Live-Blogging Curiosity, Hawking, and God

Tonight’s the premiere of Curiosity on the Discovery Channel, featuring Stephen Hawking talking about cosmology and God, followed by the “Curiosity Conversation” panel that I’m on along with David Gregory, Paul Davies, and John Haught. Hawking’s hour-long show is scheduled for 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific, and will then repeat 3 hours later (11E/8P). Our half-hour panel discussion follows immediately afterward — you do the arithmetic.

There’s a lot to say about these shows, and in particular there’s a huge amount that we didn’t have time to say during the panel. So as I sit in front of the TV, I’ll be live-blogging along by adding updates to this post. This will be the early show, so the fun will happen 8pm-9:30pm Eastern. Hey, Nathan Fillion live-tweets during Castle, so why not me? There is also a chat going on at the Discovery site.

The main attraction of Hawking’s program is not that he has disproven the existence of God. Certainly I don’t think he’s going to be changing the minds of many religious believers. His argument is essentially that the universe is self-contained, and doesn’t really have “room” for God (nor any need to invoke a creator). It’s very easy to wriggle free of that conclusion, if you are inclined not to accept it.

But “changing people’s minds” isn’t the only reason to talk about something, even about controversial issues. Religion, like sex and death, is one of those topics where it’s very difficult to simply have a dispassionate discussion without making people uncomfortable. It can happen within a group of similarly-minded people, of course, but once a wider range of views gets involved, it’s hard to maintain comity. (Comedy, on the other hand, is pretty easy.) I don’t mean everyone has to agree — just the opposite. We should be able to talk about things we completely disagree on, while still maintaining level heads.

That’s why I think this episode of Curiosity is potentially important. It’s a forthright statement of a view that doesn’t often get aired in American media. Even if nobody’s mind is changed, simply talking rationally about this issues would be a step forward.

Pre-show update: I should note ahead of time that I was not wearing a tie. Haught, Davies, and Gregory were all wearing ties. But Hawking wasn’t. Maybe atheists don’t wear ties? (Although I’m pretty sure Jesus never wore a tie, either.)

Start: We begin with a disclaimer! These are Stephen Hawking’s opinions, not those of Discovery. 🙂

4 minutes: I hope the analogy here is clear. “People who believe God made the universe are kind of like the Vikings shouting at the Sun to stop a solar eclipse.”

8 minutes: Snark aside, the message here is a fundamental one. Nature obeys laws! Something that’s certainly not a priori obvious or necessary, but a really profound truth.

14 minutes: I wasn’t able to find an independent confirmation of this story about Pope John XXI condemning the idea of “laws of nature.” (It’s true that he did die when the roof collapsed.) Presumably this refers to the Condemnations of 1277.

20 minutes: The universe is a big, messy, complicated, and occasionally quite intricate place. On the face of it, the idea that it’s all the working-out of some impersonal patterns of matter and energy, rather than being constructed by some kind of conscious intelligence, is pretty remarkable. (But true nonetheless.)

27 minutes: Hey, a tiny ad for Discovery Retreats!

28 minutes: Hawking says Einstein might be the greatest scientist ever. He has long favored Einstein over Newton, I’m not sure why. Hawking appeared on an episode of Star Trek: TNG, where he was a hologram playing poker with Einstein, Newton, and Data. He actually wrote the script, and Newton doesn’t come off well.

36 minutes: Ah, negative energy. Depends on what you mean by “energy,” but this isn’t the venue to get overly technical, obviously. Roughly, matter has positive energy and gravity has negative energy. That’s hopefully enough to help people swallow the crucial point: you can make a universe for nothing. There isn’t some fixed resource, out of which we can make a universe or two, before we hit Peak Universe. There can be an infinite number of universes.

41 minutes: People on Twitter are asking why Hawking doesn’t have a British accent. He easily could, of course; voice-synthesis technology has come quite a way since he first got the system. But he’s said that he now identifies with that voice he got years ago, and doesn’t want to change it; it’s identified with him.

47 minutes: Okay, here’s the payoff. He’s saying that generally we’re used to effects being caused by pre-existing events. (The first step toward a cosmological argument for God’s existence.) You might think that a chain of causation takes you back to the Big Bang, which then requires God as a cause. But no! The Big Bang can just … be.

