Stephen Hawking and the Prophets of a

Scientific Age
When people do not understand the limits of science, a new
cult arises

By Y. Stuart Nam
May 23, 2011

British physicist Stephen Hawking recently snapped up

global media attention – again – by declaring that heaven is
a “fairy story” for people afraid of death.1 “In a dismissal that
underlines his firm rejection of religious comforts,” the
Guardian reported, “Britain’s most eminent scientist said
there would be nothing beyond the moment when the brain
flickers for the final time.”2 In an interview with the British
daily where he was asked about his own prospect of death,
Hawking said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will
stop working when its components fail.” Obviously, “there is
no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers.”

Hawking’s “Godless” remark is not surprising. Hawking

argued in his latest book, The Grand Design, that the notion
of God was not necessary to explain the creation of the
universe.3 He further argued during a TV interview that
theology isn’t necessary since science will eventually explain
“everything.” He stopped only short of proclaiming that
science has proven that there is no such thing as the divine
creator (perhaps not to alienate religious readers at the
publisher’s urging?). Despite his gloomy materialist remark,
Hawking nonetheless showed a courageously optimistic
attitude for his celebrated but physically debilitating life.4

Hawking is of course not the first eminent scientist who

scorned the idea of an afterlife. Most accomplished scientists
are with him. A survey of the National Academy of Sciences
members showed that more than 90% of American scientists
do not endorse the notion of afterlife or personal God.5
Einstein also did not hide his conviction that the personalized
conception of God was inconsistent with the scientific
observation of the universe.

It would be naive, however, to assume that scientists know

better because they are by profession scientists. There is
some undeniable truth in the reputation that natural
scientists tend to be intellectually shallow outside their
narrow area of technical expertise. Legitimate grievances
come from accomplished scientists who are well read
beyond science. Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), the Nobel
Prize-winning German physicist who pioneered quantum
mechanics and wrote about philosophical aspects of cutting-
edge physics later in his career, lamented about his
prominent colleague’s shallow understanding of religion (or
its values to human life).6 He even predicted with a sense of
great weariness that “we may well reach the point in the not
too distant future where the parables and images of the old
religions will have lost their persuasive force even for the
7
average person.” I am afraid that we might have reached
that point, for better or worse.

Throughout human history, each era has witnessed its own

share of prophets and oracles that promulgated their
wisdom based on their “great” understanding of the world
with unquestionable conviction. In this scientific age, none
other than prominent scientists could play that role for us.
Hawking happens to be one of the best known. The public’s
genuine curiosity and the capital market’s keen
commercialism drive a growing cadre of scientists,
particularly among theoretical physicists, evolutionary
biologists and more recently, neuroscientists, out of their
labs and into the perilous arena of public entertainment.

Hawking’s exact conception of heaven is not clear from the

brief interview in the Guardian. But his dismissal instantly
resulted in global headlines as if his casual opinion were new
scientific discovery. I doubt that Hawking’s heaven is the
same Biblical heaven Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) spoke of.
The Pope once explained that heaven, or hell for that matter,
is a state of being of a spirit.8 The Bible uses “symbolic
languages” for easier understanding, according to the Pope
who emphasized that a place exists only in the temporal
order in which we the mortal humans dwell.9 A folk-tale
image of heaven, a flowery meadow where angels fly
around, was never a heaven serious Christians ever
believed. Hawking is very likely to dismiss the spirit since he
thinks of the human brain as a computer (that is, while we
know almost nothing about the brain). It is ironic that physics
cannot explain its ambiguous notions of “energy” or “force”
any clearer than theologians do spirit or the human soul.10

There is little interest for a secularist like me in disputing

Hawking’s or anyone’s view of the afterlife. Not necessarily
comforting to me either is the religious view of the
immortality of the human soul. The only point I’d like to
make is this: the mass media tends to sensationalize the
celebrity scientist’s atheistic remarks under the false
impression that he is preaching serious science. Or there is
risk that the public perceives it that way as we have seen
major global media pronounce “the death of God” upon the
release of Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design.11

Besides their usual sensationalism, the media apparently

presumes that eminent scientists like Hawking’s remarks
have special (scientific) meaning for the public. Their ill
judgment is not only naive but also poses real danger for
society at large. It is a reflection of widespread public
ignorance of the exact nature of science. Hawking’s atheistic
remark is no different from that of a typical atheist who in
my view mistakenly thinks religion is inherently in conflict
with science (so, therefore, religion is wrong). It will be
equally naive to assume that Hawking cannot be
(profoundly) mistaken about the nature of science since he is
an accomplished scientist; his professional status has no
logical bearing since understanding the nature of science
itself is not a scientific activity.

