Baroness Greenfield criticises 'Taliban-like' Stephen Hawking
September 9th 2010 11:30
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Physicists like Professor Stephen Hawking who claim God has no place in the creation of the Universe are behaving like the Taliban in trying to shut down freedom of discussion, according to Baroness Greenfield the former head of the Royal Institution.
Lady Greenfield, former head of the Royal Institution and current professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford, criticised the "smugness" of scientists who claim to “have all the answers”
She made the comments in a BBC Radio 4 Today programme discussion about Professor Hawking’s views.
Last week he angered many religious believers by saying science “can explain the universe without the need for a creator”.
In his latest book, The Grand Design, he said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”
He also atttacked philosophers for failing to keep up with modern developments in physics and biology so that “their discussions seem increasingly outdated and irrelevant”.
Lady Greenfield said: “Science can often suffer from a certain smugness and complacency. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest scientists, had a wonderful quote, he said: ‘There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right’
“What we need to preserve in science is a curiosity and an open-mindedness rather than a complacency and a sort of arrogance where we attack people who come at the big truths and the big questions albeit using different strategies.”
Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”
She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…is to make sweeping assertions about a whole category of academia.”
She later claimed her Taliban remarks were "not intended to be personal", saying she "admired Stephen Hawking greatly" and "had no wish to compare him in particular to the Taliban".
However, she added that his statement that God was not needed was "surprising".
She said: "All science is provisional and therefore to claim to have the definitive answer to anything is a hardline view. It would be very great shame if young people think that to be a scientist you must be an atheist. There are plenty of scientists, such as genome researcher Francis Collins, who also have Christian faith."
Her remarks are likely to be interpreted as a criticism of Professor Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and bestselling author of The God Delusion who helped to pay for buses emblazoned with adverts declaring "there's probably no God".
Lady Greenfield, a distinguished neuroscientist who was appointed director of the Royal Institution in 1998, has launched legal proceedings against it claiming she was the victim of sexual discrimination and unfairly dismissed in January.
Rebel members at the organisation failed in their bid to oust its ruling body and reinstate her as the head of the organisation.
Professor Dawkins opposed the moves to reinstate Lady Greenfield, saying: Somebody who is threatening to sue the institution is not someone I would want to be the director.”
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Comment by Michael 2
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In the end there are forces beyond our comprehension and knowing because there just are. If there weren't we could do all our own miracles. Miracles like giving limbs to all the amputees... Wait a second, that giving limbs to all amputees is not in anybody's Bible as a miracle. Just excuses about why God is too busy for that one. Better to concentrate on swapping the Himalayans for the Appalachians. Not clear why you would want to do that but the good book says you can.
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He is obviously a puppet that some radical scientist is using as a robot.
Let me be clear, Stephen Hawking is a fake and some behind-the-scene scientist is talking into his robotic vocals!
If he is real, with all the true paraplegic humans in the world, why is he the only one privileged to be this intelligent super human being? Why, as many believe, he lives a normal life since he fathered children?
Some may think I'm a total fool, but so be it. PT Barnum based his empire on the fact that there is one born every minute.
Sorry, for my soapbox moment, katyzzz. I never trusted this whole Hawking thing because it does not run with logic!!!
Comment by Quintin J Watt
Greenfield is way out of her tree in comparing Hawking to the Taliban - hey; don't we have (long and hard fought for) freedom of speech in this country (UNLIKE in Afghanistan under the Taliban!!)? The fact that she CAN criticise Hawking, and so assaninely, shows this! Greenfield is a scientist of great repute and I respect her work and her very deserved scientific reputation. So, why does she stoop to such infantile criticism (which she attempts later, in fact, rather unconvincingly, to UN-say!)? It is unworthy of her.
Hawking has the right to say what he believes to be scientific truth. He has the right, also, to spout total gibbersih about the place of philosophy (and yes, it IS a true science, in the view of not only myself but many many others too!), crassly ignorant, as he would seem to be - and that is surprising for a man of his intellect - that without philosophy there WOULD HAVE BEEN NO SCIENCE, and that, before the Renaissance in Europe, all that we now call science was, indeed, the LEGITIMATE PRESERVE of philosophy. The word itself (from the Greek 'philo': 'I love' and 'sophos': knowledge or learning) shows this.
Read any of even the pre-Socratic philosophers such as Anaximander or Parminedes, for two examples, to gain a fascinating insight into how, with a paucity of technology or anything remotely resembling scientific equipment - a paucity which would absolutely FLOOR and render utterly powerless ANY modern scientist (be they a physicist and comsologist like Hawking, a brain neuro-specialist like Greenfield or a bio-scientific specialist like Dawkins) - these ancient minds yet nevertheless established two and half millenia ago, by logical argument and deduction based on nothing more than simple naked eye observation and thought, the true shape of our world, nature of our sun, moon and planets and the likely true astronomical nature and composition of the stars.
Look further at the work of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (not always right about everything at the time, of course - such is science!) and beyond even these; how they sought, much further, to explain the very nature of existence itself and the REASON for it all (not just 'how' it all happened but 'WHY'!) and you'll quickly see why, wihout such thinkers, there could have BEEN no scientists like Hawking and Greenfield, or Dawkins either, for that matter!
I don't agree with Hawking's argument that the physics alone can explain it all; as I've said, his science can explain most eloquently 'HOW' (and I am much convinced of the validity of his life work in this regard) but it can't explain 'WHY'. Maybe philosophers cannot either, but we can seek to. Just like scientists, we don't yet have all the answers (neither do Hawking or Greenfield or Dawkins actually, either, in their respective fields - if they are being HONEST scientists). We never will , in fact, any of us!
And that's the point! All we can do is seek to probe ever deeper, deeper, deeper - each new discovery or insight throwing up new questions and further, hitherto unseen, riddles and anomalies - which in their turn, beg to be investigated and explained. Thus it has been since the beginning of humankind. It will ALWAYS be so! Greenfiled, at any rate, is touching on correctness about that!
Were it not so ; were there ever to be a day when we could (arrogantly) claim to 'know it all', then all further science, scientists, research, ultimately even all further human learning and discovery and therefore teaching, study and education, would become unnecssary, redundant, worthless. I, for one, should HATE to live in such a world! Such a scenario will never be attained ... so long as human minds remain both inquisitive and less than infinite!
"I disapprove of what you say - but I will defend to the death your right to say it!" .. these words were actaully said by Hall, but are generally attributed to Voltaire.
As to whether it is possile to be both a scientist AND a Christian believer (as I am) , or even both a scientist and a serious and respected theologian ... well, let Hawking, or even Dawkins for that matter, one day go head to head with nuclear physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne. THEN we should see!!!
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer, Lay Preacher and Cultural Historian, Reading for an independent PhD in Philosophy of The Human Mind .