Let's Be Careful Out There
Stephen Hawking was sometimes embarrassingly silly.
Yes, yes, I grant that he was brilliant in his field of expertise, theoretical physics. But when he ventured outside of his bailiwick, he said some really boned-headed things. Consider just one example from his book The Grand Design:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
In one sentence Hawking committed at least two logical blunders. First, he committed the error of reification (ascribing concrete properties to abstract concepts). The law of gravity does not do anything. Like all laws of science, the law of gravity is a mathematical model of observed regularities. Any honest scientist will tell you that while there is no doubt that objects are attracted to one another, no one has any idea why that is the case. Yes, we have Newton’s laws and Einstein’s refinements and those equations describe the effects of gravity with exquisite precision. But why those regularities are as they are and how those regularities came to be in the first place is beyond the realm of science – and thus not within Hawking’s area of expertise.
Second, he committed the error of equivocation. "Nothing," in the sense that is under examination, means “absolute non-being.” Such a state has no properties. When it obtains, it means there is absolutely nothing. Now look at Hawking’s statement. He said, essentially, “because we have something (the law of gravity), the universe can create itself from nothing.” Well sure, if by “nothing” one means “something,” that statement, while dubious, is at least logically coherent. But that is not what “nothing” means, as any reasonably bright second grader knows, and therefore Hawking was logically incoherent.
This is why we should be very careful when we employ the argument from authority. “X said thus and so” can be a powerful argument if X is the world’s foremost authority on the subject. Certainly it is never absolutely persuasive because in the past the majority of scientists (even the smartest among them) have been wrong about basic things. Until well into the twentieth century most cosmologists subscribed to the theory of the luminiferous aether. That theory turned out to be bunk. Still, when an expert speaks within the area of his expertise, his views are worth considering. But when an expert speaks outside his area of expertise, he is just another layman and his pronouncements do not deserve greater weight than another layman. Hawking, for example, was very bad at philosophy. In another example, Einstein was in favor of socialism. The man who was widely considered one of the smartest scientists in history was utterly clueless in the realm of economics.
When it comes to the argument from authority, our best bet is to follow the advice of Sergeant Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues: "Let's be careful out there." ·
Having worked with college professors for the better part of a decade, I'm fairly immune to the appeal to authority fallacy. I don't know what happens during a PhD's final phase of training but I have theorized there is a secret seminar they put students through sometime between the defense of their dissertation and graduation where they tell the soon to to be hooded graduates that they are now an expert in all subject matters.
In the early 2000s I argued at length with a learned PhD in Business who believed that the web had no future because computing would always be thin client-server. In the end I arrogantly boasted that my Bachelors in Computer Science, in that context, trumped his PhD in Business and the conversation ended a few moments later (probably not my finest moment). Or perhaps during the COVID school shut downs the DCSD, under the leadership of the intellectual powerhouse and case study in courage that was former board president David Ray (/sarcasm), brought in an pediatric anesthesiologist to speak on pediatric mental health (to show the lockdowns weren't hurting kids).
What amuses me so much is just how angry they get when you dare to call into question their academic credentials. "But Sir, your degree is in dentistry, you aren't really qualified to give expert testimony on particle physics," garners so much hostility in academic circles that it begs the question if academics isn't just one big mutual admiration society. Heaven help you if you call into question the expertise of someone with advanced degrees in the social "sciences" (e.g. sociology, * Studies, etc.).
But if you think this is limited to the hard sciences and pseudosciences like Sociology, think again. Go look up books on raising children or various mental health issues with a "Christian" label and then take note of how many of the authors of said books have degrees in things like Theology. In most cases, they're written by well-intentioned Christians with advanced degrees in subjects steeped in secular philosophies. Throw in a couple Bible verses to support your conclusions and viola, an expert in Theology as well as the subject at hand. What we don't really consider is that such a person was trained in large part by people who don't know God, credentialed by boards who don't know God, licensed by groups that are now largely openly hostile to God, but a claim of Christianity and a couple Bible verses suddenly replaces formal study in God's word or formal study in Theology. And we in the pews just kind of nod our heads in agreement and then wonder why the church is in the state it is in.
I really did try to not make this about Jordan Peterson, but upon reading this, I realize the connection isn't difficult to make.
If something came from nothing, then how often did this happen?
It must have happened more than once. The most absurd thing would be that this incredibly amazing thing happened just once. So if it happened more than once, there can be no limit in the number of times that it happened. If this is not true, why?
So it must have happened an infinite number of times. And if it happened an infinite number of times, why not one time a self sufficient being poofed into existence with unlimited power and intelligence. Why couldn’t this happen? And if it happened once, why not an infinite number of such events?
Hawkins was driven by blind hatred to accept absurdity. The only logical solution is that there was only one such entity in existence. Why, I have no idea. But without it we are driven to accept an infinite number of absurdities.
We must then follow what is also logical from such a conclusion - including why this discussion and discussions like it are meant to be. Doubt must always be a logical conclusion. Because without doubt we would not be human.