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So, the ropes are up, the gloves are on, and the bell has just been rung!

Stephen Hawking has declared there is no room for a God in our creation

Not read the book yet (and doubt it would make much sense to me) but I shall pick it up at my earliest convenience!

This could be worth watching.

{gets popcorn}

{opens a beer...}

Ah my favourite subject... the fallout should be quite comical, but yeah I think I might pick up the book to check out what his line of reasoning entails, suspect it might boil down to LaPlace's "no need for that hypothesis".

however, the attention-grabbing headline has worked on me and has sold another book, so whatever the outcome, he's a clever guy - either at physics or marketing!

..someone with a book coming out makes a headline grabbing claim ?!

I know! Shocking isn't it.

Wonder how long until Westboro pluck the courage to stop harranging the dead and move up a step to picking on a cripple.

According to Radio 4, Hawking says that known physical laws and equations can explain the formation of the universe, so there is no need for a creator.

That is not quite the same as there being no creator. One could suppose that the creator set up the laws in order to start and run the universe.

Personally I was under the impression that there is still enough about the universe we don't understand, like dark matter, that it is premature to say we have solved it. However Professor Hawking has much better qualifications in the matter than I do.

Spontaneous Creation is definitely real. Why, just the other day I walked into my kitchen and a fully baked cake was just sitting on my oven. All the ingredients were there, it was inevitable that it would happen...

The topic title so needs to be a film. Preferably one in which Jesus descends from heaven, restores Hawking's mobility, and then challenges him to mortal combat. Then follows an epic battle to determine the origin of the universe.

Hawkings would definatly blind jesus with science.

Last time I read one of Hawkings books it was so far over my head, that I almost exploded, if I see this book I'll probably have to pick it up.

The Dreadnote wrote:The topic title so needs to be a film. Preferably one in which Jesus descends from heaven, restores Hawking's mobility, and then challenges him to mortal combat. Then follows an epic battle to determine the origin of the universe.

I'd pay 8 bucks to see that.

Hawkings is over-rated.

Care to explain? Or is this just an incendiary soundbite?

Just regurgitating a line from a recent documentary on the History channel about him.

Is his brilliant? Yes.

Is he popular? Yes.

Do other physists think he's all that and a bag of chips? No.

I'm a physicist and this is my favourite store on the citadel I think he's pretty cool.

Kilkrazy wrote:According to Radio 4, Hawking says that known physical laws and equations can explain the formation of the universe, so there is no need for a creator.

Gotta disagree there... String Theory is soooooo not convincing to me. Not saying that it was an all powerful deity that did it, but string theory is based on just as much blind acceptance of the unprovable as any church. God = Dark Matter in this case.

Supersymmetry, for example, isn't even proven to be real but hey it makes the equations balance so that's what we'll use! I'm hoping this LHC turns everything on it's ear, from a scientific standpoint that is. I'm not rooting for strangelets.

I didn't say he wasn't cool.

I didn't say he wasn't popular.

I didn't say he wasn't brilliant.

He is all of those things.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:According to Radio 4, Hawking says that known physical laws and equations can explain the formation of the universe, so there is no need for a creator.

Gotta disagree there... String Theory is soooooo not convincing to me. Not saying that it was an all powerful deity that did it, but string theory is based on just as much blind acceptance of the unprovable as any church. God = Dark Matter in this case.

Supersymmetry, for example, isn't even proven to be real but hey it makes the equations balance so that's what we'll use! I'm hoping this LHC turns everything on it's ear, from a scientific standpoint that is. I'm not rooting for strangelets.

I didn't think hawking was in the string camp.

I have to agree to some point on Hawkings being more over rated then anythinng. I watched a documentary(probably the same one lol) on how he solved his biggest mistake by basically saying he was sorta right, and his biggest rival was totally wrong because in the multiverse information never disappears in all universes, therefore a blackhole CAN destroy information in one universe.

And personally I watched that damn thing for like 1 or 2 hours, and when they finally came to that at the end I was a bit annoyed. That seemed like such a cop out. Im not saying he is right or wrong, because the guys IQ is probably 4 times mine, but it just seemed like a HAHA! Beat that before I die!



