\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/strong><\/p>\nProfessor Edgar Andrews reviews The Grand Design<\/em> by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam Books, September 2010).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/strong>\n
<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nCosmologist Stephen Hawking sold over nine million copies of his book <\/span>A Brief History of Time<\/span><\/em>. Now, 22 years later, he has co-authored <\/span>The Grand Design<\/span><\/em> which immediately hit the No.1 spot in the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/em> best-seller list. But the sequel is so inferior to the prequel in intellectual quality that a reviewer in <\/span>The Times Saturday Review<\/span><\/em> (London, 11 September 2010) writes: \u2018It reads like a stretched magazine article \u2026 there is too much padding and too much recycling of long-stale material\u2026 I doubt whether <\/span>The Grand Design <\/span><\/em>would have been published if Hawking\u2019s name were not on the cover\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So why is the new book a runaway best-seller? Because it claims that science makes God redundant. Let\u2019s take a closer look at the claims advanced in <\/span>The Grand Design<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nPhilosophical skulduggery<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>
<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe introduction asserts that \u2018Philosophy is dead\u2019 (p.5) and science alone can provide \u2018<\/span>New answers to the ultimate questions of life<\/span><\/em>\u2019 (the book\u2019s hubristic sub-title). But the authors then produce their own brand of humanistic philosophy, christen it \u2018science\u2019 and base their book upon it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
They say; \u2018this book is rooted in the concept of scientific determinism which implies \u2026 that there are no miracles, or exceptions to the laws of nature\u2019. But \u2018scientific determinism\u2019 is simply the <\/span>philosophical<\/span><\/em> <\/span>assumption<\/span><\/em> that the laws control all events. I argue precisely the opposite in chapter 11 of my own book <\/span>Who made God?<\/span><\/em> (<\/span>WMG<\/span><\/em> in further references). <\/span><\/p>\n Again, in chapter 3, They maintain that \u2018reality\u2019 is a construct of our minds \u2014 implying that there is no such thing as objective reality (Irish philosopher Bishop Berkeley had the same idea in 1710 but he wasn\u2019t widely believed). They conclude that \u2018there is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality\u2019 and propose what they call \u2018model dependent realism\u2019 as a \u2018frame-work with which to interpret modern science\u2019 (pp. 42-43). Clearly, an interpretive framework for science cannot <\/span>be<\/span><\/em> science but belongs in a different category altogether, namely, philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n Since the mental models we construct \u2018are the only reality we can know \u2026 It follows then that a well-constructed model creates a reality of its own\u2019 (p.172). The problem with this, of course, is that it undermines the very concept of reality. Hawking\u2019s \u2018reality\u2019 excludes God while my \u2018reality\u2019 majors upon God. These two \u2018realities\u2019 are mutually exclusive but both (according to Hawking) are equally \u2018real\u2019. This is postmodernism by the back door and it is wholly inimical to science, which depends on there being a genuine reality to investigate. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/p>
Determinism<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>
<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe authors also embrace another philosophy, namely, scientific determinism. \u2018Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets\u2019 (pp.31-32). So we are mindless automatons and everything we do or think is predetermined.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The reality is, of course, that biological processes are overwhelmingly \u2018governed\u2019 not by physics and chemistry but by structured information, stored on DNA and expressed through the genetic code. It is <\/span>information<\/span><\/em> which controls the physics and chemistry of the living cell, not the other way round. <\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore, if our minds are simply by-products of molecular processes in the brain, then all our thoughts are meaningless including the authors\u2019 own theories. Thinking atheists such as Bertrand Russell and J. B. S. Haldane long ago recognised and admitted this dilemma explicitly (<\/span>WMG<\/span><\/em> chapter 16) but Hawking and Mlodinow seem oblivious to it.<\/span><\/p>\n Chapter 4 is devoted to explaining the \u2018many histories\u2019 formulation of quantum theory proposed by Richard Feynman. This is well done except that by ignoring other formulations of quantum theory the authors give the false impression that Feynman\u2019s is the only valid approach. This is tendentious because they <\/span>need<\/span><\/em> Feynman\u2019s idea as a springboard for their own multiverse hypothesis. To admit that \u2018many histories\u2019 is just one of several equally valid formulations of quantum mechanics would weaken their argument considerably.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/p>
Continued tomorrow<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Edgar Andrews reviews The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam Books, September 2010). Cosmologist Stephen Hawking sold over nine million copies of his book A Brief History of Time. Now, 22 years later, he has co-authored The Grand Design which immediately hit the No.1 spot in the New York Times best-seller […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,259],"tags":[538],"class_list":["post-9756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-genesis","tag-culture"],"yoast_head":"\n
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