How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [28]
In fact, science is a type of myth, if we think of myths as stories about ourselves and our origins (and not in the pejorative sense of myths as things “untrue”). Many gain considerable emotional, even “spiritual,” satisfaction from reading scientific articles and books by geologists about the creation of the Earth, by paleontologists about the evolution of life, by paleoanthropologists about human origins, by archeologists about the genesis of civilization, by historians about the development of culture, and especially by cosmologists about the origins of the universe. Tens of millions of people watched Carl Sagan’s 1980 Cosmos series with rapt attention. In 1997 the PBS series Stephen Hawking’s Universe gripped viewers every Monday night. Books on evolution by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Donald Johanson, and Edward O. Wilson are eagerly sought by readers and often find themselves on bestseller lists. Why? Because at these boundaries of scientific knowledge the lines between science, myth, and religion begin to blur as we ask ultimate questions about ourselves, our origins, and our place in the cosmos.
In 1998 I witnessed a sublime example of the scientific sacred when Stephen Hawking visited the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), as he does nearly every year in meeting with Kip Thorne, John Preskill, and other cosmologists. During his visits he often agrees to deliver a public address via his now-familiar voice synthesizer that has an almost surrealistic, otherworldly resonance. Hawking was slated for the largest venue on campus—Beckman Auditorium—which holds 1,100 people. When that hall filled, the staff piped a video feed into Remo Hall, filling another 400 seats. This was not enough, so large theater speakers were pointed out toward the quad area where hundreds more sat on the grass, rock-concert style, listening to a scientific superstar. When he rolled into Beckman Auditorium and down the aisle in his motorized wheelchair, Hawking received a standing ovation, as he did upon his departure. He delivered his standard lecture about the Big Bang, black holes, time, and the universe, all covered in his bestselling book A Brief History of Time, which broke all records for the number of weeks any science book has been on a bestseller list. There followed an illustrated version of the book, as well as a documentary also entitled A Brief History of Time, followed by a documentary about the making of the documentary!
The mythical nature of science, however, was not as obvious in Hawking’s lecture as it was in the subsequent question-and-answer period. The majority of the audience was not especially interested in the minutiae of quantum mechanics or the nuances of cosmological theories. What people wanted were The Answers to the Big Questions: “How did time begin?” “What was there before the universe?” “Why does the universe bother to exist at all?” There are no Final Answers to these Big Questions, of course, but this does not stop people from asking. Here the public was given an opportunity to inquire of a physically disabled but cognitively brilliant man the biggest question of all: “Is there a God?”
Stephen Hawking’s lectures are delivered at normal speed because he writes them ahead of time and the computer feeds the words to the voice synthesizer at a staccato pace. But answering questions is another thing altogether. Hawking must construct his sentences word by word, at a glacially slow meter.