Let’s Start A Kerfuffle
You would think that the media has enough to report on without starting fights over nothing, but they just can’t resist.
Professor Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA has a new book coming out, The Grand Design, which will be released on September 7, 2010.
Like many books today, the publishers have sent out review copies to the media, hoping for some nearly free publicity. Professor Hawking’s earlier book, A Brief History of Time, was a best-seller, so the media couldn’t really ignore it.
The problem is that the only part of the new book they want to talk about is a brief passage: Stephen Hawking: God did not create Universe.
With a statement like that it was obviously time to invoke Clarke’s Fourth Law, “For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert“, which CNN does: Religious leaders hit back at Hawking.
Religion and science are different spheres and they don’t intersect. Religion is about belief which is not a subject that can be proved or disproved – it is. Science is all about proof, which is constantly tested and subjected to attack. If people would just accept that reality, the world would be a more peaceful place.
[Note: since I started composing this entry, the Wikipedia page I linked to for a brief description of the book has been pulled. No doubt it was under attack. The release date link is Amazon if you are interested.]
4 comments
I’m sure I saw a wingéd flying sow:
God only knows what Stephen’s Hawking now!
– SB the YSS
Actually, Hawking has had the habit in his writings of using “G-d” in places where no one was sure what was happening. He wouldn’t be in this mess if he had said “here be dragons” instead of “G-d”, because a lot of “Bible thumpers” have used Hawking’s references to claim that he has proved “G-d’s” place in the creation of the universe.
If anyone is interested what Hawking has actually said in The Grand Design was that G-d wasn’t necessary, that the process would have happened without outside intervention because of gravity. He has spent his time filling in the blank spaces on the “map” and figured out how things may have happened. The purpose of the book is to attempt to convert the concepts into a form that non-specialists can understand.
Hahahahahaha… Yeah… I’ve been PMSL over this! 😆
And I’m certain dear Prof. Hawking *doggone done it a purposely*! 😉 😀 Methinks he was a might peeved at assorted religious nuts saying he’s proved G-d exists! (I base this on some interviews and articles I’ve read by, and about, him).
The crazies will never learn that it’s doesn’t pay to annoy someone with a brain the size of a planet! And a working brain at that! 😆
Made my day! 😀
Given the way he has studiously avoided the entire topic in the past, you’re probably right, Kryten, that he decided to make his opinion clear.
It is still annoying that people are twisting what is written to be what they thought he meant. What he said was that there was no need for a “Creator”. That isn’t a resounding statement of atheism, it was a simple statement of the facts as he found them.
The man creates a theory to explain the creation of the universe, and people are complaining that he doesn’t answer “Why it was created?” The last time I checked that question is outside Professor Hawking’s area of expertise.