50 minutes: The point of the black hole discussion is to get to the idea of a singularity, a conjectural point of infinite curvature and density. The Big Bang, in classical general relativity, is also a singular moment. But classical GR isn’t right. We need quantum gravity. Hawking believes that quantum gravity smooths the singularity and explains how there was no pre-existing time. (At least in the TV show, unlike A Brief History, he doesn’t start talking about “imaginary time.”)

56 minutes: Ultimately Hawking’s argument against God is pretty simplistic. He assumes that if God created the Big Bang, God must have existed before the Big Bang, but there was no “before the Big Bang,” QED. It’s easy enough to simply assert that God doesn’t exist “within time” (if that means anything). It would have been better (IMHO) to emphasize that modern cosmology has many good ideas about how the universe could have come to be, so there’s no need to rely on a divine creator.

58 minutes: Final thought from SWH: no life after death! Enjoy it while you’re around, folks. An important message.

Panel discussion starts: Forgot to mention that Paul Davies has shaved off his moustache. Disconcerting.

4 minutes: Also disconcerting: watching myself on TV. Hate it. But I persevere for the greater good.

5 minutes: Here’s Michio Kaku, not saying very much.

7 minutes: Jennifer Wiseman and I were actually grad students together! She’s good people, even if we disagree about the whole God thing.

9 minutes: I come out in favor of basing purpose and meaning on reality. But I’m pretty sure a longer remark was cut off there. Arrrrgh! Nothing nefarious, we intentionally recorded a bit more than they had time to show. But enormously frustrating that there was so little time.

13 minutes: Not sure why we kept talking about the multiverse. Hawking didn’t bring it up, did he?

17 minutes: I thought a lot of what Haught said was not even really trying to argue in favor of God’s existence, but simply expressing a desire that he exist. “God is the grounding of hope” isn’t evidence for God’s existence.

22 minutes: Haven’t said anything completely silly yet, so that’s good. But so little time…

27 minutes: Always time for more Michio!

30 minutes: Arrrrgh again, this time for real: in the live conversation, I had the last word and it was a pretty good one. In the televised program, not so much. Had to end wishy-washy.

Thanks for tuning in. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have the time for a real conversation? But big ups to Discovery for hosting the panel at all — it’s a rare event on TV.

265 Comments

265 thoughts on “Live-Blogging Curiosity, Hawking, and God”

  1. David #94,

    Even if it is possible for matter or energy to create itself in our universe, and I’m not sure that it is, I still don’t buy this explanation.

    Do you prefer “god did it” as an explanation? How does that explain anything?

  2. In the show, there is a statement that all galaxies had red shift, and so all galaxies are traveling away as the universe expands from earth’s vantage point. That indicates to me that earth must be somewhat in the center of creation. That is interesting to me.

    Your understanding is incorrect. In an expanding universe, ALL points are moving away from ALL others. You would observe red shifted galaxies no matter what your starting point for observation is. You’ll see it if you’re on earth. You’ll see it if you’re in the Andromeda galaxy. You’ll see if if you’re orbiting a pulsar 12 billion light years away from earth.

    There is no center.

  3. Of course under the right (extreme) conditions we are able to generate the most basic of amino acids in the d-form which is practically useless for human existence.

    The so-called “extreme” conditions of the first Miller-Urey experiment were the conditions of the known atmosphere of Jupiter, which at the time was presumed to represent the primordial atmosphere of all the planets when they first formed. It’s only the, per volume, most common planetary atmospheric condition in the entire solar system.

    We now know that the primordial earth’s atmosphere was different, overall, more neutral and less reducing, which does greatly reduce the yield of amino acid production. But, the amino acids are still formed, and, even more crucially, early earth was positively peppered with local microenvironments, such as volcanic vents, where similar reducing conditions were prevalent locally. And, not surprisingly, it is in these locations where we currently hypothesize abiogenesis to have occurred. (And this does not include the fact that amino acids and other organic building blocks are abundant in space and could have been delivered to the earth rather than forming in situ).

  4. In the 8 pm program, Hawking uses the analogy of a man digging a hole, piling the dirt into a mound and getting a hole that looks exactly like the mound concluding, therefore, that the hole is the negative image of the mound, and so, they cancel each other out ( the hole represents the negative energy of the space of the universe and the mound represents the positive energy of what is in the universe. Therefore there is no God.

    I posit that the spade digging the hole is God creating the positive and the negative energies in the universe!

    Read the first chapter in Genesis in the Hebrew original and tell me the meaning of “tohu va’vohu”!

