> A Brief History of Time secured his celebrity. That it famously went unread, or unfinished, by many of its purchasers would for any other science communicator be a sign of failure. The book was like a Latin liturgy, filled with terms like the readership only half-understood. It played into the unhelpful notion that science is really hard and only for super-humans like him.
Lol, I must have been such a freak of a kid. I found this book in the library when I was 11yo and read it in a couple of weeks.
Couldn't do it these days. We didn't have internet back then.
Yeah, I'm surprised to hear now that the book is notorious for sitting on shelves while never being read. It didn't need a degree, it just needed some patience and imagination.
When considered among others in its genre, neither did it stand out. With rare exception, all of the "science for the public" books seem to be written at a 12 year old reading level (exceptions I know of are The Tao of Physics (requiring a slighting higher reading level) and especially Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (does anyone understand this!?))
The article doesn't really provide any evidence that he was 'deifyed'
The opening section quotes an anecdote about Hawking referring to his chances of winning a Nobel:
"Most doubtless saw this as an example of Hawking’s famous wit. But in truth it gives a clue to the physicist’s elusive character: shamelessly self-promoting to the point of arrogance, and heedless of what others might think."
Or, more likely, given the context - he was actually being funny and poking fun at his own reputation, as it appears.
>The article doesn't really provide any evidence that he was 'deifyed'
Deified might be an extreme way of putting it but Mr. Hawking once attended my university to give what looked like a fairly ordinary physics lecture, and not only was the room full to a brim, three other rooms where the lecture was projected were, and people were sitting outside on the grass and watching it on a projector.
If another physics professor of similar caliber had given the lecture I can tell you they would have had trouble to attract a few dozen people.
He undoubtedly was a major celebrity, which I guess in our modern secular times is somewhat like deification. I mean at that time you wouldn't have been able to tell the uni campus apart from a new age cult event. There were people intently listening to the lecture who I know for a fact had not the slightest idea what he was even talking about and just soaking it in like if they were listening to some preacher reciting ancient scripture.
I think a large part of it was the sheer mental fortitude that he had to persevere in the face of incredible obstacles while at the same time continuing his scientific work. What he was able to do and accomplish given those challenges was absolutely awe inspiring.
I can't imagine that there are many people in the world that would be able to break out of the mental prison that his body put him in and accomplish so much in spite of it.
that “meta science” bit reminds me strongly of the fiction of Peter Watts.
E.g. Siri in blindsight — if I recall, and don’t mix novels, he was a character whose role was as one of a group of people who interpret the post human for the merely human. He was a (meta?)synthesist. Forgot the exact language.
Actually it does, this is from one paragraph from the article (there are more examples, and probably more from the book that the article is a review of):
"Hawking became “as much a brand as he was a person,” says Seife. Billionaire entrepreneurs traded on his name, from Yuri Milner to Richard Branson and Jeffrey Epstein (whose vanity conference on gravity in the Virgin Islands the physicist attended in 2006). In exchange, Hawking was taken on zero-gravity flights and invited to glitzy events and launches. This hawking of Hawking continues today: for a mere £19,000 you can buy a gold watch inlaid, like some medieval jewel-encrusted reliquary bearing a shard of Christ’s cross, with wooden disks “taken from the desk at which Hawking contemplated the mysteries of the universe.”
Not just in the literal sense (Pharaohs and some Roman Emperors were actually deified, not Hawking), but also in the metaphorical sense.
Hawkings just had a very striking visual presense and story which was easy to remember (alas, because of his health issues mainly), and so became a stand in for "famous scientist" the average Joe knew, and the press could use a a common interviewee, reference, etc, when talking about physics.
Otherwise people (whether into science or not) didn't care that much about him, nor they had particular esteem for his various views (unlike e.g. with Einstein).
> But I was struck by how unusual it was for a scientist to state publicly that their work warranted a Nobel.
Did he say he wanted a Nobel? To me it sounded like he made a joke.
> “People have searched for mini black holes… but have so far not found any,” he intoned with his trademark voice synthesiser. “This is a pity, because if they had I would have got a Nobel Prize.”