What is (natural) science then?

Defining ‘science’ is hard since any serious attempt to define

it essentially amounts to philosophizing about science
(hence more of a new vision of science). History of science
has taught us that we should leave it relatively open-ended
or somewhat ambiguous. One notable aspect of science
history, however, has been the sudden reversals of previous
scientific “truth” – often by accident – and the unexpected
emergence of shocking surprises – also often by accident
(e.g., an expanding universe, Einstein’s relativity or quantum
mechanics). Richard Feynman (1918-1988), arguably the
most brilliant American physicist, once described science to
his students:

The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the

following: The test of all knowledge is
experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific
'truth'. But what is the source of knowledge? Where do
the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment,
itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it
gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create
from these hints the great generalizations — to guess
at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns
beneath them all, and then to experiment to check
again whether we have made the right guess”.12

Feynman was quoted at length because he pinpointed the

actual logic of doing science. Notice that he said it takes
imagination to generalize from an experiment. That
generalization, Feynman emphasized, has to be rechecked
by another experiment to see if that generalization, a guess,
is sustainable. What he was not necessarily quoted to be
saying here is that the rechecking process is endless and has
to be. All scientific theories, and any theory for that matter
by definition, can fall or get modified on the account of any
future experiment that may contradict the theory’s
hypothesis (an imagined generalization). If the theory is
accepted as settled, that is only because scientists have
stopped rechecking (e.g., no good motive to suspect validity,
no longer much relevant, lack of funding, etc.). History of
science is the history of endless self-reversal – however, only
given a chance either by design or accident. Philosopher of
science Karl Popper (1902-1994) hence observed and argued
that it is the only way science cans progress.13

The key aspect of Newtonian physics suddenly fell when

Einstein showed contradictions to its one-dimensional
presumption of time and space. Einstein’s theory of relativity
now awaits its turn of potential failing as suspicion of its
validity grows with modern physics’ increasing move toward
quantum mechanics. No scientific theory can escape
potential falsification since scientific theorizing (again,
generalization from anecdotal evidences from experiments)
is inductive reasoning in its logical form.14 Inductive
reasoning (e.g., the sun will rise from the east tomorrow
because it always has in the past), however likely and
practical it might be, will never lead us to a certain and
infallible knowledge since that “knowledge” is essentially
nothing but a good guess. That is why Popper argued that
scientific knowledge cannot be proven but only falsified; and
it has to be falsifiable to be called science.15 If not falsifiable
by testing, as Popper argued, we can call it anything (e.g.,
faith, ideology, literature, pseudo-science) but science.

An evolving picture of scientific activities proves more

nuanced and subtly complicated than Popper articulated. But
almost none will dispute that science is an endless process
of guessing and self-correcting. Feynman described this
paradoxical process: “There is an expanding frontier of
ignorance...things must be learned only to be unlearned
again or, more likely, to be corrected.”16 Science in this
sense is more of an ongoing trial and error rather than a
body of fixed knowledge set into textbooks. Scientific
knowledge has been taught to students, however, as if they
were facts or laws.

“Particularly because textbook science is presented so

dogmatically, many people who have had but a little science
come to have too much faith in the facts and laws they have
learned, and too much faith that science has all the
answers,” observes Henry H. Bauer, professor of chemistry
and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University.17 It is a sinful failure of modern public
schooling that even the educated public is not aware that
science simply does not give us certain knowledge or prove
anything absolutely.

The public’s appetite for exciting scientific “discoveries” has

grown tremendously over the last decades precisely because
of the growing misconception that scientists discover the
truth hidden somewhere. The misguided public hunger for
new “scientific facts” translates into lucrative business in a
consumer capital market. We have been seeing a growing
circle of celebrity scientists-cum-authors like Hawking who
make fortunes on “explaining” science to the public. The
public then mistakes celebrity-type scientists’ books,
speeches or TV documentaries as if they were “scientific
truth” or some sort of special wisdom they should take to
their hearts.

Commercialism and sensationalism abounds while the

demarcation between legitimate science and personal
beliefs become blurred for the public. Celebrity atheist
Richard Dawkins, for example, is not practicing anything
remotely close to his academic expertise when he
promulgates his militant atheism by churning out one
bestseller after another. Because the media highlights his
credential as an evolutionary biologist and often using the
prestigious name of a university he is associated with,
regardless of the subject, people often fall into a prevalent
fallacy that his atheistic messages are science-based or even
scientific facts.

