Hawking Put in His Place
Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 11:15 AM
Stephen M. Barr
Anyone interested in the latest pronouncements of Stephen Hawking on God should heed the observations of Martin Rees (now Lord Rees), one of the world’s leading astrophysicists, the Astronomer Royal, and the outgoing head of the Royal Society (one of the world’s oldest scientific societies). It includes this severe but accurate judgment:
Stephen Hawking is a remarkable person whom I’ve know for 40 years and for that reason any oracular statement he makes gets exaggerated publicity. I know Stephen Hawking well enough to know that he has read very little philosophy and even less theology, so I don’t think we should attach any weight to his views on this topic.
firstthings.com
Sir Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS (born 23 June 1942 in York[1]) is an English cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2004, and President of the Royal Society since 2005.
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Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe (Hardcover)
Interesting book on Cosmology. It describes the current situation well: the values of many of the basic physical constants in our Universe are critical to the existence of life and ourselves (the Anthropic Principle). Rees chooses six of these constants (he could have taken more) and explains in detail why they are critical. Five are interesting and up to date. The sixth (3 dimensions) is a little disappointing, and has been discussed in length, in the same context, for more than a century. The arguments given in the book could also be taken as clues for the existence of God, but the author prefers the hypothesis of infinite universes. It's interesting to see that Occam's razor, which was used once against God's existence, is now against the multiverse theory, which multiplies entities to infinity. Rees simply answers that Occam's razor may not be applicable at this level! In any case, God's existence and the multiverse hypothesis are both outside science, for they cannot be falsified. This means that the book, although purporting to be science, ends in a metaphysical conclusion. Good reading, anyway, though one may not agree with the conclusion.
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