"Brief Answers to Big Questions" and "On the Future": Serious Doubt on a Serious Land

Personalities aside, Hawking and Mr. Rees had a lot in common. Born in 1942, they are both professors at the University of Cambridge, where Newton taught. Both contributed to our modern understanding of big bang, black holes, galaxies and other cosmic matter. Both are committed to informing the public of the amazing revelations of science.

One afternoon, everyone boarded a bus and went to a local church to listen to a concert. As the scientists headed into the crowded central aisle, led by Hawking in his wheelchair, the parishioners stood up and applauded. These believers seemed to recognize that science moved religion as a source of answers to the deepest mysteries, as the reason for our existence.

This scene came to my mind as I read two new books, Hawking's "Brief Answers to Big Questions" and Mr. Rees' "The Future: Perspectives for Humanity". The styles of the authors differ – arrogant Hawking, Mr. Rees sober – but the substance of their books overlaps. They offer a quick and lucid overview of the future of science and humanity. They testify to a deep faith in the power of science to demystify nature and incline it to our ends.

Yet reading these books has been a bittersweet experience, and not only since Hawking's death last March, at the age of 76. (His book was completed by colleagues and family members.) No longer enjoy the prestige they had a few decades ago.

Hawking in this book is less impetuous than in the past. In 1980, he proclaimed that physicists would discover, at the end of the twentieth century, an "ultimate theory" that would solve the enigma of existence. It would tell us what reality is made of, where it comes from and why it takes the form it takes. In "Brief Answers," Hawking admits that "we are not there yet" and he pushes his predictions for a "theory of everything" to the end. this century. But he continues to promote the same ideas he has for decades. String theory remains his favorite "theory of everything". Also called M theory, it assumes that reality is made of chains, loops or infinitesimal membranes that wiggle in a hyperspace of 10 dimensions.

Noting that, according to quantum mechanics, the empty space teems with particles appearing and disappearing, Hawking suggests that the entire universe began as one of these virtual particles. The universe is "the ultimate free meal," he says. Our universe can also be one of many. The M theory, quantum mechanics and inflation – a theory of cosmic creation – all suggest that our cosmos is only a tiny bubble in an infinite ocean, or "multiverse".

To explain why we live in this universe rather than follow radically different laws, Hawking invokes the "anthropic principle": if our universe was not as we see it, we would not be here for # 39; observe. Hawking proposes that our scientific picture of the cosmos is already so complete that it eliminates the need of God. "No one has created the universe," he says, "and no one directs our destiny."

Science can also save us, Hawking States. This gives us the means to establish colonies on Mars and elsewhere in case the Earth becomes unlivable, be it because of a nuclear war, rapid warming, pandemics or a collision. asteroids. "If humanity is to go on for another million years," he says, "our future lies in the audacity with which no one will ever have gone before."

Mr. Rees' worldview differs in some respects from Hawking's. He describes himself as a "practicing but unbelieving Christian". He respects believers, with whom he shares "a sense of wonder and mystery". As for the colonization of space, Mr. Rees says that it is "a dangerous illusion to think that space offers an escape from the problems of the Earth." He insists more than Hawking on the threats posed by climate change, nuclear weapons, bioterrorism, asteroid collisions and even economic inequalities. He calls for the redistribution of "the enormous wealth" generated by the "digital revolution".

Yet Cambridge colleagues agree on major issues. These machines will inevitably become super intelligent, able to learn without the help of human and pursue their own goals. We can nevertheless exploit these machines for our own purposes, or even merge with them. We need more science and technology to help us overcome the obstacles to our peace and prosperity. This science will eventually explain the origin of this universe and will confirm even the existence of other universes.

"It's highly speculative," Rees says of the multiverse theory. "But it's an exciting science. And that may be true. "Mr. Rees also shares Hawking's view that "post-human" cyborgs are spreading across the universe to colonize other star systems. Our bionic descendants could be smart enough to invent distortion-engineered spaceships and time machines, Rees suggests. They could even solve what many scientists and philosophers consider to be the greatest mystery, the mind-body problem. This puzzle requires, as Mr. Rees says, "how can atoms assemble into" gray matter "that can become self-aware and reflect on its origins".

Hawking and M. Rees recognize the declining status of science. They call for better science education to encourage more young people to science and counter the public's ignorance about vaccines, genetically modified foods, climate change, climate change and climate change. Nuclear energy and evolution. "The low esteem in which science and scientists are held has serious consequences," complains Hawking.

Both authors fail to mention that the wounds of science are at least partially self-inflicted. In 2005, statistician John Ioannidis presented evidence that "most published research results are wrong". In other words, the results can not be reproduced by subsequent research. Many other researchers have now confirmed the work of Dr. Ioannidis. The so-called replication crisis is particularly serious in areas with high financial stakes, such as oncology and psychopharmacology.

But physics, which should serve as a foundation for science, is in some respects the most troubled area. In recent decades, Hawking and M. Rees' large-scale physics has become increasingly disconnected from empirical evidence. Proponents of string and multiverse models extol their mathematical elegance, but the strings are too small and the multiverse too far to be detected by an imaginable experiment.

In her new book "Lost in Math", the German physicist Sabine Hossenfelder offers an assessment of modern physics much more sincere and convincing than that of her English elders. She fears that physicists working on ropes and multivers do not really practice physics. "I'm not sure what we're doing here, in the fundamentals of physics, science," she confesses.

As I finished "Brief Answers to Big Questions" and "On the Future," some questions of my own came to mind. Will science regain its brilliance? Will he regain public confidence or will his authority be permanently reduced? And what result should we prefer? I am happy to have seen the high priests of science at their peak. But it is perhaps better to doubt all authorities, including scientists.

-M. Horgan leads the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He has published his new book, "Mind-Body Problems" for free online at mindbodyproblems.com.