in a certain way, namely, the way we observe objects behave at the macro level. At the micro level, God has not decreed anything, so that it organizes itself however it has to so that the macro behaviour is consistent with the decree.

What will we see as we bury our heads in the micro detail? We might not find the consistency we are so used to and so seek. We may find paradoxes, inconsistencies, contradictions, confounding our instinct for symmetry, for consistency.

There has to be a better way of looking at this universe, without perhaps invoking the Grand Architect, but also without blinding ourselves with detail and minutiae.

Fascinating stuff! There is much our primitive species has to learn about the world.

As my tutor used to say decades ago, "Kind of cute, huh?"

fascinating stuff

I have yet to see a good refutation of the simulation hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Bostrom.27s_hypothesis). Perhaps physics being different in different places is evidence in support of us being in a simulation.

1% chance of error is not particularly impressive. How many other studies have we NOT heard about because their results were even less significant? Perhaps about 100? Reverend Bayes, interpret please.
Still, the theory does make predictions, so more observations will surely tell.