It shows a certain lack of context awareness to mark a guy down for vanity when he's spent most of his adult life in a wheel chair living a life that exists only in the mental sphere, with no prospects for physical release ever until the day he dies.
I feel like the author of the article completely misapprehended what Hawking meant. We give Einstein credit because his theories met the benchmarks of prediction and testability. For example General Relativity made a prediction about the orbit of Mercury that gave a more precise answer then Isaac Newton.
The issue with Hawking (based on my understanding as an enthusiastic novice) is that Hawking Radiation can't be measured because it would be necessary to find Black Holes
that are significantly less than 1 Solar Mass, and such things don't exist in our Universe as far as we know. And this in turn is why Hawking Radiation can't be tested.
But, it's also true that Einstein never won a Nobel for SR or GR.
The most interesting hypothesis, bordering on conspiracy theory, I've heard about Hawking recently is that by 2000 or shortly after, his communication bandwidth was so low that it's impossible to know if virtually all his more complex communication, lectures, etc. were scripted by those in his inner circle.
Suggesting that famous people traded on his name may not go far enough. Was Hawking, post-~2000, merely a vehicle through which his inner circle of students/collaborators/children got access to an audience?
Who had access to his voice synthesizer, and could it could be overridden remotely? Hardly anything he said would have been "live" other than simple yes/no answers or, in less formal contexts where people would wait for them, short phrases. His talks were certainly not live communication; they were pre-written (raising the question, by whom?) even if nobody was using him as a puppet in realtime. At what point did any of it, any of his interactions, stop being live or genuine? Who would know about and reveal any unethical behavior, especially if it meant revealing their own abuse of access to gain an audience for their own work or interests?
Chip away at cosmological problems in your lab for decades, and you're an ivory tower scientist with no understanding of the world. Talk to the masses and popularize what you are working on, and you're an idol deified by hawkers.
Einstein got a lot of criticism about his celebrity status but IMO if you can be a celebrity and still perform at the top of your science you're not doing anything wrong. Some people just have more than one talent.
To be fair, Einstein changed the world by coming up with two or more hugely revolutionary theories before the age of 40. He became a celebrity after General Relativity. If he hadn't done extra thing after GR and just sat around eating cake all day, he still would've been a fucking legend. On par with Newton.
He deserved his celebrity status and it detracts nothing away from his status as a top notch scientist.
Maybe I'm jaded from stories I've heard of academics behaving badly. Scientists have been sniping at each other inside and across their disciplines longer than there's been science. I didn't assume he was any different and I don't know why anyone would.
Maybe he capitalized on the brand a bit more than others, but I can't find a standard to hold him to. How can I say how I'd act in his shoes when I would fight to my last breath just to not be in his shoes?
Maybe we do need "to judge" as the reviewer says, but I don't have the stomach for it. I guess it's "thanks and good job" to the people who do?
The editor dropped the ball by not titling the review "Hawking Hawking Hawking". I also got a pop-over to subscribe, which puts us at "Hawking Hawking Hawking Hawking".
Hawking spent over five decades surfing on a wave of technology that just barely held back a disease that could have buried him at any time. If self-promotion helped him stay on that wave, I don't begrudge one bit of it. After all, it's not like he was selling a bill of goods: he delivered.
It's not just about staying alive, it's also a matter of being able to communicate and to participate in the informal but important network of people working on difficult problems.
I also feel that medical technology has advanced in staving off the secondary- and side-effects of ALS, including cognitive decline, even though it cannot prevent or cure it. And if, in the end, it actually made no difference, I don't feel that would be relevant to my attitude to how Hawking lived his life.
Behold the three horsemen of scientism: Stephen Hawking, Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson! Consume your weekly science sermon from The Big Bang Theory and join the "I Fucking Love Science" worship group on Facebook!
It's all very silly really, and clearly a projection of dogmatic belief in religious authority onto science as some kind of monolithic book of knowledge rather than the rickety, slowly-less-wrong process that it is.
These three are nothing like each other. Stephen Hawking was a first rate genius on the order of Einstein. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a decent scientist who's a good communicator. And Bill Nye is a funny TV host with an engineering degree.
As such, people immediately trust the information they get from them, whether it's reliable or not.