    And don’t give me the King James or any other translations. As an Italian saying goes, “All translators are traitors!”

  5. “There is still some degree of faith in science, it’s been wrong before.”

    It’s actually extremely rare, except in very, very old examples, where science was completely wrong. Instead, what happens is that the science of the time is partially wrong, and partially right, and as science progresses, it figures out where it has been partially wrong, and thus becomes less wrong, and more right.

  6. The following statement seems unbelieveable to me, maybe its the late hour,

    “Your understanding is incorrect. In an expanding universe, ALL points are moving away from ALL others. You would observe red shifted galaxies no matter what your starting point for observation is. You’ll see it if you’re on earth. You’ll see it if you’re in the Andromeda galaxy. You’ll see if if you’re orbiting a pulsar 12 billion light years away from earth.

    There is no center.”

    If I am orbiting a pulsar 14 billion light years out. I would be on the edge. Could I not look toward the center of the universe and see blue shift as the galaxies travel towards mine? Could I look out past the edge and see black nothingness?

    How do they do the rewind and come to the conclusion that the “big bang” started at one point? There would have to be a point of singularity or there would be no big bang expansion.

  7. Why can’t we be also curious about the spiritual realm? This aspect of our universe is real but difficult to explain scientifically. It is undeniable, many have seen and experienced it.

    If we would accept that dimension, and look further into it, maybe we could find some missing link with artifacts we are discovering from ancient past as well as connecting all those religious believe throughout history around the world.

    I admit, religious instances throughout history has distorted and negatively influences our discovery of how the universe has been created and why it has been. Even Jesus rebuked the leading instances of the Jewish faith when He came into this world. It is also evident that the religious instances following His event on earth did exactly the same if not worst.

    Unfortunately, He still is the pivotal person in history that promised that after we dye, we get a free trip to the after life for eternity, (no time in the spiritual realm) . In the gospel of Luke chapter 16, Jesus tell a story about the after life with “Lazarus and the rich man” where the message is to follow what God as said in the Holy Scriptures if we want to get into the right place in the after life dimension.

    This aspect of our lives doesn’t and shouldn’t affect our appreciation of His self sustaining creation as He as created the laws the program demonstrate.

    I must conclude that history repeat itself from the story of the garden of Eden where knowledge without loving our maker if keeping us away from Him whom promised us to live with Him for eternity.

  8. I’m wondering if anyone has even considered that Augustine in AD 397 made the same conclusion that Hawking did, except that Augustine concluded that God exists outside of time, and therefore created ‘time’ along with the universe. Along the same thought, it would be rational to consider that God would have created the laws of physics (a la the Anthropic Principle) along with the universe and time itself.
    Considering that the ‘singular dense entity’ that started the Big Bang would have been constrained by those laws of physics (i.e. speed of light, gravitational constants, etc.) it’s worth wondering where did those constants come from?
    In Genesis 1, the Bible says God created light. It didn’t mean that He created a light source, but it stands to reason that God created the physical laws governing light, which all of our reality seems to be based upon (time, space, matter, life) and put it in several neat constants. I suppose if Hawking had to answer how those constants came to be, it might be unscientific to say “Just Lucky, I guess”.

  9. @Jim, No, you won’t see a blue shift and you won’t be able to look out. If it helps matters, imagine an ant on a balloon and the ant can only understand things in two dimensions. Now, as we blow up the balloon, the balloon expands, and the ant will see how every feature on the balloon gets farther and farther apart. But there will be no edge. You are in a similar situation to the ant on the balloon but the surface is instead three dimensional. This analogy has other problems as well such as the fact that the manifold which is space isn’t actually embedded on anything but as a rough analogy it should work.

  10. Hawking says that the universe began as a black hole with almost infinitesimal size and a very large mass, yet he never explains where this black hole came from. Who made this mass? How could a black hole, with almost infinite gravity- suddenly explode? Hawking wants us to take it on faith that God (if He exists) could not possibly do this, because there is no time inside a black hole. But how could a black hole explode? So Hawking has a religious belief in this explosion [religious- because he offers no scientific rationale] he just wants us to take it on faith, -since he is the scientist and he knows- that this is what has happened.

    Hawking has made himself into a religious huckster trumping up his new brand of religious belief- a belief in a creation that created itself. Next, we’ll hear about his new perpetual motion machine! Gee, I wonder if he will patent it. We can call it “Hawking’s perpetual violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics”.

