Jommel Jaucian
This writer is known for being critical about archaic yest oppressive religious views and politically incorrect biases. He was even wrongly tagged as "atheist" during his college days and now he is supportive of the Reproductive Health Bill that is pending in the two chambers of the Philippine Congress and very vocal against the meddling of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in secular politics. However, this writer is a Christian, a practicing (though imperfectly) Catholic, and a member of a Catholic religious community. Therefore, despite some "heretical" ideas, this writer is not religion-less.
Why state the above facts? Because this writer deemed it is fit to warn the readers (if there are indeed readers) that this blog may contain contents that are heavily influenced by his own political and religious biases and background. Therefore, impartiality may be difficult for this writer in writing this blog. However, rest assured that he will try his best to be objective: at least in portions where he needs to be impartial.
This blog talks about the declaration of the world's famous physicist (Serritella, http://ph.news.yahoo.com) Stephen Hawking that "God does not exist," putting himself in the line of Douglas Adams, James Watson, George Eliot, Richard Dawkins, Nadine Gordimer, Simone de Beauvoir, Victor Stenger, Karl Marx, and many more. This writer has learned about this Hawking declaration when he read a Commentary in Yahoo News (http://ph.news.yahoo.com/commentary-rational-believe-god-054003949.html). Said Commentary, posted by Giovanni Serritella, tackles the statement made by Hawking in his book "The Grand Design" that God is a delusion and a "by product of a mind of superstitious and scientifically uneducated people" (Serritella, http://ph.news.yahoo.com). Serritella argues that the logic of Hawking has loopholes and that the hypothesis that the universe was created by a supernatural deity remains to be the more rational explanation of the universe's creation than the conclusion made by Hawking.
Bang and Expand: All Hail to Gravity?
Hawking's "Grand Design" is just one of the works related with Cosmology that came after the Big Bang Theory, a scientific theory that was first proposed by Georges Lemaitre which states that the universe before was in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly (Wollack, 2009). Both are concerned with the universe, but the former is more focused on the role of gravity in the universe's formation and current expansion.
In Hawking's theory, the universe was formed because of the existence of gravity. "Because there is law like gravity," says Hawking, "the universe can and will create itself from nothing" (quoted by Serritella, http://ph.news.yahoo.com). Serritella correctly understood what Hawking is saying: gravity preexisted before the birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago (Komatsu, 2009) and caused the existence of our ever-expanding universe.
However, this could not be possible. Again, according to Serritella, Einstein's Theory of Relativity may be used to debunk Hawking's contention, at least with his gravity thing since the latter is illogical under the former. Quoting Serritella:
"Einstein's theory of relativity says that time is not the same for everyone but is "relative" to how fast one is moving. At variable speeds or in the presence of weak and strong gravity time behaves elastically, it can stretch and shrink and even stop." (Serritella, http://ph.news.yahoo.com)
The Commentary went on further: "[u]nder extreme gravity like at the moment of the birth of the universe (the big bang), gravity was so intense that time was 'compressed' to a zero point. Not only space but time itself was born at that moment. There was no 'before'" (Serritella, http://ph.news.yahoo.com).
Therefore, the notion that gravity existed even before time is quite unlikely. And come to think of it, assuming for the sake of argument that indeed it was gravity, then where did gravity come from? Serritella even went on by saying a creator (in Hawking's contention, gravity) is quite unlikely to create something (in this case the universe) without being put in existence first. Where did it (gravity) come from and how did it come to existence?
Brilliant and Celebrated Physicist has Loopholes, too
Stephen Hawking
It is Hawking's contention that the "universe creates itself from nothing." However, as correctly pointed by Serritella, that "nothing" is actually something: gravity. Hawking is then contradicting himself, exposing his "Grand Design" to the possibility of being scientifically rejected. How could a nothing create something when that something was created by another something? Which is which?
This blogger remembers the anecdote of his Asian History teacher in High School. In his anecdote, two scientists who are best of friends are arguing: one is a believer while the other is an atheist. The latter said that the universe is a product of cosmic collisions and God never took a hand over it for being nonexistent. One day, the scientist who believes in the Creation built a very impressive model of the Solar System. The atheist scientists, after seeing the model, was impressed and asked who did it. The believer scientist answered "no one" and that model of the Solar System is just a product of collisions of matter. The atheist scientist would not believe, but the believer scientist insisted on his answer. When the atheist scientist was becoming furious, the believer one admitted that he was the one who created the model, and the same is true with the creation of the universe: someone or something already existing during the early development of the universe must have had the hand of forming the universe that might be responsible for the "cosmic collisions."
Who is responsible, then, for this beautiful sight?
Hawking sustains that the creation of the universe is something that is not out of the plan of God, but because of the law of science. But then, any law of science does not create a phenomenon, but merely explains. As argued by Serritella, laws of physics in particular "cannot create anything or cause anything to happen. Rather than ultimate creators of the universe, they are just descriptions on how things behave." And the law on gravity cannot just magically create the cosmos even before the existence of the thing it governs.
Hawking is still a piece of genius
Undeniably, Hawking deserves in the hall of famous physicists for his contributions in the academe and the sciences. He is the genius that he is and his tag as one of the world's famous physicist. However, his Grand Design, for me, with regret, is totally not his best. His self contradictions and loop-holed conclusions are not plausible enough to be believed and followed. This goes to show that Hawking, brilliant as he is, and other brilliant people like him, are also susceptible to illogical inferences and self-contradictions.
I have my own belief as to the creation of the world, but what is involved in this blog is the conclusion of Hawking that God did not have a hand on the creation of the universe. Whatever my belief is, one thing is certain, though: for me, the creator or the cause of the creation of the universe must have had been existing during that time.
References:
Komatsu, E. et al. 2009. "Five-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations: Cosmological Interpretation" in Astrophysical journal supplement. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
Serritella, G. 22 December 2011. "Commentary: Is It Rational to Believe in God" in Jakarta Post/Asia News Network (through Yahoo News: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/commentary-rational-believe-god-054003949.html). Retrieved 24 December 2011.
Wollack, E. 10 December 2010. "Cosmology: The Study of the Universe" in Universe 101. NASA: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/.
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento