Thanks Brian for another interesting read. I do struggle to comprehend some of the concepts you postulate. Could you please elaborate on "What makes science work is that the final authority is the Universe..". To suggest the Universe is an authority on anything seems somewhat absurd to me. It makes no claims on anything, only rational beings that observe it in action can make any inferences. The very point it is called "universe" is only meaningful to us because we assign a vast array to that term. Again, respectfully, can you please elaborate. I suspect I might have your thoughts confused in my interpretation.
In relation to your comment; "Such explanations are often called "fine-tuned," usually with derision." The Australian Broadcasting Commission has a science show called Catalyst that investigated the fine tuning of the Universe (video may geoblocked but there is a transcript). http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3836881.htm The program interviewed several preeminent Physicists. Not one treated the statistical odds of the Universe existing as it does with anything that could be regarded as derision.

Another fine, accessible and well written piece. Thanks.

The last paragraph is brilliantly written and exemplifies what differentiates science from mere philosophy.

It is hard to imagine structures larger than galaxy filaments, or supercluster complexes...

Philosophy precedes science. Without a sound understanding of metaphysics and epistemology science will be difficult if not impossible. But that is not how humankind developed philosophy. First, the natural world was studied, then later in life, a comprehensive world view was attempted. The more successful at the first, were better at the latter. Why? Because they were identifying (making explicit) the implicit assumptions that served them so well. When I read, "Naturalness ... provides no authority for understanding ...", followed by "... if the universe says..." I recognize philosophical ignorance in epistemology. For example, when Einstein made his comments about God, he was speaking poetically to convey a metaphysical/epistemological concept, not making a reference to the concept of God. (He was an atheist.) He was saying that randomness is a psychological concept not a metaphysical one, i.e., when we say an event is random we are saying nothing about the event. We are confessing our ignorance, our inability to find a connection. Some take their ignorance as proof that some things are not knowable. This is a profoundly anti-mind theory. It explains nothing except a lack of self confidence.
Einstein was stating an axiom he used to understand the world, that nothing is random metaphysically speaking. Random is an epistemological concept. Another metaphysical concept he exposed metaphorically was that the universe is not malevolent, just hard to understand sometimes.
If we view this astrophysicist's theory of LQG in this light we can see an attempt to find a pattern which failed. His theory falls apart when the size of his sphere is increased 20% or decreased, i.e., it is a dead end.

@ Don duncan
"Some take their ignorance as proof that some things are not knowable. This is a profoundly anti-mind theory. It explains nothing except a lack of self confidence."
This is just an opinion. There is a proof in information theory that most problems are in fact unsolvable. That is if you are generous and don't accept Gödel's incompleteness theorom which proves that there is no set of axioms that is complete and consistent as a basis for solving all mathematics.

I thought the Sloan Great Wall was the largest known object in the universe at 1.3 billion light years across. Of course I might be wrong.

A cosmic structure had been detected by pln plotting gamma rays, and with almost 100% certainty to be real, it is 12 billion light years in diameter, and about 12 billion light years away. Horvath says it could be a galaxy clusters, and states there is no idea how it evolved to be. If it's galaxy clusters organized into an enormous structure, I would like to say that Einstein's relativity isn't correct for a homogenous isotropic universe. It would take millions of galaxy clusters probably 100 billion years to form this new structure. There are fractal patterns in plasma and dust, that could extend on and on. Size is irrevalent to nature, and no smallest ultimate particle nor structure exists for comprehension of human intelligence, is my opinion.

9B years ago, there was a grouping identified here. If the Universe is indeed expanding, that group interval is doubtless gone in our "real now", at that area. Are the closest intervals farther away? If a big bang expanding, this might indicate a direction for an origin.

Hello, all! Some good questions have been raised on a difficult subject. Let's start with Australian's question about the Universe being the authority. I meant this as a metaphor, tho touchstone might have been a better word than authority. What I was trying to say there was that if your description of how the Universe works disagrees with what the Universe actually does, so much the worse for your theory. One properly calculated but incorrect prediction, and you know you've missed something. That's when science gets fun.
On the fine-tuning issue, there are two ways of looking at it. One is that, sure enough, the parameters describing the Universe are those that allow us to exist. How else could it be if we are here to ask questions? This is an example of the often misunderstood Anthropic Principle. This is the context for most of the comments in the reference you gave. But while many physicists are comfortable with that view, many are not.
The other viewpoint is that the fine-tuning has to mean something (often a designer, whether or not explicitly mentioned), and this is the direction of which I was making a bit of fun. This is a version of the inverted attempts to apply statistics to a unique object, the known Universe. (There may be more, but guesses can't replace data.)
For example, a common objection to string theory is that there are a huge number (10^500 is often quoted) of different string theories. Some people claim that those odds make it silly to believe that string theory describes our Universe, and in doing so they are applying inverted statistics. It is essentially the naturalness argument.
However, IF string theory is a good description for our Universe, then, as there is only one known Universe, it must be described by only one of the 10^500 possible parameter sets. Why? There is only one known Universe. Whether or not we can find which set a different issue. But again, fine-tuning is not a valid argument against something of which there is only one example.
Pat, the paper on the gamma-ray "structure" has just appeared, so there hasn't been a chance for anyone to vet it yet. I will say that Horvath is a pretty well known crank who feels cheated out of Nobel Prizes, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is wrong here - too soon to tell.
Best to all, Brian