    This is not science, but just a new religion based on pseudo-scientific myths, fables and legends.

  11. “If I am orbiting a pulsar 14 billion light years out. I would be on the edge. Could I not look toward the center of the universe and see blue shift as the galaxies travel towards mine? Could I look out past the edge and see black nothingness?”

    Actually, no. The way I understand it, the observable universe (as much as we can see from Earth) has a radius of about 46 billion light years. So, 14 billion light years away from us is not even close to the edge. And, since the universe is expanding in all directions, all distant galaxies will be moving away from you, no matter where you are.

  12. Concerning what Ariel mentioned about Augustine; it has always amazed me how much the ancients knew that we are just now discovering. I suppose what is really neat is that there is a type of knowledge that doesn’t require experiment. Einstein didn’t do experiments to discover Relativity. He wasn’t doing theology either. He was using a type of natural philosophy as did Augustine to disclose some of these basic truths of nature. I’m not advocating that science abandon it’s method, but perhaps it should re-discover what natural philosophy can offer considering the amount of dead ends and infinities popping up in physics.

  13. Jim, there is no edge. The universe is hyperdimensional, and in a dimension outside of the three we perceive the universe is folded back on itself.

    As an analogy, imagine a balloon decorated with stars. As it inflates, the stars get further apart at the same rate. When it’s inflated, there is no edge for any particular star to be near. Which star is at the centre? None of them, since the centre is inside the balloon, and there is no centre on the surface. If you extend the surface of the balloon into three dimensions, then the universe is curved in a direction we cannot perceive, the ‘surface’ of a hypersphere (or possibly a hyper-torus).

  14. I am quite disappointed in that Curiosity lacked the ultimate curiosity. Dr. Hawking laid out how the universe did not need a creator, or indeed could have had a creator. Yet, you never asked the inverse question of the theologian. Did God need a creator? That is the counterpoint question to the entire show! I understood Dr. Hawking’s reasoning and would have loved to hear analogous reasoning from the religions representative.

  15. Yves #104,

    Why can’t we be also curious about the spiritual realm?

    Because there’s no evidence that it exists and it’s not even needed for the universe to function as it is known to function.

    This aspect of our universe is real but difficult to explain scientifically.

    How do you know? In fact it’s pretty well explained by neuroscience and psychology.

    It is undeniable, many have seen and experienced it.

    Many have seen and experienced bigfoot and alien abductions.

  16. If it is a scientific fact that there is a multiplicity of black holes in the universe and a there is scientific consensus that time and space are relative constructs, I fail to grasp Dr. Hawking’s assertion that the so-called Big Bang was an unprecedented event in the space time continuum. I have the utmost regard for Dr. Hawking and while I may empathize with his conclusion, I fail to understand his insistence in the primacy of our universe above all other possible or accomplished events…

  17. Congrats Sean. This is a heck of a lot of comments. I guess you got good visibility through the program. Certainly seems to have attracted a lot of fundies.

    Great job on the comments. It seemed like you were cut off more than the other two commenters. Oh well. Life isn’t fair. Still, I loved “go nuts”.

  18. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

    Beginning – indicates the creation of TIME
    Heavens – indicates the creation of SPACE
    Earth – indicates the creation of MATTER/ENERGY

    According to my Bible, God is an immortal being for whom time does not exist. Kudos to Stephen Hawking for proving via science what I’ve known all along.

  19. @103 – If I am orbiting a pulsar 14 billion light years out. I would be on the edge. Could I not look toward the center of the universe and see blue shift as the galaxies travel towards mine? Could I look out past the edge and see black nothingness?

    Others have answered this, but it might deserve some repeating. You are not standing still in your orbit. You are also moving. And since expansion occurs in all dimensions, not the linear fashion you are describing, things would still be moving away from you. So, red shift, not blue.

  20. If it is a scientific fact that there is a multiplicity of black holes in the universe and a there is scientific consensus that time and space are relative constructs, I fail to grasp Dr. Hawking’s assertion that the so-called Big Bang was an unprecedented event in the space time continuum.

    It is intrinsic to the human condition to question our existence vis a vis the concept of divinity. Yet this line of inquiry is the cosmological equivalent of ethnocentricity and is therefore necessarily biased.

    I have the utmost regard for Dr. Hawking and while I may empathize with his conclusion, I fail to understand his insistence in the primacy of our universe above all other possible or accomplished events.

