ec1968
Jedi
BHelmet said:We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
[info][add][mail][note]Stephen Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989
Is that last one a quote from a brilliant mind? It strikes me as so much spin that is quite ill-conceived. How could a real scientist make a statement like that? It strikes me like the preposterous, over-simplified sound-bites we get from the Dali Lama that have nothing to do with real Buddhism.
1. Advanced breed of monkeys? Ok that may be close to the truth, but does science really know that? (And what is more believable: that our souls were planted into a monkey or neanderthal hybridized with a healthy dose of DNA manipulation by the denizens of another density we are unaware of or that a guy died and was replaced with a look-alike who had some plastic surgery for the purpose of misdirecting the public and scientific conversation about the nature of our reality with a healthy dose of attitudinal programming? Why should we be so ready to accept the one and not the other?)
2. How does he know this is a minor planet of an average star? Has he been all over the universe and checked it out? Using words like minor and average are super subjective and way dumbed down.
3. We can understand the universe? Really? What 'genius', or realistic physicist would have the audacity to say something like that when it should be obvious we don't?
IMHO BHelmet, your interpretation of these quotations is incorrect, and for me, the quotations stand in their original form:
1. Advanced breed of monkeys - yes. Read Darwin and any other evolutionary biology work for confirmation that the current theory of evolution is the best theory we have on our development.
2. Again, read an introductory astrophysics text covering star and planet formation for confirmation that the earth is a minor planet orbiting an average star. Whilst Prof Hawking has not been 'all over the universe', the knowledge and understanding in the cosmology and astrophysics community supports his assertion.
3. He is not claiming that we know everything there is to know about the universe; far from it. As I read it, his point here is that what we do know, we pretty much understand, and for an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of an average star, that is pretty damned amazing.
Any biologists or physicists that I know would be happy to agree in principle with these statements by Prof Hawking.
(Sources for my opinions - personal knowledge from honours degree in physics, master's in electron microscopy, Chartered Biologist and Member of the Royal Society of Biology, plus 20 years of post-graduation CPD in science subjects).