Real science is very difficult – if not impossible – to discuss in

an ordinary speech or entertaining manner since scientific
knowledge as a form of technical hypothesis cannot be
easily unraveled for the lay audience in a generalized
fashion of the causal speech they’d like to understand –
without inevitable exaggeration and serious distortion. Those
who try to stick to real science faithfully are not likely to
write a book for the mass for this reason alone. Hawking and
other brand name scientist authors recently wrote about the
fanciful versions of the universe like “the multiple universes”
envisioned by cutting-edge string theories; but those who
are really pioneering the theories have almost never
appeared to the public themselves.

I was listening to a young female scientist who was invited

by NPR to explain her medical research, which might have
some potential significance for medicine. Whenever the host
induced her with a generalized question meant for a
generalized answer (e.g., so we should not eat xxx to avoid
cancer?), she answered with responses like: “No, that is not
what the research shows. Under the following xxx conditions,
the tested sample showed xx percentage of probabilities…
we have to do a lot more research to see if what you are
saying can be considered for a general guideline for the
public…I cannot answer that question since it is outside the
scope of this particular sample...” The host was apparently
dismayed. He was used to talking to savvy scientist-authors
who came onto his show mainly to promote their books and
were inclined to say “entertaining stuff” in sweeping
rhetoric, often in the areas outside their own expertise.

The commercial mass media in fact rarely reports real

science. They highlight the generalized or exaggerated
“findings” only when lobbied by the PR team hired by the
institution, which financed the scientific efforts in the first
place. There is almost always a commercial or non-scientific
motive behind such campaigns. When scientists speak to the
public instead of writing for their peer-reviewed academic
journals, the public must be aware that what they are
reading might not be science, or at least not in its authentic
form. Popularization of science always comes with risks of
over-generalization or misunderstanding – no matter who
does it – if not outright distortion or exaggeration; but it can
be forgiven to a certain extent since it still serves an
important mission of sharing scientific understanding with
the general public. The irony is that the downside is often
bigger when it comes directly from the scientists
themselves.

The real peril for society at large, however, is not

popularization by scientists or journalists. It is the growing
scientism that marginalizes humanistic worldviews we used
to get from religion, poetry or indigenous mysticism.
Scientism describes the modern ideology that only scientific
knowledge is valid and science can eventually answer all
questions for humanity; unfortunately, Hawking is one
prominent subscriber. Scientism is a self-contradictory
notion, however, just on the face of its logic alone since
science by definition can never answer with certainty.
Scientism is not science as science is not scientism.

The real triumph of science is not its accumulated body of

logically uncertain but fairly reliable knowledge for our
practical purposes; instead, it lies in its non-dogmatic, open-
ended, value-free methodology. The scientific form of inquiry
has risen to the most laborious and rigorous form of human
investigation, which also increasingly costs more money and
gets entangled with politics and commercialism as a
consequence. There is however a good deal of “pragmatic”
reasons to suspend the metaphysical skepticism of the
foundational issues of science and take scientific knowledge,
however provisional in its logical nature, into account for our
social, economic and even political decision-making.18
Science also has helped expanded our understanding of
nature and control our physical environment.

But many people remain unaware of the important

difference between technological and scientific progress.
Most modern technological conveniences are owed to sheer
human ingenuity, engineering prowess, and the collective
body of accumulated “experiences” from past trials and
errors. Sending men to the moon was not all about scientific
knowledge; it was much more about human resolve and
persistent effort in terms of relevant technology
developments and creative engineering. Pure scientific
knowledge acts more like a compass for those who develop
the technology and engineering skills we cherish.

Whether we like it or not, or we are aware or not, science

has altered our collective underlying worldview dramatically.
We have now grown so distrusting of any type of worldview
unless it can be stamped by scientists. Human life and the
world we live in remains as vastly mysterious as it was in
ancient times. Exploring such unlimited and plural
possibilities of nature, such as metaphysics, has been long
pushed aside as the step-cousin of the now discredited
theology even in academia’s philosophy departments, which
in my view also fell victim to scientism as it failed its
historical role of guarding society against dogmas. Educated
atheists, for example, often emphasize their “scientific
worldview” when they dismiss religion as superstition. But
they do not realize that the so-called scientific worldview is
not science but another metaphysical view (faith).