    The evidentiary absence of paradigm will continue to be the line in the sand for scientists and theologians alike…

  21. @107 John – “Hawking says that the universe began as a black hole with almost infinitesimal size and a very large mass, yet he never explains where this black hole came from. Who made this mass?”

    The explanation lie in the section on quantum mechanics which indicated that since particles have been observed appearing randomly in experiments the same behavior would be possible for the singularity based upon the science and math involved. This would provide an explanation consistent with the observed universe and the laws under which it operates.

  22. I thought the program itself was ostentatious. From my point of view, it was essentially Hawking trying to disprove God. I’m not certain that should be the role or science. He came across as a little bit pretentious. The entirety of the ‘Science vs. Religion’ debate is itself ludicrous. Leave religion to the philosophers and science to the scientists. I do not understand why scientists are so hell bent on disproving God, as this entire episode seemed to be dedicated to doing. Alternatively, why are religious people so hell bent on trying to tangibly prove God’s existence? Science should worry about understanding nature while religion should be for people with faith, which doesn’t need any proof.

    Part of the problem is, and it is getting very annoying to hear over and over, that the past persecution of scientific discovery by religious institutions has created this inability to come to a mutual understanding. The same story of Galileo is used over and over again. Forgive me if this insults anyone, but I feel it is akin to how white people are forbidden to say the “N” word without coming off as racist. Scientists will always turn to these past events and claim religion is for incompetent morons. Anytime someone of faith stands up and says, “God created it,” they are instantly degraded and put down. By that token, religious people have to understand not everyone is capable of having blind faith. They need discernible proof to believe in something. A logical mind demands it.

    The Bible, Koran, or Torah are not physics textbooks and should not be treated as such. They are directives on how one should live their life and treat others. A physics textbook is an explanation of how and why things in nature work.

    In full disclosure, I am a man of faith. However, I do not point to science and call it witchcraft. I embrace it because I like to marvel at God’s creation. I want to know how it works. I do not need some “missing link” for me to believe in God. It is 100% faith. I completely understand how someone would need perceptible evidence, as I have questioned my own beliefs many times. However, if I were to take my life in a purely logical manner, I find I have little to no value. With few talents and limited intellect or physical abilities I know my life would garner more worth as an organ donor. I’m sure my body parts could save the lives of many people. My faith, though, tells me that my life has value because I was created by God and I should respect that. Some may find this very idea to be idiotic.

    There are many reasons why someone might have faith in a religion. It might seem incoherent, illogical, unreasonable, or even downright stupid to someone with a purely analytical mind. However, we humans have used faith for millenia to comfort us and give us hope. It has even been used to control and hold societies together, for better or worse. Perhaps, from a scientific point of view, religion is merely an adaptation from evolution to allow us to perceive reality and have cognizance without drowning in sorrow. If that is true then I will gladly use this evolutionary ‘gift’ to keep me going as long as my faith holds out.

  23. @amy 115 – “Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth”.

    Genesis is an ancient text written by human beings and does not provide evidence for any god. The fact that it says it was inspired by god does not strengthen this claim since anyone can claim inspiration from god in any text they author. If I claimed that my text was from god would you believe that?

    Whoever wrote Genesis was trying to answer the same question as scientsts but created a very simple, unprovable explanation in the biblical verse you quoted on par with the ancient explanations for thunder and solar eclipses. . If you study Old Testament biblical history according to our current understanding of the peoples who wrote it you will get a much different perspective than you likely get in church or through your own reading.

  24. I take it from the comments that Sean doesn’t like Michio Kaku. Anyone know the reason why? I only know him from Physics of the Impossible and SciFi Science.

  25. @119 Ricallo

    In reality there are religious people who do equate religion with science. Consider the creationists or intelligent designer propoents. They openly reject science they do not understand because it collides with their view of the universe. And since their god is always correct, science must be wrong. If these believers were isolated and ineffectual I would not be worried. But they have major influence on our country’s sciience education. Consider the state of Texas. There are active attempts to include religions ideas into the science curriculum and there are legislators and individuals in the state board of education who support this. Textbook providers look to Texas as a primary source of input for textbooks because of the sheer size of the student population. Those same textbooks are then used throughout the rest of the nation.

    We must continue to promote science in public dialog, including shows such as this. At a minimum, we need to educate the public about the methods and veracity of science Science drives innovation and innovation drives economic growth, advanced medicine, technology developments, and so forth. God can never do that. If we relied upon god for our explanations of nature, we would be a vastly different society.

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