Stephen Hawking lost his longtime battle with ALS on March 14, 2018 — what would have been Albert Einstein’s 139th birthday. While Hawking’s scientific achievements led the field of astrophysics forward in a number of important ways, his impact on the general public was much more of a mixed bag.
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As a high-profile science communicator, he popularized astrophysics and theoretical physics. His book, “A Brief History of Time,” sold more than 10 million copies.
But later in life, he used his platform to push a macabre worldview. For instance, echoing the plot of “Independence Day,” he believed that if aliens visited Earth, they would plunder our resources and kill everybody. He said, “I imagine they might exist in massive ships … having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”
Why exactly a civilization that has mastered interstellar travel would need to come to Earth to pilfer our steel and laptop computers remained unanswered.
Worse, Hawking was convinced that humanity was facing extinction. He once claimed that humans would have to abandon Earth in a century if the species wished to survive: “In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?”
He spoke with the religious fervor of a modern-day Jonathan Edwards — but instead of sinners in the hands of an angry God, we were humans in the hands of an angry universe.
And the universe was very angry. Hawking worried that too many humans would consume too much energy and the Earth literally would burn up: “But the present exponential growth cannot continue for the next millennium. By the year 2600, the world’s population would be standing shoulder to shoulder and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red hot.”
He was equally fearful of artificial intelligence, which he described as possibly the “worst event in the history of our civilization.” If humans or their machines weren’t the agents of our civilization’s demise, then Mother Nature would intervene, perhaps through an epidemic or asteroid strike. There were far too many rapacious humans on this planet, and celestial retribution would thin out the herd.
The trouble with his predictions is that none of them were rooted in scientific reality. Demographers reject the notion of overpopulation; epidemics, climate change, and artificial intelligence are potential challenges, but not a threat to the species; and Earth isn’t predicted to face an apocalyptic asteroid strike for at least millions of years.
It is a shame that Hawking spent his later years playing on people’s worst science-fiction fears. Despite this lamentable worldview, however, Hawking’s contribution to science and science communication will be remembered as among the greatest of all time. Few people can turn black holes into objects of fascination for children and adults alike.
As Hawking himself once put it, “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.” Let that be his lasting legacy.
Read rest at The Federalist
Rakooi is back from under their rock or maybe back from visiting their fellow Orcs
RAKOOI, which decade did you get the copied information from? Acid rain has been mostly eliminated by removing sulphur from fossil fuels or their exhaust. The ozone layer is mostly restored and there have been studies indicating that humans were not the cause for the hole. Two decades you are quoting from for smog are the 1940’s and 1950’s. The western world has made substantial improvements since then. China is the country with the smog problem and I’m sure they will correct it just as we have.
I don’t know about SH predictions but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know some simple facts. Like it took 1000s of years for the earths population to reach 1 billion and soon it will be 8 billion and shortly aftet that in around 10 years it will be 9 billion etc… The required food supply alone will have to more than double from where it is today by 2050. As scientist find out recently that Moore’s law is dead the same will probably hold true for food production and at the end of the day you can only get so much food out of an acre of land.
We can easily change our food chain . Feeding grain to livestock and gas tanks
( ethanol ) is a luxury we can afford today. Farmers are experimenting with technology that doubles yield per acre. Seed genetics will remain ascendant. If we have to, humans can switch to a more efficient diet. We haven’t even tried yet.
Drewski
You are a LIAR.
It must be remembered that a great deal of what Hawking supposedly ” said ” especially after as his condition became one of nearly total paralysis,
was actually nothing but ” interpretation ” of numerous slight and mostly unnoticeable inflections of the pupils of his eyes.
Late in life statements attributed to him are therefor very suspect of being the reflective prejudices and beliefs of his interpreters,
whom Hawking could in no way correct.
All the later life expostulations of Hawking
Were NEVER said by him !