It is a historical irony that modern science has its intellectual

roots in the religious thoughts ranging from the ancient
Greeks to Christian theology.19 Besides its underlying
religious foundation, early modern science was often
financed by churches or wealthy aristocrats who believed
that science was one way to understand God. They even
thought they had a sacred duty to learn about the physical
universe since it is God’s creation. One outstanding example
was Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics, who was
almost fanatically religious.20 From Newton’s perspective, he
was not doing science but God’s work by uncovering the
hidden revelations of the Bible.21 That was also somewhat
ironically one critical reason why Hawking’s first popular
book, A Brief History of Time, sold more than 10 million
copies worldwide (despite its being a little difficult read for
many lay readers). Hawking at the end of the book
attributed the ultimate triumph of science to knowing “the
mind of God.” He was a clever first-time author who was
willing to uphold the Christians’ idealistic and traditional
view of science – then.
Equally undeniable is traditional Christian thinking,
especially the trait of the Middle Age scholasticism, behind
the modern “scientific thinking”: We can know about the
world, God’s creation.22 The notion of knowability itself has
never been seriously challenged in Western intellectual
history since Plato. On the contrary, Eastern worldviews like
Buddhism or Confucianism were much keen on the illusion of
knowing itself. 23 On the Western side, philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951) circled back to the Eastern theme
of unknowability by illustrating the inherent limits of human
language, its meaning and therefore (cognitively) knowing.24
“What we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence,”
said Wittgenstein, echoing Buddha, who sought to teach his
ultimate wisdom by silence two thousands years before
him.25 Modern atheists also may find it shocking that the
idea of scientism has its roots in the Middle Age Christian
faith. Philosopher Mary Midgley hence observed, “The idea
that being scientific simply means being irreligious is a
26
particularly naive one.”

Science is often described as a map helpful for navigating

reality since it is an approximation of nature. It is not a good
analogy in my view since science cannot even approximate
nature (one has to know what nature is first in order to judge
if science is even an approximation). I would like to think of
science rather as a window we look out toward nature. That
window alone has unlimited mysteries unfolding before us;
but we will still never see anything outside the window
frame. A completely different picture of reality emerges
when we switch to another window (worldview). Heisenberg
had rare insight as a scientist that it is dangerous to believe
that science shows the only and whole picture of nature.
“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature
in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning,”
warned Heisenberg, explaining the paradoxical nature of
quantum mechanics.27

It is a huge mistake to think that what we see though the

scientific window is all there is. As Heisenberg’s enigmatic
sub-particle world shows, an observer sees only what she
chooses to see. It is modern superstition that science can
save us.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0

United States License.

Stuart is an author who writes for those who question modern

propaganda and dogmas. He is currently working on his third book on
the misunderstood relationship between science and religion. He has
degrees in philosophy and law and has worked as a journalist and
lawyer.

*If you’d like to make the comments bigger than allowed by Scribd,
you’re welcome to do so at my blog www.stuartnam.com.
1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven
2
Ibid.
3
See generally, Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, Bantam Books, 2010.
4
Ibid.
5
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
6
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, HarperCollins, 2007, see the addendum titled “P.S.”
7
Ibid at p. 13 of the addendum titled “P.S.”
8
http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2heavn.htm
9
Ibid.
10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force
11
See my book review at http://www.scribd.com/doc/37980802/Stephen-Hawking-s-The-Grand-Design-A-Book-Review or
at my blog (http://stuartnam.com/2010/09/23/stephen-hawkings-the-grand-design-grand-science-or-reckless-prophecy/)
12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science (italics are mine).
13
See generally, Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge, 2007
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
See the note 4.
17
Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, University of Illinois Press, 1992, at p. 10.
18
I use ‘pragmatic’ in the sense conceptualized by the general tradition of the American philosophical pragmatism.
19
See generally, Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press,
1996.
20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_religious_views
21
Ibid.
22
See generally as a supporting reference, Michael Allen Gilespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, the University of
Chicago Press, 2008; the idea, largely my own, would need a book form to explicate.
23
Both Buddha and the Confucius refused to engage into purely speculative or metaphysical thinking which they thought
had no bearing on real human life.
24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein
25
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a Kindle version, see the author’s preface.
26
Mary Midgley, Science as Salvation, Routledge, first published 1992, a Kindle edition 2002, at p. 12 of 239.
27
See Heisenberg at p. 32.