62 Replies to “Or, If He Climbed Stairs Like Everyone Else”

  1. There must exist, beyond mere appearances … a ‘veiled reality’ that science does not describe but only glimpses uncertainly. In turn, contrary to those who claim that matter is the only reality, the possibility that other means, including spirituality, may also provide a window on ultimate reality cannot be ruled out, even by cogent scientific arguments.\nThe quote above is from French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d’Espagnat who boasts an impressive scientific pedigree. He worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. De Broglie was his thesis advisor; he served as a research assistant to Fermi; and he worked at CERN when it was still in Copenhagen under the direction of Bohr. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin, at the invitation of the legendary physicist John Wheeler.
    The thrust of d’Espagnat’s work was on experimental tests of Bell’s theorem. The theorem states that either quantum mechanics is a complete description of the world or that if there is some reality beneath quantum mechanics, it must be nonlocal – that is, things can influence one another instantaneously regardless of how much space stretches between them, violating Einstein’s insistence that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
    But what d’Espagnat was really interested in was what all of this meant for discerning the true nature of ultimate reality. Unlike most of his contemporaries, d’Espagnat was one of the brave ones unafraid to tackle the thorny and profound philosophical questions posed by quantum physics. Unlike classical physics, d’Espagnat says, quantum mechanics cannot describe the world as it really is, it can merely make predictions for the outcomes of our observations.

  2. On the other hand, if he climbed stairs like everyone
    else, one may have heard more of him. Without useful
    data, it’s just a context-free subjectivism, really.

  5. As much as I have enjoyed reading about quantum mechanics, existentialism, etc. Or listening to Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Paganini etc. I still think the guy who gets up at 5am, pulls on a pair of work boots and listens to Hank William, AC/DC etc should get to vote twice every election. They are the ones paying most of the freight but getting zero respect. Although I do realize this could create it’s own problems.
    Beethoven Strings Festival canceled. Replaced by Motorhead Festival. I could live with that though.

  6. Stephen Hawking did a couple of clever things, in
    particular on “Hawking radiation”. But there are
    others who have done more, and more profound, work.
    Many would say that the “star” of Hawking’s own
    contemporaries is Gerard `t Hooft. As for black
    holes and related topics, Jacob Bekenstein.
    Ed Witten, for string theory.
    These have all done work which is
    likely more important than Hawking’s. Not to mention Bill Unruh
    of the astonishing “Unruh effect”. The glorification of Hawking,
    at the expense of others who really are more deserving, leaves a bad taste,
    and has done Hawking’ reputation within the physics community no good whatever.
    Most of the above names are well enough known to readers of the popular works on
    theoretical physics, though not to the run of the mill journalist.

  7. has anyone told GOD yet that he was let go due to lack of work?
    Proving that everyone has been affected by the economy.

  8. Okay, Hawking, let’s see some proof now.
    Didn’t think so.
    I always laugh when I hear very confident assertions about what was happening at the time of creation whenever that was, let’s say we agree it was 13 odd billion years ago (or just looks that way), umm, how likely is it that we could figure out all the facts and then what led to it?
    I say, not even slightly possible. We will need to wait until we see the films God made, then we’ll know more.
    Hawking won’t enjoy those, but at least he’ll probably be out of his wheelchair.

  10. beer does more than hawking can
    to explain the creator’s master plan
    alternately
    while hawking explains quantum mechanics to the nation
    i wish he’d explain his explanation..

  11. Einstein made it very clear he did not believe in a personal god. Yet is quoted repeatedly as something as god fearing man.
    Maybe Hawking is making sure his quotes are not misconstrued after he is gone.
    For all the smugness of the article I am willing to bet if Hawking had come out claiming he had converted to Christianity based on the evidence found in the observable Universe he would not be a second rate physicist of limited regard, he would be vaulted to heights second only to Jebus himself.

  12. Sure, in this dimension Hawking is a cripple with a high IQ…but, in another…he has the body of Michelangelo’s David and the intellectual depth of Heather Mallick.
    This is a vanity book for Hawking, an attempt to cement his legacy as a Great Thinker. If he was really brave he would have challenged today’s orthodoxies like AGW or Internationalism. Attacking God is cliche and boring.

  13. I’m in no position to argue his contribution to the world of physics, (I don’t follow the debates I once did) but I do know that he is very much a creation of the media. He says what the media wants to hear and the fact that he is ‘handicapped’ only makes him more the media darling. I’m not sure why but the media holds that ‘handicap’ equals authority even when they make the most foolish of statements.

