Saturday, September 4, 2010

The Moral of the Hawking Episode


Now, after three odd days of fur flying (and most of it settled) I think we can more objectively examine the moral behind the whole episode of Stephen Hawking's assertion that the cosmos was spontaneously incepted. For sure, I think there's one overriding moral and it can be expressed thusly:

"Don't cherry pick scientists' quotes to try to carry grist to a religious mill!"

As I look back through numerous newspapers, magazines and even blog face-offs, I see the most common denominator is religionists invoking one modern or recent scientist or other, by way of quotation. Hawking was no exception, and the same guy damned to hell now as an "atheist" was praised earlier for "believing in creation" or a "creator". In one issue of the local paper, for example, a letter writer avers:

"Hawking in his book (A Brief History of Time) seems to be pointing to a first cause who is transcendent and exists beyond time. He ends his books as follows: If we find the answer to why we and the universe exist, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason and then we would know the Mind of God".

Alas, the writer never bothered to read fully the WHOLE book, where if he'd been more rigorous, he'd have seen numerous sections where Hawking's sentiments and (alleged) beliefs weren't so....ah....religious. The trouble is, too many of the religious obsessives that had praised Hawking earlier - just to grab the odd quote to support their supernaturalism - merely cherry picked what they wanted.

For example, if we go to p. 122, we encounter Hawking's comment dealing with an audience with the pope, following a scientific conference at the Vatican in 1981:

"At the end of the conference, the participants were granted an audience with the pope. He told us that it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang, but we should not inquire into the Big Bang itself because that was the moment of creation and therefore the work of God.

I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference - the possibility that space-time was finite but had no boundary - which means that it had no beginning, no moment of creation.I had no desire to share the fate of Galileo, with whom I have a strong sense of identity."


A few pages later in the same chapter, emphasizing the consequences of his boundary free model of the universe, Hawking concludes the paragraph by asking:

"What need then for a Creator?"

What NEED? Which is precisely the point! Science and modern cosmological theories - bearing predictions which can be verified - make religious or supernaturalist intrusion redundant.

But did those keen -eyed religious folks pause to see those remarks which contradicted their pet beliefs? No, they did not. They simply rushed to get what they felt were Hawking's supportive comments into print, not paying attention or realizing they might pay dearly later - as they have- snake bitten in the ass, as we say.

Hawking's position doesn't stop with just the preceding comments either. If one goes on to page 144 one reads:

"One could say the boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary. The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would be neither created or destroyed. It would just BE."

And note, this was written in 1988, more than 22 years earlier! SO why are so many so shocked now? Because religious readers only paid attention to the selective quotes or remarks they believed upheld their nonsense! Fatal error!

Again, Hawking continues - to show these remarks are not flukes (ibid.):

"My paper was rather mathematical....so it's implications for the role of God in the creation of the universe were not generally recognized at the time (just as well for me.)"

So, the question becomes: Why did Hawking invoke the word 'God' more than 20 times in his book, and in different contexts? Short answer: Because his publicist as well as the editors at Bantam, likely told him he'd get about 50,000 additional sales for each time used. Cynical, maybe- but plausible! (Especially for the U.S. audience - see my previous blog).

My point is that all would be god-mongers should let this be a lesson, and not be too quick to press your favorite scientist into god-hawking service, even if you find several quotes that appear to support it. The reason is that, as scientists, they are obliged to follow where the evidence goes and current research shows, not emotions, or faith or personal beliefs.

The same is true of Einstein, who has often been pressed into service to further fundamentalist or other religious agendas or beliefs, despite the fact Einstein was the furthest thing from it! In his book, Ideas and Opinions, he not only dismisses the whole concept of a personal God, but any rewards or punishments in the afterlife as well, viz.

"I cannot conceive of a god who rewards or punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.. "

Neither did Einstein accept that one survived death, op. cit.:

"Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let those feeble souls, whether from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. "


So when one sees fundies or others citing Einstein for his alleged religious beliefs, one wonders what kind of permanent mental or optical blindness they suffer from. Can't they freaking read what the man is actually saying-writing, or is it they simply refuse to believe his own words - or that they choose to select what words they want (of his) to believe that he believed?

Like Hawking, Einstein also used the word "God" liberally both in interviews and in assorted books. But that didn't mean he invested a literal belief in the word. As biographer Jeremy Bernstein noted, Einstein often loosely invoked 'God' or synonymously 'the Old One' - but not out of any reverence or to bestow credibility on the underlying concept. Rather (p. 20):

"In this sense, 'God' stood for the rational connections, the laws, governing the behavior of the universe: both the fact that such laws seem to exist and that they are, at least to some degree, comprehensible to us."

Thus the "God" Einstein accepted was one of impersonal natural laws and the ineluctable precision of deterministic mathematics. He disavowed entirely any notion or concept of a "personal deity' or an eternal one. Later, Abraham Pais, in his article 'Einstein and the Press', Physics Today (August, 1994), articulated many of the problems Einstein encountered - most notably after his general theory of relativity made him renowned. That is, religious parasites in the U.S. descended upon him and demanded to know his beliefs. Einstein, a basically shy man - who also didn't want to inflame passions- tried to be as innocuous and circumspect as possible. Much of this carried over into his books, the idea being to make him the least plausible target for zanies.

If instead, people would've given him space, and allowed him to openly express his opinions without fear, they'd likely have uncovered his real beliefs much earlier. As opposed to those of us who've read him in detail having to trot out endless remarks and quotes contradicting what the religionists have claimed.

At least in Hawking's case, he's still alive - so was able to refute earlier religious inventions and impressions of him on his own - without others having to quote from his books!

Of course, this is probably what has so many hopping mad - because they'd hitched their godly wagons to Hawking's supposed supporting quotes, and now have egg all over their faces. That always prompts retaliation and anger. But it should also incite a wake up call for future lessons!

Moral of the story: Stop using high profile, celeb scientists as god-belief fodder. Even if you THINK you know what their beliefs are, the fact is you likely don't - and will only make asses of yourselves later.

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