109. Earth as Art: Satellite Images of the Planet

Great Salt Desert, Iran

The U.S. Geological Survey has released a new selection of particularly interesting images from the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites. These space craft have been prolific sources of data for earth scientist, but the new shots were chosen solely based on aesthetics. These images are affected by false color reproduced by satellite sensors (they tend to exaggerate colors).  To view the collection click here.  KN

108. Marked Differences in International Reporting of the UN Climate Change Conference

By the Reuther Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University

A new RISJ study of international media has analysed the marked differences between countries in the coverage given to the UN’s Copenhagen summit on climate change in 2009. It finds that of the 12 countries studied, Brazil and India provided the most coverage, followed by Australia and the UK. Meanwhile, Nigeria, Russia and Egypt gave the summit the least space in its newspapers.

In “Summoned by Science: Reporting Climate Change at Copenhagen and Beyond”,  researchers analysed more than 400 articles published in the print media in 12 countries from the developed and developing world. They found that the media in all the countries tended to ‘under-report’ climate science during the summit. Articles written principally about the science of climate change represented less than a tenth of all the coverage surveyed. Nearly 80 per cent of the articles mentioned the science in less than 10 per cent of their column space. 

The views of climate change sceptics were quoted in the Western press but not by media in the developing world. The study suggests this is partly because coverage of the hacked emails at the University of East Anglia or ‘Climategate’ was largely concentrated in developed countries, primarily the UK and the US.

The study is thought to be the first detailed assessment of who attended Copenhagen.  Using official UN figures, it found that 4,000 journalists from 119 countries were at the summit. More than eight out of every ten journalists (85 per cent) came from the developed world, but nearly 600 were from the main negotiating bloc representing the interests of the developing world (G-77 plus China). China and Brazil were best represented, with more than 100 journalists each.

Brazil had the largest official delegation, followed by Denmark, China, the USA and the UK. The international environmental activist network, Greenpeace, had a larger number of representatives than the whole of the official UK delegation. Around 2,000 members of delegations from 250 universities were present at Copenhagen, including 280 professors. But scientists from universities represented only 12 per cent of those quoted on the science, says the study.

The study also surveyed over 50 environmental journalists and scientists across the 12 target countries post-Copenhagen asking them how climate change science might be best communicated. The recommendations include:

• More (re-)engagement by climate scientists with journalists to explain where there is scientific consensus and where there is not

• More dedicated climate change press officers at universities and research centres

• More media personnel at the IPCC

• More imaginative use of new media

• Less adversarial coverage of climate science, but more frontline reporting on what people are experiencing and what they are doing about it.

The study was carried out with the close collaboration and assistance of the British Council’s Climate Change programme and written by James Painter, a researcher at the RISJ. 

Mr Painter commented: ‘The science of climate change was under-reported when the opportunity was self-evident. Getting the science into the media will remain even more of a challenge at a time when audiences and editors in many countries are suffering from climate fatigue.
‘We need more discussion between scientists, journalists and policy-makers on how to keep highly significant, slow-burn issues like climate change interesting and engaging to different audiences around the world.’

Dr Rebecca Nadin, Director of the British Council’s Climate and Sustainability project who contributed research to the study, said: ‘Journalists and other key communicators often lack the knowledge base, skills and online and offline resources to cut thought the confusion and accurately report on the complex science of climate change and this can be especially true in developing countries.
‘Since the media play a pivotal role in educating the public about the impact of climate change it is essential to build climate change reporting skills and capacity and foster cross cultural media networks that promote best practices for reporting.’

Download a PDF of Summoned by Science, published November 15, 2010

107. An Interview with Jane Goodall: 50 Years of Chimpanzees

By Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times, November 16, 2010

Jane Goodall went to the Gombe Stream Reserve near Lake Tanganyika in East Africa when she was 26. By living among the animals and quietly recording their interactions, she was able to show that the chimp world included love, hate, fear, jealousy, tool use, brutality, even warfare. I spoke with Dr. Goodall last month at Western Connecticut State College, where she was giving a lecture, and then later by telephone. A condensed version of the conversations follows:


Q. In July you celebrated the 50th anniversary of your first trip to Gombe Stream Reserve. When you arrived there in 1960, could you have imagined the life that lay ahead?

A. Of course not. I was a young girl, straight from England, more or less, no degree of any sort, and Louis Leakey was giving me this amazing opportunity to live with the animal most like us.

There’d been no long-term studies of great apes. The longest had been George Schaller, with mountain gorillas, and he’d stayed a year. I think Louis Leakey thought the study might last 10 years. But at 26, I thought perhaps three. And then the more I learned about chimpanzees, the more I realized there was more to learn — until I couldn’t stop.

Q. So you got to Gombe, and very soon, you observed something astounding: Chimpanzees used tools to fish for ants.

A. I went in July. And tool-making was toward the end of October.

Q. After you had lived with the wild chimpanzees for a year, Dr. Leakey sent you to Cambridge for a doctorate. How did the conservative professors there respond to you?

