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Stephen Hawking Turned Down Knighthood
schliz writes "Professor Stephen Hawking has revealed that he turned down the offer of a knighthood over 10 years ago. The scientist has released correspondence showing that he was approached with the offer of a knighthood but refused it on principle. Professor Hawking has also revealed correspondence showing harsh criticism of what he sees as the UK government's mismanagement of science funding. He is particularly critical of the merger of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils."
Lots of women? The ability to do +2 damage? What's the deal and why would someone want it?
I reckon there's a difference between a title and a position. Yes, 'professor' is a title, but it's a professional one. 'Sir' isn't.
-1 not first post
(robot voice)"No, you can keep it. I will not risk valorous death for someone who mismanages the government funding of my chosen profession.
"No, you don't understand..."
(loud robot voice)"I SAID KEEP IT!"
My humor is probably your flamebait
Maybe he changed his mind. It does happen. If people's opinions were immutable, we'd be incapable of learning anything.
Reality is fluffy!
I thought knighthoods were handed out by the monarch as special recognition of one's accomplishments. It's the queen's way of saying thanks for being such an outstanding citizen. If you have a beef with the prime minister(s) and their budgeting priority that's not the queen's fault. Seems rather rude to slap her thanks down for something she's not in charge of.
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/
They just recently snagged Dr. Neil Turok from Cambridge to serve as the the executive Director - it looks like we will soon have all of England's great physicists
The RIM founder just kicked in another $50 Mil to his pet project:
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/News/In_The_Media/Mike_Lazaridis_Donates_Additional_$50_Million_to_Perimeter_Institute/
I would love to see Dr. Hawking at their monthly public outreach lectures.
My rights don't need management.
This knighthood business is such pomposity, it doesn't belong in the modern era. I have to get permission from a queeen before calling someone Sir?
The truth is that he has fallen out of favour with the government since Torchwood uncovered evidence that he is working with Davros.
Personally, I think the government shouldn't be in the business of giving out meaningless awards and I would refuse one on that basis.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
It looks to me as though you're confusing two parts of the article. It's actually talking about two sets of correspondence, one about the knighthood and one about funding disputes. On the knighthood, it says:
So he turned the knighthood down because he dislikes knighthood in principle. That seems like a reasonable position, and a willingness to turn down personal advancement on a matter of principle seems like an honorable decision. The arguments about funding were a separate issue and, apparently, one that came about some time after he turned down the knighthood.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I can see the problem at the ceremony now:
Queen: "Arise Sir Hawking. Errmmmmm".
himself, the speech synth, and the wheel chair onto the horse's back. He would be a knight after all. I didn't even get to the part of how he could hold the lance.
This is so trollish that I should ignore it, but I should note that I work with a group of speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and rehabilitation engineers who would have loved the challenge and it is almost certainly possible to do.Google "hippotherapy." Creating such a mounting system wouldn't be a completely useless endeavor.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
A lot of people are refusing knighthoods, because association with our tired, old absurd Imperial rituals is more of a detriment than a benefit to someone who is already famous in their own right.
The people who tend to accept them are the ones whose careers are on the slide anyway.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Not really. He did not claim he refused the knighthood to live the life of a recluse. He just doesn't like titles (and I suspect especially titles related to monarchy). Lenon did the same. If more people follow his example, the value of a knighthood will be diminished (and that's not hypocritical, cos he does not believe the knighthood should have a value)
"the merger of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils"
In other news, the British Council For The Renaming Of British Councils Which Sound As If They Were Named By Monty Python (BCFTROBCWSAITWNBMP) was renamed "Betsy". And in the sports news, it was (over 'Ilchester-Ladies-Choir 'Arsenal 3 nil) . . .
I should note that these rule adjustments only work in the UK and Commonwealth countries. And if you are ever in the UK, don't play a game of chess with the queen. Not even Kasparov would attempt it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I think abstracts are much more useful. You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can judge an article by its abstract.
Invenio via vel creo
That may have been true if he had done so AT THE TIME. Hawking SILENTLY rejected the knighthood many years ago, but OTHER people have been calling for him to be knighted every year. These constant requests from the public ultimately led to Hawking choosing to end the suspense by just saying that it was HIS OWN decision not to be knighted many years ago and that they can stop pestering the UK government about it.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
To be honest, it's not the best idea to let a 100-year-old woman with a sword near a wheelchair-bound man who has all kinds of sensitive electronic devices around him that keep him alive.
This and wanted no part of it.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Of course he rejected the knighthood. He'll only take a knighthood when someone else gets it, and then he'll call it a Hawkinghood.
took the knighthood, his criticisms would hold more weight!? Just guessing...
I wouldn't mod the parent as Troll it's a valid point and as youthoftoday pointed out Professor is not a title it was earned and 'Sir' is a title, an honor, given to a man.
He's more of an anti-elitist, anti-government rebel than Sir Mick Jagger?