Science is a process, not an end - treating current theory as the final truth (to the extent that science priests even relay current theory rather than just provide fun accessible notions for entertainment purposes) is a fool's errand.
How many people have learned about Shannon's information theory from their deep understanding of Hawking radiation, thanks to Hawking appearing on Big Bang Theory?
There's a huge divide between actually having any understanding of science and science-worship, and science-worship actively detracts from understanding science.
It is a deep irony that the pantheon of scientistic atheism pop culture referents you talk about inspire exactly the kind of religious authority you describe. I find this is often an unfortunate byproduct of folks who jump from a religious upbringing to atheism without doing the necessary self discovery in between.
After all, what's most beautiful about science is not the people involved in its discovery, but the vast majesty of nature and reality. The people involved would always tell you that they themselves are merely vehicles. So I always end up wishing that these pop culture distillations of science would focus more on the nature side of the story and less on the people. Is it just the nature of the beast of pop culture to do just the opposite?
It's an interesting question. I suspect that the nature of media in general is to lend authoritative voice to individuals rather than promote perspectives or ideals, and thus the "voices of science" promoted in the media will themselves become pop-authorities.
Plus the fact that the promotion of science in the media seems more for entertainment and ingroup-signalling (ie, politics) than genuine truth-seeking.
> After all, what's most beautiful about science is not the people involved in its discovery, but the vast majesty of nature and reality.
The people involved are sometimes exceptional on their own merits. Sagan for had an incredible personality and was an exceptionally good host, and as a celebrity it's not surprising to find a cult of personality building around him.
Yeah, the people who worship them seldom have an actual interest in science. What of it? The people who worship Stacy Abrams seldom have a genuine interest in politics, and kids who worship teenage boy bands seldom have a genuine interest in their music. Celebrity culture is generally toxic, news at 11.
Though I like what you're pointing out regarding people jumping ship from religion to atheism but still needing a "guiding voice" so to say. I guess it's a lack of self confidence.
> What of it? ... Celebrity culture is generally toxic, news at 11.
Well, let's hang on a second, and think about that a little more because I think you've touched on an interesting wrinkle. I don't think that celebrities (by virtue of functioning in the original "thought leadership" role) must necessarily have this relationship with their followers. I am reminded of the critical tension in the dharmic religions between Buddhism and the hierarchical Vedism which came before it; Buddhism gained a significant amount of power as a referendum on Vedism.
We can of course talk about what that means from an abstract sense versus concretely, and it's obviously not always so black and white. But celebrities as cultural leaders have agency. Can't they choose whether they are using their power to reinforce an egalitarian adept/novice apprenticeship structure rather than some sort of perpetually hierarchical one of divine providence? The latter is of course more common over the course of history but it is certainly not the only option.
I suppose (to circle back to my original point) that the challenge here is that the cultural leaders do not exist in a vacuum; it is not just up to them but the society they exist within to determine their popular conception, which may not even be one to which they ascribe -- the tabloid example is evergreen. But is it then the vocation of celebrities to engage with these kinds of entities, and eventually emerge victorious -- being able to present their own views to society on their on frame, without being cowed or twisted or distorted by the rest of society at large, including its entrenched interests?
I don't know. I'm still inclined to say yes, historically speaking.
Yes, some people regard science with dogmatic devotion, but there's very obviously a qualitative difference between the "sermon" of a celebrity scientist and that of a religious leader.
It's hard to comment on the qualitative difference of a speech from a celebrity scientist vs a religious leader. Do I want to know the latest and greatest on why Interstellar's depiction of black holes was interesting? I'll listen to Neil Degrasse Tyson.
Do I want to know the latest and greatest on how philosophers or theologians interpret reality and meaning? Then I'll listen to any number of my favorites on these subjects.
There are world-class experts in both areas and they address different needs.
In theory they should address different needs, however many celebrity scientists have proclaimed that "philosophy is useless", as if the scientific method is the only path to knowledge and anything else is hearsay. It's silly that they think they have any authority on this, really.
This was my first reaction to this as well. I grew up in a very religious family. The "Science is another religion" take is as problematic as "The republicans/democrats are the all the same".