But yea, also agreeing on we dont yet know THAT MUCH to just come out and say yea a creator is so totally fake. Its almost like that cat in a box that will randomly die. If you are not allowed to look inside and see if the cat is alive or dead, you actually can safely assume that it is BOTH alive and dead. Since we only know so much right now, we cant just up and say yea we are all accidents with no divine help at all.

Same one.

Also, I bought a lottery ticket. I don't know if it's a winning ticket or a losing one. So I have a 50% chance of it being a winning ticket!

But I'm not so good with the maths.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:According to Radio 4, Hawking says that known physical laws and equations can explain the formation of the universe, so there is no need for a creator.

Gotta disagree there... String Theory is soooooo not convincing to me. Not saying that it was an all powerful deity that did it, but string theory is based on just as much blind acceptance of the unprovable as any church. God = Dark Matter in this case.

Supersymmetry, for example, isn't even proven to be real but hey it makes the equations balance so that's what we'll use! I'm hoping this LHC turns everything on it's ear, from a scientific standpoint that is. I'm not rooting for strangelets.

I didn't think hawking was in the string camp.

I'm pretty sure all of the math for cosmology involves string theory in one way or another. That's why I think that the paradigm shift that could come from the findings in the LHC are so exciting.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11085-new-particle-accelerator-could-rule-out-string-theory.html

I know the internet is a place of needless bitteness and spite, but ill tell you guys what i like.

I like it when internet intellectualls who are usually either still in school/college or working in a field that isnt Science (or even if they are, have not yet broke any major ground in the field) insult some of the worlds most well known Scientists.

Seriously, its awesome.

Stephen Hawking...

1975 Eddington Medal
1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society
1979 Albert Einstein Medal
1981 Franklin Medal
1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander)
1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
1988 Wolf Prize in Physics
1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord
1989 Companion of Honour
1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society
2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University
2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society
2008 Fonseca Price of the University of Santiago de Compostela

and by no means least..

2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States.

Is overated because some dude on the internet said so?

Awesome.

Overated how?

It reminds me of Shuma (still in college) calling Richard - Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), Finlay innovation award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002) and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009) Dawkins an idiot as well.

Dawkins, listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, the man who coined the term meme, the man who wrote "The Selfish Gene" a world reknowned book on the subject, when he was only 35.

He is an idiot as well.

When you guys are known all around the globe for your Scientific works, then you can engage them in a debate with some credibility and explain why you think you are smarter than them.

Im well aware that its the same physically as well, and that the average internet tough guy who has "boxed a fex times with a mate" will happily boast that "Mayweather has sloppy technique" or "Manny Pacquiao leads with his chin" or whatever but...

Come on, dont you lot understand the relatively simple presmise that when you say "im awesome" all the time people will think your a douche?

Sorry. I forgot how defensive UK folks are about Hawking. It must have been hard sitting on the side lines while the US and Russia developed their space programs. You know, space shuttles and space stations while you guys were working on your... oh. Right. Nothing. Nevermind. You guys need to feel smart, too.

Sorry I pissed on your one shiney thing.

I can approach this as an outsider. I grew up in a private christian school so guess how much science I learned? Yeah, thanks for that guys. Thankfully my mind is a lot more open than it used to be and I like to hear what everyone thinks as I'm a little undecided at the moment. I have a strong perception, and I know plenty of others who agree with me, that the more known a scientist gets, the more douchey they get. We've heard that egg whites are good, egg whites are bad, only the yolk is good, no, wait, the yolk causes cancer. Need I get started on global warming? I remember reading the same day articles from two universities that were complaining that we were all screwed because of global warming and another that said nearly the same thing but because of global cooling. At some point the "common man" has to sit back and wonder if these people aren't just full of crap completely. When I can hear them make statements that they take as true despite me and a good chunk of the world not being sure, I don't need to hear anything else they have to say. Scientists often get a rep that's not much better than television ministers; they both spew their crap really loudly and point and laugh when someone else is "wrong." I dunno. If I were as pretty as Stephen Hawking no doubt I wouldn't believe there is a god

Radar perhaps? You know, that thing that enables international air travel?