  14. fwiw the feller’s been married more times than i’ve had hot dinners…i wonder…are there so many broads that are hot for severely crippled physicists?
    just think on the sex though…and putting his pants on…one leg at a time though i’ll warrant…JUST like the rest of us…

  15. I admire Hawking’s attempt to live a normal life, despite incapacitation virtually his entire adult life from ALS. But I do not feel bound to accept his conclusions in non-scientific matters, and his writings on the existence of God are purely non-scientific.
    Science is characterized by rigorous proof; and there is nothing other than assertion in Hawking’s pronouncements on the existence of God. Journalists who don’t point this out probably don’t realize that rigorous proof is the foundation of science.
    Journalism’s seeming fascination with atheist scientists ( and any scientists, like Galileo, who seem to buck the church ) is just a sign of the times, and gives a false impression of a uniform atheism among scientists through the ages, and furthers a frequent journalistic narrative implying that rational people can not be Christians.
    In truth, many of the greatest rational intellects, mathematicians and physcicists, have been thoroughly Christian in their beliefs. To cite just 2 examples, Leonhard Euler, who solved mathematical problems Isaac Newton was unable to solve, and who fellow mathematical giants like LaPlace considered a, if not the, supreme mathematician of the 19th century, was a devout Lutheran who authored many Christian apologetics.
    James Clerk Maxwell, who derived the equations that made the modern electronic world possible, and whose work Einstein described as the ” most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton” was an evangelical Christian.
    The article’s tone has the ring of truth: the media’s fascination with Hawking says more about the media, than it does Hawking. It’s hard to imagine the present media culture lionizing a Christian physicist, because the dominant media culture considers Christians as possessing intellect, awareness, and taste less advanced than their own.

  16. Men of intellectual honesty only rely upon imagination to form hypotheses, not conclusions.
    This is why men of intellectual honesty are rarely religious – and if they are, only in the weakest sense, where religious certainty is never part of the equation.

  17. I think Hawking got his fifteen minutes when he played himself on an episode of Star Trek Next Generation. He was dorky, but then Stevie is … well … dorky.

  18. I would like to acknowledge the courage of the writer who went out on a limb to share a very important angle to this story.
    Courage is not on great display these days anyplace in our media.

  19. small c conservative I agree with most of your comments but if you claim there is a god is it not a testable claim? If so is it not within the gaze of science?
    I don’t want to make this a debate on theism but I do want to point out that a person that has spent his life studying the origins of the Universe may have an insight on the cause of the origin, just as Darwin had something to say about the rise of the species that inhabit the Earth.
    Does Hawking deserve the attention he gets based on his status as a research scientist? Probably not but his greatest genius comes from his ability to make physics accessible to the masses. This is no small feat and one that is even more impressive given his physical limitations.

  20. John Begley said “beer does more than hawking can
    to explain the creator’s master plan.”
    Allow me to quote another smart guy.
    “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”-Benjamin Franklin
    It reaffirms my faith in beer and God.

  22. IMHO the wall to wall coverage of that one utterance of Hawking’s says a lot more about the God-hating media than it does about Stephen Hawking. All of it bad.
    I would hazard that there’s not one “science” writer who reported on it who could even understand the argument. It was a nice juicy “there is no God” moment, excellent opportunity to put the boots into those redneck Christian morons, so they ran with it. Like frickin’ lemmings. (Yes, I know that’s a myth but the image is so apropos.)

  23. my dogs worship me…i’m the centre of their existence when they’re not smelling arses and foraging for grub…or establishing alpha beta relationships…or getting amorous with the distaff dogs…or flushing and killing rodent animal persons kind of…
    it’s their nature bigod…but they transcend their dog nature in their interactions with me…i see humour boredom sheer hellery displayed…a true sense of duty and loyalty but always obedience to and recognition of a higher power…(THAT’S ME!!!)which goes to prove that dogs have a soul…
    i suppose that’s why my Lord Byron’s epitaph on the famous Bosun reads..
    “all the virtues of man but none of the vices”
    one day when this terraqeous globe returns to the sanity of the olden times i can envision a black and tan dachsund as head of the United Nations…a dachsund one can sit and drink beer with…smoke a cigar with and get things done godamnit…

  24. The argument that the right is anti-science, anti-intellectual etc. is easily countered by Berkeley High School’s science recommendation:
    “The racial madness that has left-wing America in its thrall finds its apogee in the Berkeley, California public schools. Berkeley High School is now poised to eliminate science laboratory classes because “science labs were largely classes for white students.”
    In the epicenter of progressive thinking racial politics and social justice trumps access to advanced science education.

