| Stephen Hawking can't use physics to answer why we're here | Eric Priest Modern belief in God is not about covering the gaps in our knowledge, but about answering different types of questionsStephen Hawking makes the claim that it is not necessary to invoke God as the creator of the universe and the assertion that physics alone made it.He may be correct in his first statement, but to rule out a possibly important role for God is in my view unjustified. It is certainly possible that God sets up and maintains or underpins the laws of physics and allows them to work, so that being able to explain the big bang in terms of physics is not inconsistent with there being a role for God.As a scientist, you are continually questioning, rarely coming up with a definitive answer. The limitations of your own knowledge and expertise together with the beauty and mystery of life and the universe often fill you with a sense of profound humility. Thus, unequivocal assertions are not part of a genuine scientific quest.Mathematics as applied to physics may be the queen of sciences according to Carl Friedrich Gauss, but it does not answer every scientific question. Chemistry, biology, psychology and the social sciences have their own ways of analysing the nature of reality which are complementary to those of physics and mathematics: indeed, they are not reducible to physics but their insights emerge at their own level of complexity.Furthermore, many of the questions that are most crucial to us as human beings are not addressed adequately at all by science, such as the nature of beauty and love and how to live one's life – often philosophy or history or theology are better suited to help answer them.The complementary nature of different questions and in particular of the difference between how and why are important. If M-theory does indeed turn out to enable a unified theory, Hawking may be able in future to say how the universe started, but as a physicist he cannot answer the question "why?"This is well illustrated by John Polkinghorne's story about boiling a kettle: I can describe with physics how it boils in terms of the stove making its temperature rise; but why it is boiling is a different type of question altogether – most probably in my case because my wife is thirsty!The so-called "God of the Gaps" is not part of modern religious faith. In this view, you invoked God to explain the inexplicable – at one time this would have been the weather or common diseases, and for Hawking apparently until recently the origin of the universe. Thus, when an alternative explanation arises, there is no longer any need for God.The God followed by many people of a religious faith is not a God of the Gaps at all – rather a God who helps answer other nonscientific questions about why the universe and its amazing life exists and how to lead a good life. Also, they welcome the advances in understanding that modern science brings, since they reveal more of the incredible beauty, diversity and wonder of the nature of the universe.You cannot prove whether God exists or not. But you can ask whether the existence or nonexistence of God is more consistent with your experience. It is up to each of us to reach our own conclusion, but for many of us it is and can make a profound and enriching difference to our lives.ReligionStephen HawkingMathematicsPhysicsPhilosophyEric Priestguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
As Europe Kicks Coal, Hungarian Town Suffers The European Commission is fighting a complicated battle against an influential but polluting industry. feeds.nytimes.com |
New Earth-like planet discovered Gliese 581g is in the 'Goldilocks zone' of its solar system, where liquid water could exist, and is a strong contender to be a habitable worldAstronomers have discovered a potentially habitable planet of similar size to Earth in orbit around a nearby star.A team of planet hunters spotted the alien world circling a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, 20 light years away.The planet is in the "Goldilocks zone" of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form."Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."If confirmed, the planet would be the most Earth-like that has ever been discovered in another solar system and the first strong contender for a habitable one.More than 400 exoplanets have been discovered by astronomers, but most are gas giants, like Jupiter, that would be inhospitable to life as we know it.Astronomers used the Keck telescope in Hawaii to study the movement of Gliese 581 in exquisite detail and from their observations inferred the presence of a number of orbiting planets. The team report two new planets in the Astrophysical Journal, bringing the total number known to be circling the star to six.One of the planets, named Gliese 581g, has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere.Unlike the previously discovered planets, Gliese 581g lies squarely in the region of space were life can thrive. "We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone — one too hot and one too cold — and now we have one in the middle that's just right," Vogt said.One side of the planet is always facing the star, much as one side of the moon constantly faces Earth. This means that the far side of the planet is constantly in darkness. The most habitable region of the planet would be the line between the light and dark regions."Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," Vogt said.The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side."The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy," said Vogt.Alien lifeSpaceAstronomyIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Psychoanalysis at the Science Museum New exhibition explores the workings of the unconscious mind through a range of modern and historical objects and contemporary artworks guardian.co.uk |
Scientist Dr Ian Crawford on Holst's The Planets – An HD Odyssey If you want music to inspire and educate, then concerts like this one, which matched a performance of Holst's The Planets with Nasa images of the solar system, are the way to goMusic, on its own, can't really enhance your understanding of science. But if you want music to inspire and educate, then concerts like this – which matched the Houston Symphony's performance of Holst's The Planets with Nasa images of the solar system – are the way to go. I suspect that many of the children at the family matinee I went to will be inspired to look more deeply into astronomy. I took my 13-year-old son, Matthew, and even he wasn't as bored as I thought he might be.Much of Holst's music evokes the grandeur of space. For Jupiter, the largest planet, we have a loud, confident score, matched by footage of turbulent clouds. For Mars, the god of war, Holst's music turns military. Here we saw exploration spacecraft soft-landing on Mars; usually we think of Martians invading us, but here we had earthlings invading Mars.Holst's Venus suite, however, doesn't correspond with what we now know about the planet. His music is peaceful and soothing, drawing on the idea of Venus as the goddess of love. But Venus is actually uninviting: it has a sweltering carbon dioxide atmosphere and its dreary volcanic surface is at 500C. In those conditions, it's difficult to photograph the planet's surface – so we were shown topographical maps, given false colours to show the mountains and valleys. These are fine for experts like me who know what the maps are – but I wouldn't want people to leave this concert thinking that Venus is actually green, yellow and red.With Neptune, however, Holst got the tone exactly right. He makes the planet mysterious. This fits well with the fact that we still know so little about Uranus and Neptune. Only one spacecraft has ever been to those two outer planets: Voyager 2, which got to Neptune in 1989, and was only there for a few hours before speeding on by.Dr Ian Crawford is Reader in Planetary Science at Birkbeck College, University of London. The Planets – An HD Odyssey was at the Barbican, London EC1; www.barbican.org.ukGustav HolstAstronomySpaceClassical musicLaura Barnettguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |