Stephen Hawking’s final theory of time, just published posthumously, ‘falls way short’ in seriously challenging major doctrines of the universe, Christian scientists say.
The book, On the Origin of Time, is written by Hawking’s prodigy, the Belgian philosopher Thomas Hertog. The pair worked together in Hawkings’ final years, during which time he announced to Hertog that his original book, A Brief History of Time, was in fact flawed.
The new book is their ‘final theory’ and presents a new ‘top down cosmology’, though Hertog admits it is still only a hypothesis.
According to a review of the book in The Times: ‘Over a minuscule fraction of a second, the early universe, Hawking and Hertog argue, underwent a Darwinian process of variation and selection akin to the evolution of life forms on Earth. And crucially, this all occurred in the realm of quantum mechanics in which the act of observation today creates a backwards-through-time effect to fix the outcome of the Big Bang.’ The review quoted Hertog as also admitting it was a theory that was ‘awaiting significant evidence to support it’.
Dr Rodney Holder, author of Nothing But Atoms and Molecules? and God, the Multiverse, and Everything, commented: ‘The universe as a holographic projection, the laws of physics evolving as the universe cooled, we as human observers bringing all its past history into existence … This paradoxical and speculative theory, like others on offer today, and despite any claims to the contrary, does nothing to shake our belief in the universe as a divine creation.’
Professor Tim Andersen, a research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute, described the book as a ‘journey through speculations about fine tuning which has become a kind of idol for some physicists who would like to explain the universe’s suitability for life based on purely mechanistic processes or some interaction between human consciousness and quantum fields’.
Writing on the Creation-Evolution Headlines blog in April, a website recommended by the Creation Resources Trust, which believes in six literal days in Genesis, Dr Jerry Bergman, who has nine degrees, said: ‘Hawking’s musings illustrate the fact that attempts to get around the intelligent design of the universe require metaphysical speculations that negate much of the scientific discovery that has taken place during the last two centuries. His attempt to avoid intelligent design actually points to its superiority. In his view, everything evolves; life, the universe, and even the laws of physics. Hawking leaves the purview of science in his creative, but pathetic, attempts to explain the origin of the privileged planet Earth by Darwinism.’
