Not very smart, Prof. Hawking

Recently Stephen Hawking, a lifelong Labour supporter, declared that Jeremy Corbyn would be a disaster as prime minister.

Now, emulating Archimedes in his bath, Newton with his apple and Mendeleyev with his dream of the periodic table, the good professor has performed an instant turn-around. It’s now the Tories who would be catastrophic.

“Another five years of Conservative government would be a disaster for the NHS, the police and other public services,” says Hawking, regarded in some quarters as the world’s smartest man.

Perhaps he is just that, in one of those parallel universes whose existence he promotes with manic zeal. But here on earth, while I’m not qualified to judge his professional credentials, whenever he ventures outside his field Prof. Hawking tends to refute himself without realising it.

That is generally not a sign of an intelligent man. But judge for yourself, starting with his pronouncements on religion.

Prof. Hawking is an atheist, which doesn’t exactly preclude intelligence but, in my judgement, compromises it. It seems that the good professor has set out to prove this point.

“The universe is governed by the laws of science,” he says. And then, “There is probably no heaven… We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”

As are we all. However, some of us may point out that, just as the very existence of universal laws presupposes the existence of a universal lawgiver, so does any design have to owe its existence to a designer.

When enlarging on cosmology, intelligent atheists keep words like ‘design’ at bay because they know that logically ‘designer’ will follow in its footsteps, and then ‘creator’ is just round the corner. I know this because some of my best friends are intelligent atheists, and they never delve into such issues, other than saying that we don’t know and never will.

Then there’s that old chestnut about an unresolvable conflict between religion and science: “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason,” says Hawking. “Science will win because it works.”

This is intellectually feeble, philosophically unsound and historically ignorant. Science (I assume he meant natural science) answers ‘what’ questions and sometimes ‘how’ ones, but it neither answers nor even asks questions beginning with ‘why’.

It can’t: when it comes to Hawking’s universal lawgiver or designer, natural science is out of its depth. Higher sciences, theology and philosophy, have to take over. Religion deals with the whole phenomenon; science, with just one aspect of it. That’s why there’s no conflict, no winners and losers. And that’s why just about every great scientist in recorded history believed in God.

Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Pascal, Leibnitz, Maxwell, Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg, Mendel spring to mind, and the list can go on ad infinitum.

But never mind the greatest stars in the scientific firmament. Another militant atheist, Prof. Lewis Wolpert, mournfully admits that at least half of today’s scientists believe in God. They, along with all intelligent people regardless of their occupation, realise that the conflict between science and religion is a myth, and not a clever one at that.

When it comes to his political views, doubts intensify about Prof. Hawking’s intelligence outside his immediate field. He consistently supports just about every leftie cause, no matter how idiotic or pernicious.

I don’t even have to enumerate the causes: you name it, he supports it. Just off the top, Prof. Hawking is in favour of boycotting Israeli scientists because of Israel’s nastiness towards Palestinians. He wants Britain to disarm unilaterally and stay in the EU. And on the subject of medicine, he says: “I believe in universal medical care. And I am not afraid to say so.”

While applauding Prof. Hawking’s courage in supporting this extremely popular cause, one still has to point out something that ought to be obvious to the great mind. The argument isn’t about the advisability of universal medical care but the best methods of providing it. Insisting that those opposed to the NHS method want to see people dying in the streets is a sure sign of an intellectually challenged leftie replacing thoughts with rants.

Worst of all, Prof Hawking manifestly advocates the policies put forth by Jeremy Corbyn, some of which are downright wicked and all of which are hare-brained.

Corbyn’s tax and spend policies would push Britain over the edge of bankruptcy where she hovers already, largely (though, it has to be said, not exclusively) thanks to the legacy of the previous Labour governments.

His defence policies would render the country defenceless before enemies internal and external.

His immigration policies, unfolding against the background of his anti-Semitism and pro-Islamism, would turn Britain into a caliphate inside a generation.

His hatred of the monarchy would push Britain towards republicanism.

His hatred of capitalism would destroy free enterprise.

And – are you ready for it? – he’d make Diane Abbott his Home Secretary, thereby doing to the country what he used to do to Diane Abbott.

It takes not just an intellectually deficient man but a downright madman to support Corbyn with Hawking’s recently developed enthusiasm. Alas, if the polls are right, we have millions fitting this description. But, in this universe, no one else is described as the world’s smartest man.