Pope Advised Hawking Not to Study Origin of Universe

BlueCup submits a link to an Associated Press article running in the Northwest Florida Daily News which begins "Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that the late Pope John Paul II once told scientists they should not study the beginning of the universe because it was the work of God. The British author, who wrote the best-seller 'A Brief History of Time,' said that the pope made the comments at a cosmology conference at the Vatican." According to the article, "The scientist then joked during a lecture in Hong Kong, 'I was glad he didn't realize I had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began. I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo.'"

Comments

Flawed Logic

[mfh]

If you love God, why not read up on his work?

Re:Flawed Logic

[Richy_T]

In fact, even if you did experienced it, you are still having faith that your memories are correct and accurate.

The issue is not whether faith but whether reasonable or blind, unsubstantiated faith.

Rich

Re:Flawed Logic

[BVis]

If you need proof, just look at a duck-billed platypus.

I mean seriously, what the fuck? Hair, bill, warm-blooded, lays eggs, nurses its young, males have venomous spurs..

(They also have the best electroperception of any mammal and swim with their eyes closed. You can't make this shit up, check out the Wikipedia entry. They're even wierder than I thought.)

Re:Nevertheless, it inflates

[Jboost]

Well, Pope Pius XII approved of the Big Bang theory in 1951 and Pope John Paul II said "that it is acceptable for Catholics to believe and teach evolutionism."

The Vatican also has some fine astronomers (and one of the oldest astronomical research institutions).
http://vaticanobservatory.org/

The Vatican isn't as backwards as those fundamental christian creationists that take everything the bible says literally.

Not quite right

[LihTox]

While I don't have a reference for this, I seem to recall reading that Hawking misquoted John Paul. The Pope didn't say that scientists *shouldn't* study the beginning of the Universe, but that the scientists *wouldn't* be able to explain the instant of Creation, because that came from God; it was an expression of faith, rather than an admonition.

And as far as I know, the Pope so far is right; cosmologists will talk about t=1e-12 seconds after the Big Bang, and so forth, but few talk about t=0 (or t0) in anything but completely speculative ways. The Big Bang and "Let there be light!" are perfectly compatible if you're not a literalist.

reminds me of another story...

[Marsmensch]

I heard this same anecdote from Hawking himself when he visited Chile a few years ago.

I'm reminded of a story Carl Sagan used to tell. He once asked the pope (John Paul II, of course) what he would do if some scientific discovery proved once and for all and irrefutably that the precepts of Christianity were false. The pope lectured him for a few minutes about how this wasn't possible.

Sagan once asked the Dalai Lama the exact same thing. The Lama's answer?

"I would tell the world, of course! There are millions of buddhists in the world and if I find out their all wrong, I should tell them as soon as possible, and we should look for a better way to live then.

Very different mindset.