The #1 thing that strikes me is that any characteristics shared by religion and science only exist because of human behavior, while the fundamentals could not be more different.
While I appreciate the distinction, the point still stands: fetishization is something that humans do, and science, while imperfect, stands on a foundation that is entirely unlike that of religion.
The definition and history of scientism is also more complex than "basically a religion".
Meanwhile, a large and growing group of people truly believe that science is religion in a very literal sense, and they're using that belief to reject the reality of climate change, peddle anti-vaccine viewpoints, etc, and that has nothing to do with scientism.
It is hard to estimate the magnitude of the harm done by even a single religious leader who preaches a message of hate and fear. A leader who deeply instils into his congregation a belief system that has undertones of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and authoritarianism.
I don't personally believe in the god my parents did, and while you're right that it doesn't really matter if who they believe in is real, it does matter that they choose to follow the teachings of the church in the name of that god.
The atrocities of the 20th century, which make everything earlier seem like child's play, are a result of secularization. Modern-style racism was invented by Enlightenment thinkers. Eugenics is the result of genetics and Darwin. Dialectical materialism inspired many mass murderers.
Religion reminds people of their fallibility. When you forget your own limitations, you deify yourself, and nothing good comes of that.
The atrocities of the 20th century are well-documented and popularised in movies and documentaries. There were extraordinary horrors in the past - genocides of entire peoples, forceful religious conversion through slaughter of the entire adult male population of dozens of cities and bringing up children and women according to the winner's religious doctrine - that don't get a single iota of attention today except from historians.
> The atrocities of the 20th century, which make everything earlier seem like child's play, are a result of secularization. Modern-style racism was invented by Enlightenment thinkers. Eugenics is the result of genetics and Darwin. Dialectical materialism inspired many mass murderers.
Mind pointing to some citations? Genuinely curious.
> Religion reminds people of their fallibility.
I don't need religion to remind me of my fallibility. I'm reminded of that on a daily basis when I screw simple things up.
> When you forget your own limitations, you deify yourself...
First, it's a huge stretch to claim that forgetting limitations leads to deification. But secondly, when I forget my own limitations, I'm quickly reminded again by screwing up again.
Religion is not necessary to stay grounded. And not every religion is focused on the fallibility of humans. Do some people find that religion helps them stay grounded? Sure. If that works for you, great.
You're describing something that some religions may do.
Well I think the gist was more along science communicators/celebrities for the public. Feynman - and many others - while quite brilliant, haven't had the same general layman appeal.
I can't tell if this comment is a self-parody or not. In my experience, people complaining of "scientism" or Bill Nye seldom have a better grasp of the scientific procedure than those they criticize. They usually sound like they read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions once and decided to roll with it.
do you have an argument to make, or just some vague hypotheses about whether I'm joking?
I understand the scientific process as well as any non-scientist could expect to (ie, in theory if not in practice). I studied physics in college (not that that's some big credential, but I do have some exposure to the idea).
My issue with scientism is it aims to credit "the pop scientists" as an authority rather than encouraging scientific skepticism and scientific literacy. It also promotes science as the only way to glimpse truth, but that's a separate and more complex issue.
Hero worship of scientists as a class (let alone individual scientists, or TV presenters in some cases) as being the holders of truth is not a good thing, but I'm excited to hear your arguments for why it is.
I think pop scientists become successful because they're good scientists but also great communicators with a knack for making complex topics approachable. I've never heard someone insist on Neal DeGrasse Tyson (for example) as any kind of unquestionable authority, and I feel that if some surprising breakthrough upended his field (idk, an elegant explanation for dark matter) he'd cheerfully go on TV and announce his delight at having been proven wrong.
Scientism is a real thing but I think you're being unfair in blaming this on people who happen to be good ambassadors for science.
I don't blame the scientists/entertainers themselves (though I think they certainly don't mind, or even take advantage of, the celebrity). The problem is the culture.
Sure, if you frame something as "Hero worship of scientists as a class as being the holders of truth" then it sounds really bad.
In reality, it means stuff like "You should not buy homeopathic cures because it's exactly the same as water."
I'm OK with science being the arbiter of truth when it has evidences.