  25. Who says the universe was created – it just is. If there is a creator, than there has to be a creator of the creator.

  28. The comments of “small c. conservative” are well taken. His remark on Clerk Maxwell might be extended to say that
    Michael Faraday, perhaps the greatest experimentalist of the 19th C, on whose work Maxwell’s theory of the electromagnetic field
    was based, was also a devout Christian – a Sandemannian in fact.
    In the modern world, indeed in Canada, devout, able physicists are not difficult to find.

  29. “There is nothing especially profound in what he has said to date about the social and philosophical implications of science in general and cosmology in particular.”
    Do black holes in space exist? Proof, please.
    Can’t do it, neener-neener.

  30. No folks,science does’nt need proof.It has been edicted that man made global warming is a fact and the proof is what ever science needs to make it so.

  31. “What does God think? Has anyone asked Him?”
    Good one, batb.
    The followup from Vίt was also great.

  32. The primary purpose of all religions is to explain to mankind what happens to us after we die.
    Of course, there are a lot of bells and whistles nowadays to distract people from this purpose.
    And a lot of self-proclaimed gods toooooo.

  33. smallc conservative
    many of the scientists of yore, were religious for convenience only
    don’t pray…git no pay
    and it is not incumbent to prove there is no god, it’s upon the believers to prove there is one, and that proof is a long time absent

  34. Maybe it’s just me, but from the schoolmates that I grew up with, the ones who went into journalism were some of the unsung heroes who made the top half of the class possible.
    A strong background in [insert any science or philosophy here] just wasn’t going to happen.

  35. I know for a fact that Hawking has squandered his small fortune on beer and prostitutes and being such a clever chap, is using the publicity that comes from declaring God dead to sell more books.

  37. Why does anyone have to believe that someone or something had to create the universe? Can’t we just beleive that it was always there and will aways be there?
    Time, the beginning and the end occur because we are human and mortal. We have a beginning, and an end. What says that the universe can’t be infinite? We haven’t seen one hundreth of one percent and we’re all experts as to what is out there, now are we?? I go with Hawking!

  38. ‘Can’t we just beleive that it was always there and will aways be there?’
    Don’t know Scripto. Do you think the Big Bang happened or not?

  39. Joe:
    I don’t know Joe! I look at a star out in the universe, if it’s been there say 10 billion years, I have a hard time with the concept of “The beginning and the end.”
    And when i do look out in the sky on a starry night, I tend to wonder more about the force that holds it all together, instead of the twinkle in the star.
    Re: The Force. We still have to figure that out. The Cyclotrons (particle accelerators)will yeild and answer on that, someday.

  41. Scripto
    [[ ‘Can’t we just beleive that it was always there and will aways be there?’ ]]
    Joe
    [[ Don’t know Scripto. Do you think the Big Bang happened or not? ]]
    No we don’t know but my question is “what occured prior to the big bang and how did the “sigularity form?”
    Also I have pondered about the possibility that this “big Bang” was a localized event in the vastness of space…..
    Doers God exist…of course…at the very least God is an idea….that exists….in many many minds.
    Personally I have great confidence in his existance…from several encounters….I neglected during those interactions to discuss these matters…..because of the tenseness of the situation, we had much more immediate things to consider.

  43. Hawking is not everything he has been made out to be, but he has certainly risen above what he most likely could have ended up as, and that’s a massive accomplishment. Hawking has indeed contributed to science, albeit not on the scale that he is credited for, but he has done so in spite of handicaps that the majority of us cannot imagine dealing with. A bit of respect for that fact would not be unseemly.

  44. “…Most people will be astonished to hear that Hawking is not rated by his peers among the top ten physicists even of the 20th century, let alone of all time…More importantly, Hawking has no reputation among scientists as a deep thinker. There is nothing especially profound in what he has said to date…”
    Oh, physics too? I thought climate “scientists” like Gore and Syzuki perhaps, but not physicists.

  45. God or no God. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons???
    Who,or what,created the creator??
    And how does infinity come out of finity(Big Bang)????

