The failing philosophy that allegedly grounds the ideas presented in the new book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow has drawn much criticism over the last couple of months – even from those who agree with his conclusions. I certainly don’t intend to offer any new or profound thoughts on the matter. Nor do I intend to pontificate on the details of quantum physics, especially when those who are actually qualified to do so think it makes “absolutely no sense” (to quote Roger Penrose).

I simply want to draw your attention to the failing philosophy of the book – something that Hawking and Mlodinow characterize as “Scientific Determinism” (SD) – and point you in the direction of one who is demonstrably more qualified and seemingly more careful in his thinking on that subject than either Hawking or Mlodinow appear to have been.

Greg Koukl (M.A Philosophy and Ethics) writes in the most recent edition of his bi-monthly newsletter, Solid Ground:

For Hawking and Mlodinow … event causation governs everything—even human choices. Determinism is absolute. There are no exceptions, even human ones. Everything, including human nature, must submit to the sovereignty of physics:

Since people live in the universe and interact with other objects in it, then scientific determinism must hold for people as well….[p.30]

Do people have free will?…Though we feel that we can choose…biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets….[p.31-32]

Our physical brain, following the known laws of science…determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside those laws. [p.32]

So it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion. [p.32] [emphases added]

It’s hard to believe brilliant men like Hawking and Mlodinow do not see how destructive this move is to their own case, but I think you will see it readily.

Let me put the question this way: Did the laws of physics determine the order of the words on the pages of The Grand Design? Or did Professors Hawking and Mlodinow make that call? Did they ponder the evidence for their theories, consider the implications of the facts, posit conclusions, then choose the right words and select the precise order that would best communicate their views and persuade readers of the rationality of their own ideas?

…in light of SD … ultimately, the laws of physics wrote the book that bears their names no less than the laws of physics determined the arrangement of rocks resting on the surface of the planet Mars. … Remember, the only causation Hawking & Mlodinow allow for is event causation—dominoes fatalistically falling—which is rigidly deterministic.

In other words, if Hawking and Mlodinow are right, they’re wrong. Moreover, it becomes meaningless to talk of the person “Hawking” or “Mlodinow” as agents capable of free thought and action. As this mock interview highlights, the universe deserves all the credit, not beings who merely appear to think and reason for themselves.

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The religious aspect of science (often referred to as ‘Scientism’) is captured once again in a recent piece on the highly informative CreationSafaris website. It requires very little commentary from me at this stage, as I think the point is well made.

Can you be called scientifically literate if you deny that humans evolved from lower animals?  What if you deny the universe began with an explosion?  American students have typically scored low on those questions, leading to charges that they are scientifically illiterate compared to other countries in Europe and Asia.  But now, the National Science Board (NSB) decided to drop those hot-button questions in the 2010 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators, a biennial compilation of the state of global science, on the grounds that they don’t accurately reflect students’ knowledge of science, but rather their beliefs.  The decision set off angry protests in certain quarters. …

… Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) [called] it “intellectual malpractice” to discuss scientific literacy without mentioning evolution.  “It downplays the controversy,” he said. … Yudhijit Bhattacharjee said, “those struggling to keep evolution in the classroom say the omission could hurt their efforts.”

… NSB officials counter that their decision to drop the survey questions on evolution and the big bang from the 2010 edition was based on concerns about accuracy.  The questions were “flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because the responses conflated knowledge and beliefs,” says Louis Lanzerotti, an astrophysicist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark and chair of the board’s Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) committee. …

… Bruer noted that 72% of Americans answered the question about humans evolving from earlier species correctly when the question was prefaced with the phrase, according to the theory of evolution.  This shows that the questions “reflect factors beyond unfamiliarity with basic elements of science.”  The controversy over Indicators thus boils down to the question whether a student needs to believe, rather than simply know, the facts of a theory to be considered scientifically literate. …

And here’s the point;

… If students have to believe rather than understand a scientific theory, then science has become a religion.  According to the radical Darwinists, a scientist could have a PhD, earn international honors in science, publish hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals, and save millions of lives, and yet, if a Darwin doubter (roster), could be judged scientifically illiterate. Do you want radicals like that influencing education policy?  Do you want them requiring recitation of a pledge of allegiance to Darwin?  Do you want them forcing science curricula to say that to understand science, you must believe that nothing banged and became everything by an unguided process?

Indeed, hasn’t this kind of expectation (this commitment to materialism and scientism) already been exposed with the treatment of scientists such as Richard Sternberg and Guillermo Gonzalez, not to mention many others?