Sometimes the medium really is the message.
"Did God Create the Universe?" is the premiere episode at 8 p.m. today of the new Discovery series "Curiosity," which will also air on TLC and Animal Planet, and there is something hopeful about that. Even in these jaded times, God manages to trump sex, aliens, evil and the panoply of other tantalizing topics that will be explored in future episodes, while, in the world of Discovery anyway, Stephen Hawking, who's featured in the episode, remains a bigger name than Robin Williams, Samuel Jackson, Maggie Gyllenhaal or any of the other A-listers who participated in subsequent episodes.
Of course it is a rhetorical question. Hawking has long insisted that no supreme being was necessary to make the universe or even get the astrophysical ball rolling. "Did God Create the Universe?" is based on his most recent book, "The Grand Design" (co-written with Leonard Mlodinow), which divided critics along religious and scientific lines.
But even those unfamiliar with Hawking are tipped off early on. Hawking acknowledges the controversy in the opening moments of the hourlong segment, reminding the audience that the rift between the scientific and theological communities is a long and bitter one, with the Catholic Church often, over the centuries, attempting to suppress scientific advances and punish those who made them.
As usual in these sorts of conversations, the brilliant and much abused Galileo gets a lot of play, as does Pope John XXI, who in 1277 declared the laws of nature to be heretical, only to be killed by one of them -- gravity (and weak mortar) caused a roof to fall on him.
So a better title perhaps would be "Stephen Hawking Explains Why He Is Quite Certain God Did Not Create the Universe." Hawking, like many scientists, believes in "a simpler alternative" to a participatory God -- that the fixed laws of nature not only rule the universe but explain its creation.
How, I cannot tell you. Although Discovery is liberal in its CG usage and Hawking comes up with all manner of easily understood metaphors, his attempts to explain how, exactly, the big bang emerged from nothingness required an understanding of physics that was beyond me.
So, like its alternative, belief in Hawking's premise is an act of faith; after a certain point, the discussion of subatomic anomalies and the quality of positive and negative energy, the existence of a state in which the nascent universe existed only as potential, independent of mass or time, remains accessible only to a chosen few, like Hawking, who must resort in their explanations to simple imagery, just as the ancient people shook their spears at a solar eclipse and told stories of a wolf god.
Still, one leaves the hour with many questions, about the nature of time and space and faith and fear, which are the fuel of curiosity.
"Did God Create the Universe?" is the premiere episode at 8 p.m. today of the new Discovery series "Curiosity," which will also air on TLC and Animal Planet, and there is something hopeful about that. Even in these jaded times, God manages to trump sex, aliens, evil and the panoply of other tantalizing topics that will be explored in future episodes, while, in the world of Discovery anyway, Stephen Hawking, who's featured in the episode, remains a bigger name than Robin Williams, Samuel Jackson, Maggie Gyllenhaal or any of the other A-listers who participated in subsequent episodes.
Of course it is a rhetorical question. Hawking has long insisted that no supreme being was necessary to make the universe or even get the astrophysical ball rolling. "Did God Create the Universe?" is based on his most recent book, "The Grand Design" (co-written with Leonard Mlodinow), which divided critics along religious and scientific lines.
But even those unfamiliar with Hawking are tipped off early on. Hawking acknowledges the controversy in the opening moments of the hourlong segment, reminding the audience that the rift between the scientific and theological communities is a long and bitter one, with the Catholic Church often, over the centuries, attempting to suppress scientific advances and punish those who made them.
As usual in these sorts of conversations, the brilliant and much abused Galileo gets a lot of play, as does Pope John XXI, who in 1277 declared the laws of nature to be heretical, only to be killed by one of them -- gravity (and weak mortar) caused a roof to fall on him.
So a better title perhaps would be "Stephen Hawking Explains Why He Is Quite Certain God Did Not Create the Universe." Hawking, like many scientists, believes in "a simpler alternative" to a participatory God -- that the fixed laws of nature not only rule the universe but explain its creation.
How, I cannot tell you. Although Discovery is liberal in its CG usage and Hawking comes up with all manner of easily understood metaphors, his attempts to explain how, exactly, the big bang emerged from nothingness required an understanding of physics that was beyond me.
So, like its alternative, belief in Hawking's premise is an act of faith; after a certain point, the discussion of subatomic anomalies and the quality of positive and negative energy, the existence of a state in which the nascent universe existed only as potential, independent of mass or time, remains accessible only to a chosen few, like Hawking, who must resort in their explanations to simple imagery, just as the ancient people shook their spears at a solar eclipse and told stories of a wolf god.
Still, one leaves the hour with many questions, about the nature of time and space and faith and fear, which are the fuel of curiosity.
0 comments:
Post a Comment