You really, REALLY do not want to start on what you invented compared to us. You'll end up crying. A lot.

kronk wrote:Sorry. I forgot how defensive UK folks are about Hawking. It must have been hard sitting on the side lines while the US and Russia developed their space programs. You know, space shuttles and space stations while you guys were working on your... oh. Right. Nothing. Nevermind. You guys need to feel smart, too.

Sorry I pissed on your one shiney thing.

If you missed my last thousand posts, im a pretty confident bloke, i dont try to be an internet intellectual, and anyone with a fully functioning brain doesnt feel the need to leech off the achievments of others to validate themselves. Nationilism is true idiocy.

As a result, i care little for what Hawking achieves, whats that got to do with me? I was merely pointing out that a bloke like you with no big credentials slating someone as well known as him makes you look needlessly spiteful and childish.

I wont even mention any of "Britains" achievments over the years to refute your absurd statement, because none of it had anything to do with me, so what do i care?

Some other guys developed space programmes, what did you do?

Oh and i know chickenhawks like you love to mention world war two as well, so ill just get this in quickly as well.

Some other guys went to Normandy on D day. It wasnt you.

You personally didnt do anything, you just make nationalistic statements because you need to feel better. You never contributed to a space programme, stomped the nazi's or cured TB.

I dont feel the need to be "American" because it doesnt mean anything. My missus is American, she doesnt feel that means she can take credit for some guy who was born 1000 miles away from her house inventing the lightbulb (he didnt)

I care nothing for patrotism, really.. its just.. pointless. I shall merely be conent with knowing that i personally am better looking than you, my brain is clearly (see your last post) functioning more efficiently, my missus is way hotter than yours, and my own life is awesome.

Cheers mate!

I guess I can call a case-in-point as the scientific pissing contest breaks out :/ Save that stuff for the "irrational" debates and be more objective if you're trying to be science-y. Does it matter what country a scientist is from, or that he made something cool?

mattyrm wrote:
When you guys are known all around the globe for your Scientific works, then you can engage them in a debate with some credibility and explain why you think you are smarter than them.

Surely it's possible that occasionally someone knows what they're talking about?

I wouldn't try to "debate" Stephen Hawking, but I've read enough to consider myself able to at least converse about these things.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I guess I can call a case-in-point as the scientific pissing contest breaks out :/ Save that stuff for the "irrational" debates and be more objective if you're trying to be science-y. Does it matter what country a scientist is from, or that he made something cool?

Of course it doesnt matter what country someone who achieves anything at all is from. It doesnt matter what country anybody who does anything is from ever! That was my point, what difference does it make? If a man is born and the geographical location is closer to the house i own than yours, how does that make anybody with any sense feel better about themselves?

My point was that i find if laughable that people far less qualified mock Scientists without giving a good reason as to why.

It was Kronk that brought nationality into it like it actually matters in any possible way. Ted Bundy just happened to be American.... er.. fill the rest in for my Kronk, i really dont understand what you were trying to say.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:According to Radio 4, Hawking says that known physical laws and equations can explain the formation of the universe, so there is no need for a creator.

Gotta disagree there... String Theory is soooooo not convincing to me. Not saying that it was an all powerful deity that did it, but string theory is based on just as much blind acceptance of the unprovable as any church. God = Dark Matter in this case.

Supersymmetry, for example, isn't even proven to be real but hey it makes the equations balance so that's what we'll use! I'm hoping this LHC turns everything on it's ear, from a scientific standpoint that is. I'm not rooting for strangelets.

Certain reactions in Chemistry require a "steering factor" to make them come out mathematically.

kronk wrote:Sorry. I forgot how defensive UK folks are about Hawking. It must have been hard sitting on the side lines while the US and Russia developed their space programs. You know, space shuttles and space stations while you guys were working on your... oh. Right. Nothing. Nevermind. You guys need to feel smart, too.

Sorry I pissed on your one shiney thing.

I just realised something...now I might be a little slow here, so apologies if this is a bit of a 'duh' moment....

But for those who seek to discredit Darwin's theory in the name of Religion, how would doing so validate their own belief in a divine creator of all things?

Just struck me that we often think of this as terribly black and white, in which one side is wrong, and the other irrefutably correct??

Are there other theories of creation beyond the Darwin and Religious?