In the form of a softball review of a multiverse book, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality:
Multiverse theory stands in stark opposition to the belief that there should be some reason, perhaps a Theory of Everything, that determines physical laws such as the types of particle that exist and the ways in which they interact. In the multiverse picture, it is all an accident. …
Like the tornado in the junkyard, only bigger, much bigger?
Once seen as a fringe interest of dubious scientific validity, the multiverse has developed a serious following. Steven Weinberg used it in 1987 to predict that our observable Universe ought to have a non-zero cosmological constant, probably of a magnitude great enough to accommodate the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion. To everyone’s surprise, this was verified a decade later through observations of distant supernovae by two teams of astronomers. Those who led the work, Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Subsequently, string theory and inflationary cosmology were recognized as providing a setting that could predict, or at least motivate, the existence of a multiverse. (paywall)
If Weinberg had used Aztec cosmology to make his prediction, would that have given Aztec cosmology more traction, absent any other light it shed? It’s relevant that string theory and inflationary cosmology have troubles enough of their own these days, and are not exactly beacons of illumination.
But who needs reality-based thinking anyway? Not the new cosmologists.
By the way, what does it mean to “motivate” the existence of a multiverse?
See also: Science Fictions