Edit: Also, in my opinion, Hawking's A Brief History of Time is one of the best books that explained basic ideas of cosmology (and how it is worked on) in terms that laypeople can understand. If that makes him worthy of a special mention of criticism, I don't know what to say.
The bad part of scientism is when people immediately believe every headline that starts with "new study shows" without ever having heard of a meta analysis or having seen the study itself. A lot of bullshit gets pushed out under the umbrella of "science" because it passes by so uncritically.
It was a "scientific fact" that smoking didn't cause lung cancer, for far too long.
Both believing in homeopathy and believing junk science can be avoided with the application of critical thinking and some basic scientific literacy. Because in reality, science is a human endeavour and is as full (if not more) of shady dealings as any other human endeavour. The process gets us further from untruth (as opposed to closer to truth) as it is applied honestly and diligently, but plenty of conducted science is neither, and science reporting doubly so.
But if people are encouraged to cargo-cult "believe scientists always", they're just as gullible as ever.
I'm of the view that certain celebrity atheists or skeptics exist just to poison the well for the benefit of the billionaire class. Poison religions by forcing a bigger debate between atheism and religions than anyone would otherwise care about, and you can stunt class consciousness and worker solidarity. Take a wild guess where class consciousness blossomed most throughout history!
I'm more of the opinion that in circles where it's looked down upon to be religious, some of those instincts pop up in other areas. Very-atheist people end up worshipping at the altar of the science priests instead.
Not everything is a bourgeois conspiracy to oppress the proletariat.
Having been a very-atheist person in the past, I'd argue that the cult of personality of the new-atheist horsemen like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, etc, was more of a draw than science itself. Because at the end of the day, science doesn't make claims that are relevant to any educated or experienced theist's worldview. I would have wanted science to be on my side because it'd justify hatred of people's religions, which is a really immature worldview in retrospect but definitely an outcome from immersing myself in new-atheist drivel. Whereas these days I fully accept the contention that science and religions really do coexist.
Where the bourgeois and proletariat come into play, is when I look at the stark differences between someone like MLK and Kenneth Copeland. I'd not expect any MLK type to emerge from a theology like Kenneth Copeland's. And we know that the billionaire class does attempt to distort information on all kinds of things if those things are giving them immense power.
I'm reminded of how they did that with climate change for 50 years and various nutritional debates over the years. And many other things. The intention being to poison the public discourse long enough that they can exploit more.
Does this mean there was a concentrated effort to poison atheist v religion discussion as well? I've never been privy to conversations at that echelon of wealth so I can only point out that the results speak for themselves even if the results were never the goal. But personally if I hated humanity and wanted to keep my power to exploit, I'd do whatever it takes to make sure there's other interpretations of Christianity besides MLK's for example.
I'll put on a serious face: Marx would say that religion reduces the psychological pain of capitalist alienation, so it is bad, because it reduces the impetus for revolution. Whereas scientism would generally help to advance dialectical materialism -- the definition of good and bad in terms of material class interests. So your argument that religion helps class consciousness, while not without precedent (Christianity, notably from Quakers, helping to end slavery; certain parts of American Christianity in the Civil Rights movement; monotheism as a source of universalism more broadly...), is 180 degrees from Marx himself.
Probably religion is better for building solidarity across classes than it is at cultivating one class' resentment of another. You get some voluntary redistribution instead of violent revolutionary redistribution. You get a kind of "we are all children of God" classless consciousness, instead of a class consciousness.
And, in reality, I think you'll find billionaires of varying degrees of religiosity.
But, nice post.
[Edit: Later, I see that you are serious, and not just doing a highbrow kind of joking-around. Well -- then I think you'll see that I basically agree with your point. The only quibble is about the idea of "class consciousness" (or "race consciousness", or whatever "subgroup consciousness" is relevant). Religion creates something other than class consciousness. Rather than dividing people along existing sociological lines, it unifies across them. This isn't free: It can create new conflicts with those outside the religion. But when we consider fault lines of class or race, I would say that monotheism tends to unify rather than to divide. You could call this "solidarity", but not "class consciousness". It's a bigger solidarity than class.]