  46. There is something in the article that rang familiar with me. When the author draws his conclusion that maybe Hawking’s disability is giving his peers the desire to give him a sort of “pity pat on the back”, I thought of my son’s first grade classroom. My son has Down syndrome and his classmates, for the most part, adore him. One thing that the classmates do is to over-congratulate my son when he accomplishes something that everyone else in the class has easily mastered. I think it is very nice of his classmates to be so encouraging, but at some point my son is going to realize the difference between supporting and patronizing adulation. I suppose it’s human nature to want to build up those around us that struggle more than we do.
    I notice many of the commenters at the original article, although all very bright and trying hard to sound that way, missed this point about this basic human nature.

  47. Lily….kudo’s to your son for accomplishing so much….he has a strong intestinal fortitude.
    As an aside….YOU must show him the difference between true praise and patronizing adulation.
    And only “real” people try to build up those less fortunate,but only to a point.A hand UP beats a hand OUT anyday.
    I had the good fortune of working with a lady who had fetal alcohol syndrome.She did more work in one day then her other peers did in a week.She was one of the kindest,gentlest people I have met, BUT, she did not take kindly to BS thrown her way because of her problem.And she had the great knack of calling a spade a spade.Sadly she died way too young,but I still use her as an example,to my employees,and too me.

  48. Matters of theology or metaphysics vs physics are simply separate entities and never the twain will meet. My reading of the Bible teaches me not to look for proof of God’s existence and rather to look to faith. Similarly, other religious texts make no pretense to prove God’s existence. Likewise, my understanding of physics, pedestrian though it may be, has yet to reveal any model which would cross into the realm of theology, moral philosophy etc. That human beings repeatedly, and fallaciously attempt to meld the two (from both directions) speaks more to our ongoing frustration with limitations of our knowledge and our wisdom.
    The search for a grand unified theory i.e. one single theory of everything is likely a fools errand. As someone pointed out, all models are wrong; some models are useful. I’m happy to use the current models described by modern physics to interpret the physical universe in which I live. I’m not aware of anything better at present. Likewise, I choose to relate to God and strive to measure my moral behavior by the model of Christianity. (I seem to keep coming up short, but he model addresses that too.) Again, I’ve not seen anything better. And by my readings of history, reflection upon my own behavior, particularly under severe stress, and my experience with fellow human beings in a variety of adverse circumstances, it’s probably in everyone’s best interest that I remain a Christian. So beware of trying too hard to burst what you may perceive to be my bubble. It’s unlikely that anyone would be the better for it ; )

  49. It would be one thing if Hawking were arguing the universe has no beginning or no end. He’s not; in fact he tells us when he thinks the universe was “created” and when it will end.
    According to Hawking, before the universe was “created” there was no time or space. Our puny minds cannot truly comprehend what this means. If one wishes to argue religion explains the explainable, that science trumps it, then explain how energy existed “before” time and space.
    Unless one believes in a fundamentalist view that the universe, and earth, was created as it is now, without evolution, with everything created “aged,” then there is plenty of room for both science and religion (spirituality).
    Hawking, like any human, is stuck in temporal mode, because that is the way we think, comprehend and explain the universe.
    BTW, IMO religion is not about what happens to us when we die, but what our purpose is while we live, it is externalized. This is unlike philosopy, which focuses on the individual within society.
    Anyway, God says in Genesis “let there be light.” That doesn’t seem incongrous with what Hawking has postulated, again IMHO.

  50. “If there is a creator, than there has to be a creator of the creator.”
    No there doesn’t!! This is a premise that you’ve constructed.
    “Do black holes in space exist? Proof, please.”
    The fact that proof of something doesn’t exist has absolutely not bearing on if it exists or not. Many things that we can’t prove still happen or exist.
    “and it is not incumbent to prove there is no god, it’s upon the believers to prove there is one, and that proof is a long time absent”
    No it’s not! It’s nobody’s obligation to prove anything to you.
    I’ve read many of your mindless rants about theism(GYM) and you definitely seem to be the most dimwitted commenter in these parts. Now I’m no Christian, but even I understand that FAITH is the cornerstone of Christianity. That means that there IS NO PROOF; it’s inferred dumb dumb.
    Please spare us of your juvenile arguments verses spirituality. I’m sure there’s a high school blog or Facebook group you can drop knowledge (sic) on.

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