Tuesday, May 12, 2009  The Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of
Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation  This is
certainly a provocative title. The manuscript, which is a
chapter in an upcoming book, I would guess, directly questions
whether Everette's "Many-World" model for quantum theory is in
fact adequate, or whether it has actually failed.  Abstract:
There is a compelling intellectual case for exploring whether
purely unitary quantum theory defines a sensible and
scientifically adequate theory, as Everett originally proposed.
Many different and incompatible attempts to define a coherent
Everettian quantum theory have been made over the past fifty
years. However, no known version of the theory (unadorned by
extra ad hoc postulates) can account for the appearance of
probabilities and explain why the theory it was meant to
replace, Copenhagen quantum theory, appears to be confirmed, or
more generally why our evolutionary history appears to be Born-
rule typical. This article reviews some ingeniou