In America, if you're capable of learning, you're supposed to hide the fact. Demonstrating the capacity to learn is guaranteed to get to ridiculed for being a "flip-flopper". It's considered a sign of strength and character to never change you mind no matter what you learn or how circumstances change. :p
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Bet this doesn't get modded up, but here goes:
In 1865 the holder of the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship, one Charles Dodgson, published an amazing childrens book, 'Alice in Wonderland' under the pen name of Lewis Caroll.
The book was a great success, and Queen Victoria was one of his fans. Greatly appreciative, she arranged for an audience with 'Caroll', and insisted that she be provided with a copy of the next book this author would write.
Imagine her surprise when, next year, she was sent a copy of a complex technical book on Symbolic Logic!
I thought that title meant you could wield a sword and cut off peoples heads in the name of the kingdom...
Architectural Renderings
I thought this story was about Stephen Hawking turning down a Knighthood invitation on Facebook, and I was all "Yeah so? I do it all the time." :P
In my opinion, a knighthood would be an insult to Hawking. He is one of the greatest minds of all time; being Sir Stephen would leave him permanently at the bottom of the nobility scale.
Perhaps that's the point of honorary knighthoods: so that the hereditary nobility can look down on all the great people who have been "honored" and put them in their place.
He's right!
Not that I wish to troll the good Dr. Hawking, but is this the first time it's been known that he turned this down, and for those reasons?
Because if so I'm saddened as that means that his stand, has wasted what could have potentially been 10 years of community momentum taking up the issue that he was highlighting then.
I'm sure people were doing what they could anyway, but it seems like it would have been a wasted PR opportunity.
Well I guess sarcasm really is a dead art these days.
I don't socialize with CBEs and FRSs that often, but of the people who hold academic/professional titles, many favour not to overuse them. Many of those who insist on their titles appear to do so in an effort to hide any insecurities behind bureaucracy and hierarchy, so it's not something the truly excellent would need to.
Talking to someone representing not themself (the person) but any given role, is, of course, different. As an example, on official occasions most political figures will instruct whomever's talking to them to address them as president/councillor/etc, probably not to hide behind their title but to stress their presence as a function instead of a person.
Professor Stephen Hacking....
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
wish he could reply to you on slashdot...
(I expect an equally witty retort...)
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
A PhD is an academic qualification. An MD is a trade diploma.
PhD's who insist on the title "Dr" outside the academic environment are insecure, pompous twits.
In Soviet Russia, circumstances change YOU!
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
In America, if you're capable of learning, you're supposed to hide the fact. Demonstrating the capacity to learn is guaranteed to get to ridiculed for being a "flip-flopper".
Hmm... from the sound of the whine, you must be a Obama supporter. Here's the problem with your analysis: to learn something, you have to actually *do* something and see how it turns out. Obama hasn't been around long enough and done anything significant enough to have a good reason to change his mind.
Except on one issue: Iraq. He voiced opposition to the surge early on and he could go to Iraq and see first hand how it is. But he won't go. How can you have "capacity to learn" if you won't go and see what is happening?
Instead we have the spectacle of him saying he wants an undivided Jerusalem in front of AIPAC and backpedaling in front of other audiences. Sorry, that's either rank opportunism or naivete, not a "capacity to learn."
We have him pledging to take public funds and then changing his mind when it's inconvenient. I don't even like public funds and I'd even support a politician who was honest and said that he'd make his decision based on what would get the most money. But to just break a pledge indicates that you have no principles.
And there are cases where he ought to have simply admitted he was wrong, like when he said during the primaries that he'd speak to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Instead he's turned an unscripted answer borne of ignorance into his foreign policy, or in some cases tried to deny that he said it.
Further, when another candidate admits he has limited knowledge, as when McCain acknowledged he didn't have all the answers on economic issues, Obama ridiculed him. Obama has presented himself as having all the answers and has thus put himself into the position of being unable to change his mind. So when he gets the flip-flopper label, its his own hubris coming back to bite him.
He is sitting in Newton's chair, for bunnies sakes.
You simply can't get much better than that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The whole royal construct is offensive to many people, it is an affront to the most basic democratic principles in which people are valued by their deeds, not by their genealogy tree.
It the queen feels slapped for that, so what?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Millions of people died, countries fell and were created, at the whims of monarchs, whose only justification to be in a position of power was that they were born from another monarch (when they were not in fact usurpers, often from their own family members).
To claim they were a force for good is completely ludicrous, it has to be said there was no better alternative, even though the concept of democracy was invented hundreds of years before.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
people often say that someone who is a doctor, but not a medical doctor, is a fake doctor, which in fact, it's the other way around.
MD is short for Medicinae Doctor, or Doctor of Medicine. It's a 'real' doctorate.
Somebody who does med school and a residency certainly learns as much about medicine as somebody studying for a PhD in other sciences. Fellowships are equivalent to post-docs.
I guess one significant difference would be that a PhD usually published original research, whereas the MD doesn't always. But that just shows that it takes 7+ years of tough work to get to that stage, the fellowship, when pretty much everybody publishes papers. So, whereas most PhD's can hammer out something in four years, it takes longer to learn what's needed to be an MD. OK, technically they have the MD after four years, but the residency isn't really optional.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)