Marx would say that religion is the opiate of the masses, but so would Jesus say that. In fact, Jesus predominately preached to religious leaders called Pharisees. Are you familiar with the common atheist adage "Jesus would have been a Marxist" or things to that effect? I'd argued it a lot in the past because it's funny and great for challenging capitalist Christians who believe in Supply Side Jesus (courtesy of Kenneth Copeland and Joel Olsteen and people like them).
Well, I would flip that adage and say that "Marx was a follower of Jesus." They overlap enough that it's not uncommon to go on r/atheist and see people saying "Jesus would have been a Marxist" so I think it's fine to flip it this way.
It's possible Marx was just targeting the Pharisees of his time. Or he liked what Jesus' had to say on matters of cooperation and economics enough to base a secular worldview on it. :)
I don't see how serious study of history would lead one to think religions reduce the impetus for "revolution" or social improvements. The printing press was a revolution and it was primarily driven by the desire to mass-print Bibles so that the clergy couldn't just interpret reality for everyone. (Look up the Gutenberg Revolution).
In any case, I'm not sure what the difference is between "we are all children of God" classless consciousness and the idea of "class consciousness." Because on Marx's worldview, things should trend towards a classless society. You may be interested in Acts 4:32-35 which is the economic model followed by the first church.
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
While you were replying I edited my previous post (grandparent of this one) with some text ("[Edit: ... ]") at the bottom, but I'll also reply here.
I think you would find many in agreement with your interpretation of Marxism and of Christianity -- ranging from "social gospel" Catholics, to progressive/activist Episcopalians in the US and UK, to Thomasite Christians in Kerala voting for the local honest-to-goodness Communist party complete with hammer-and-sickle flags.
To your Acts 4:32-35 quote, you could also add the end of Galatians 3, or the miracle of the loaves and the fishes (say, Mark 6:31-44).
That said, your interpretation is a departure from Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, and it sands off some sharp edges.
Mainly, I think you discount violent revolution too much. Historical Marxism wasn't only about a "spiritual revolution" that would lead to voluntary sharing like that described in Acts 4:32-35. It was about classifying people socioeconomically and dealing with them accordingly -- using violence.
I actually agree that religion often spurs social "revolution" and material improvement. But I don't think that's what Marx thought, or how either Soviet or Maoist Communism has worked. You say that Marx' "opiate of the masses" quote refers only to "Pharisees", but, in light of the whole development of dialectical materialism (a system of morality that actively rejects the spirit), the dismissal of "sentimental bourgeois morality" in favor of class-interest calculations, and the dogmatic enforcement of state-sponsored atheism, I disagree. Granted, you might blame Lenin rather than Marx for the worst of this stuff. But the fact that there's some overlap with Christianity doesn't mean they're the same thing.
I definitely oppose Maoism, Stalinism, Leninism, etc. I also 100% oppose violence except in self-defense. Marx did support violence earlier on in his life, but didn't he also argue that peaceful revolution was possible? And on the subject of peace versus violence, I would side with what Jesus said over what Marx said.
But yeah, I'd definitely ask how much of a role Marx's writing had in what happened in the Soviet Union or Maoist China. Was it Marx's fault, or could those people have adopted MLK's approach instead and seen much more success rather than collapse? I honestly am not equipped to know the answer to this question, but as I study MLK and Malcom X post-Mecca I think the entire discussion around Marxism (at least in the fundie parts of the world I've lived in) conflates Marxism with the Soviet Union and Maoist China too much. MLK and Bernie Sanders and AOCs borrow from the Marxian framework. Even America did - we've already implemented many of Marx's list items in his manifesto, after all. :) Would anyone say MLK or Bernie advocate for violence? Or that they're any less Marxian if they don't?
You definitely know more about the depth of Marxism than I do - I've never gotten into dialectical materialism or the Hegel/Marx beef. Primarily because the Manifesto is tiny and has enough of the vision in it that it is sufficient for my purposes. And also because as an engineer and a technologist I see that material needs will be obviated by technology soon. Does that eliminate the need for that deep dive into dialectic materialism?
