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Home , Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (book)

Book Reviews this if they are to make a significant con- before the creation’ (50). However, then tribution to the interface between science he says, ‘That is a possible model, which and faith. The rather good bibliography is favoured by those who maintain that at the end of this book would be a guide the account given in Genesis is literally to the competition – there are some excel- true’, but the theory is ‘more lent books in this area already. Not rec- useful’, even though neither model is ommended. ‘more real than the other’ (50-51). This is deeply confusing not least because (a) Paul Wraight has retired from teach- Augustine himself did not take Genesis ing and electronics at literally, and (b) Augustine’s view is Aberdeen University and is thinking entirely compatible with the big bang and writing about design. theory! However, notwithstanding what comes later, Hawking admits at this and Leonard point that it is not clear that we can take Mlodinow time back beyond the big bang because : New Answers to the present laws of physics may break the Ultimate Questions of Life down (51). London: Bantam Press, 2010. 200 pp. hb. Hawking informs us that the 219 here- £18.99. ISBN-13 978-0593058299 sies condemned by Bishop Tempier of Paris in 1277 included the idea that This book was notoriously heralded by a nature follows laws, because this would front page splash in The Times headlined conflict with ’s omnipotence (24-25). ‘Hawking: God did not create ’. It is true that a prime consideration was The book does indeed make some star- God’s absolute power to do whatever he tling claims, for example: philosophy is wills (and so not to be bound by ‘natural dead and has been superseded by sci- laws’ – if that is even an appropriate ence; M-theory is the ultimate theory of term in this period). However, Hawking everything; the universe creates itself omits to tell us that also condemned were out of nothing – hence God is not needed; the notions that God could not create sev- and a explains the fine-tun- eral or more than 3 dimensions ing. – significant in view of Hawking’s The claim that philosophy is dead is on espousal of these ideas! Pierre Duhem the first page of text (5). Yet most of the and other philosophers have considered subject matter of the book is philosophi- the condemnations as liberating for sci- cal! Only a couple of pages later Hawking ence. says he adopts ‘model-dependent real- Among other philosophical positions ism’, a philosophical position if ever there Hawking adopts are , which was one! Hawking defines his concept by renders miracles impossible, and reduc- saying ‘it is pointless to ask whether a tionism. Echoing Dawkins he writes that model is real, only whether it agrees with ‘it seems that we are no more than bio- observations. If there are two models logical machines and that free will is just that both agree with observation… then an illusion’ (32). Even more significantly, one cannot say that one is more real than Hawking has bought into Wheeler’s ‘it- another.’ (46). This deceptively innocuous from-bit’ interpretation of quantum the- formulation leads to quite bizarre state- ory, namely that we create the history of ments in practice. the universe by observing it (82, 140). He Hawking is not the most reliable guide also interprets the Feynman sum-over- to and history. For example, he histories approach to quantum theory in rightly states that St Augustine believed a realist way, so that all possible histories that time is ‘a property of the world that of the universe are real, and we ‘select’ a God created and that time did not exist set of histories, no matter how improba-

80 • Science & Christian Belief, Vol 23, No. 1 Book Reviews ble, which are compatible with our own universe creates itself out of nothing, and existence. Add into this heady mix the if gravity and the laws of nature were no-boundary proposal whereby time responsible, one really would be entitled becomes imaginary (space-like) in the to ask where these come from in the first earliest epoch, which Hawking developed place and the quantum vacuum on which with Jim Hartle, and which appeared in they act. As Hawking himself put it so popular form first in A Brief History of eloquently in A Brief History of Time, Time, and you end up, he says, with a ‘What is it that breathes fire into the universe that has no beginning in time. equations and makes a universe for them Hence you avoid the need to invoke God to describe?’ to light the blue touch paper to set it Hawking describes how our existence going (134, 180) – again, repeating what imposes constraints on the form and con- he said in the earlier book. tent of the laws of nature (155). These Regarding this last point, if time has include Fred Hoyle’s discovery of the con- become space-like (i.e. a fourth space straint on the strong nuclear force neces- dimension) it is very difficult to see how sary for carbon and oxygen, essential for time can ‘flow’ and the universe evolve life, to be manufactured inside stars, and from the 4-space at all. Of course, even if the remarkable fine-tuning, to 1 part in we accept Hawking’s , we do 10120, of the cosmological constant. not have to accept his philosophy: we can Whereas this might lead in the direction perfectly well accept only real time in the of a new argument from design, Hawking mathematical sense as ontologically real, assures us ‘That is not the answer of and the universe beginning at the point modern science.’ (164, though he confuses where (real) 3-space and real time inter- such an argument with the modern Intel- sect the 4-space where time becomes ligent Design phenomenon in the US.) imaginary; and nor do we have to ontolo- Hawking’s answer is the multiverse, gise all the histories in the Feynman though it is not at all clear either that he sum, merely regard them as a useful cal- has established this or why, even if he culating device. had, that the question would not simply shift from ‘Why this universe?’ to ‘Why Another claim is that ‘M-theory pre- this multiverse?’ Given that M-theory dicts that a great many universes were scarcely qualifies as a theory at all, the created out of nothing. Their creation claim that it is the unique logical possi- does not require the intervention of a bility is highly problematic. supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from This is a book readers of this journal physical law.’ (8-9). There is no mention should read. It is beautifully produced here of the speculative nature of M-the- and written in a deceptively easy style, ory, the overarching generalisation of considering the esoteric subjects with string theory, and that serious questions which it deals, and it is laced with Hawk- have been raised over its lack of predic- ing’s quirky humour. But be prepared to tions and observational or experimental take its exaggerated claims with a large support. That goes particularly for the pinch of salt. claim about many universes. More signif- Rodney Holder is Course Director of icantly, the idea that the universe can the Faraday Institute for Science and create itself out of nothing, as Hawking Religion, St Edmund’s College, Cam- expresses it later, is inherently self-con- bridge. tradictory. Apparently gravity can do the trick because its negative energy bal- ances the positive energy needed to cre- ate matter (180). Contra Hawking, this sleight of hand does not mean that the

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