But to address your point and the edit that you brought to my attention since I missed it: It does sound like we do agree! I'm limiting myself too much by calling it "class consciousness" rather than "solidarity." I realize now that the vernacular has to be updated to reflect exactly what you said about post-class schisms like race and culture. My view on this is that when understood at their most charitable, religions do accomplish exactly this. A "bigger solidarity than class" like you said. I'm reminded of what Paul wrote when he described the blanket with all kinds of meat on it.
I do like calling it solidarity instead of class consciousness and I will change my approach. Thank you so much, this is immensely valuable and you are a brilliant mind.
I'm note sure if I have completely misunderstood your comment, but are you saying that scientists exist "just to poison the well for the benefit of the billionaire class"???
No, not scientists. Scientists are wonderful. I'm particularly talking about celebrity scientists, especially those who ran with the new-atheist horsemen back in the 2000s and early 2010s when they were more popular. Thanks for the comment, I went ahead and edited the original one to be clearer about who I am talking about.
Also in fairness to Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson (I don't know about Bill Nye), I don't think they were adversarial toward religion. Certainly not like Dawkins.
I will not discuss his capabilities as a scientist since I'm not qualified to speak on hard physics at all - but this relationship between these people has me very skeptical of their truest intentions.
But you're right that Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson were not in the same class as Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss in particular. I'd include Sam Harris in this group too.
Hawking wasn't deified, he was a celebrity and anybody who accomplished what he had under his health conditions would be a celebrity anyway. His story was about succeeding in a field against all odds, not giving up and being positive. We love that kind of story.
Amongst the physicists, Einstein is deified as the epitome of human intellect. He is perceived as such because he had the ability to explain extremely complex subjects with layman's terms. But even Einstein would have been just a minor celebrity if he wasn't a jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany. We can observe that his popularity was a project because Einstein didn't have the character of a showman.
I bet if Feynman fled the Nazis and came to USA, we would have a real deity!
Hawking was a mathematical physicist. His job was exploring the general relativity and quantum field theory, models which we already know describe our world with remarkable accuracy, trying to understand what they allow and don't allow. He was remarkably successful at this.
The Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems made us realize that black holes are ubiquitous in general relativity. It played a big role in the community's acceptance of their reality.
He discovered that quantum field theories on curved spacetime generically predict that different observers will see different matter and radiation in the same region of spacetime, depending upon their state of motion. This includes Hawking radiation from black holes.
His work with Hartle on cosmology helped open our eyes to what a wild variety of phenomena are possible in the early universe.
If you don't know Hawking's work, then you don't have an opinion about it. Not rating it highly isn't an option.
Has it been proven? I read online and while it seems impressive (and increased my estimation of him), I didn’t see concrete proof of it being proven or disproven
Also, while it's good that you admit your bias, "don't think highly of him" while you don't even know the basics of his field (never mind of his career), it's nonetheless a bias.
I don't think he (or, well, his legacy) should be striving to prove something to you, rather the opposite. You should be striving to evaluate it if you want to have an opinion about it (even if it's a negative one after the evaluation), as opposed to randomly have opinions and feelings about it.
This isn't my field, and i cant talk to the specifics, but i think that's the wrong question.
The important thing is did it move the field forward? Did it get us closer to the "Truth" of the universe.
There's a certain sense that newtonian mechanics isn't "true" (with relativity and what not), but its still obviously an important contribution.
P.s. this is physics not math. You don't prove things of the natural world, you check if they are the best explanation of emperical observation. This is very different from proving sonething in the math sense.
But that wasn't with any black hole and it's not Hawking radiation. Basically they could as well have simulated that experiment on a computer and said the same thing (that what they got is similar in nature to Hawking radiation).
But it's just similar - Hawking radiation relies on a mashup of GR in a strong regime and quantum field theory extravaganza, it's something you would very much want to observe for real as those theories don't normally fit together very well. I'm not sure you'd want to be close enough to observe it though :)
All current astrophysics is “proven” in a sense that bunch of scientists loosely agreed that strange unexplained things we see explained as such, but then there are elephants in the room like dark energy, dark matter and etc. So it’s really far away from actually being iron-clad, unlike more basic QM or GR.
Lol, I must have been such a freak of a kid. I found this book in the library when I was 11yo and read it in a couple of weeks.
Couldn't do it these days. We didn't have internet back then.