A. They didn’t know what to make of me. But I was very fortunate in that I had one of the most erudite of all the animal behavior people, Robert Hinde, there. He proceeded to help me to write in such a way that I couldn’t be torn apart by my more pompous scientific colleagues.

For instance, I had written that when Fifi’s (one of the Gombe chimps) brother was born, she was jealous of the others coming to try to touch him. Robert said, “You can’t say ‘jealous’ because you can’t prove it.” And I said, “Well, I’m sure she was!” And he said, “I suggest you say, ‘Fifi behaved in such a way that had she been a human child, you would say she was jealous.’ ” That is so clever. No one can say anything about that. There’s nothing that isn’t fact.

Q. When you first reported chimp tool use, Dr. Leakey declared, "We must now redefine man, redefine tool or accept chimpanzees as human!" Did that ever happen?

A. It’s never happened. Every time someone has shown that chimpanzees or any other animal possesses a characteristic which we used to think was unique to us, there’s an outcry from either scientists or religious people: “It can’t be so.”

It becomes illogical. For a long time people used chimpanzees in medical research because of all the amazing biological similarities. They used them to investigate not only human diseases but mental conditions like depression. Yet, they are still reluctant to admit similarities in mind and expressive emotion.

Q. There are 185 captive chimpanzees at the federal primate facility in Alamogordo, N.M., that may soon be used for medical research, particularly to study Hepatitis C. Why have you been trying to stop that?

A. Because it’s morally wrong. We scientists have proved pretty conclusively that chimpanzees can suffer, that they can anticipate arriving pain. They do have feelings. If you perform an invasive procedure on an animal that is capable of suffering and feeling pain, your behavior is amoral.

These particular animals have been “retired” from experimentation for the past 10 years. Now suddenly someone has decided that they need to experiment on them again. I don’t know why. We’re lobbying. I’ve tried to see the head of the N.I.H. My latest information is that some of them have already gone back into medical research — and this was just as the labs (that use chimps as research subjects) were being closed.

Q. The advocates of this policy argue that short of using humans for these tests, chimpanzees are best.

A. I’m sure there are other ways. There are alternatives on the market today that at one time the animal experimenters said we will always need animals for.

Q. On a different subject: There's continuing debate among linguists and primatologists about whether other great apes have the capacity for language. What's your position?

A. It seems to me that the controversy is about whether other primates have grammar in their communications. And to be honest, I’m not interested in whether or not they have a grammar. Why would they? I’ve always felt there are so many fights in this life, so many battles that seem important to win. Like in the beginning I was incensed to be told that chimpanzees or any animal couldn’t be “he” or “she,” but they had to be an “it” and that I couldn’t talk about adolescence or motivation or childhood, that those things are unique to humans. This language thing, I’d rather leave it to people who are involved in that line of inquiry. I’ve been fighting battles that, to me, were important, and that relate to emotions. Do they feel pain or sadness? Do they have minds capable of thinking or planning?

Q. I read somewhere that before you went to Africa, you were a debutante. Can that be true?

A. I was. My father’s sister married the son of one of the last lord chief justices of India. And he wanted to “present” his niece. But the thing about being a debutante is that it’s a marriage market. When you come out, you have a big party and you go to Ascot. Well, we couldn’t afford anything like that. So I got a dress that had been modeled by someone. It was very cheap — gorgeous, but cheap. I literally went to the palace and curtsied to the queen and left. This was about two years before I left for Kenya. That kind of life was never, in the remotest, appealing. I wanted to go to Africa. Because of Dr. Dolittle taking the circus animals back. And then Tarzan. Those were the two books that inspired me to go to Africa.

Q. Are there areas of your life that you regret?

A. Not really. Probably for my own personal peace of mind, it would have been nice if I hadn’t divorced Hugo (van Lawick), my first husband, for the sake of Grub (their son). But then I wouldn’t have married Derek (Bryceson, the head of the Tanzanian National Parks), and then probably Gombe would have collapsed.

Q. You don't get to Gombe very often now. In fact, you are traveling 300 days a year for your conservation charity, the Jane Goodall Institute. Living in a different hotel every night, constantly encountering new people: that has to be difficult.

A. Well, it is a jolly tough way to live, but it’s worthwhile. Because everywhere I go, there are shining eyes. There are children from our Roots and Shoots program who are all so excited to meet “Dr. Jane” and tell me what they’ve been doing to make the world a better place.

There’s a Roots and Shoots member in the Eastern Congo — where the bush meat trade is decimating wildlife — and he had an uncle who was a hunter. He persuaded the uncle to give it up and become a chicken farmer. Between them, in two years, they’ve changed 75 hunters. When I meet people like that, they give me energy and hope.

Related posts:
73. Animals in Captivity as Subjects of Medical Research

106. Cubans to Discuss the Key Document for the 6th Congress of PCC

The following are two brief articles by Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the Young Communist League of Cuba.  They provide further information about the process of development of the "Economic and Social Policy Project," the main document submitted by the PCC Political Bureau for the discussion leading up to the Congress in April 2011.  They also give a sense of how the process of discussion will unfold and lead to the decision at the April Congress.  


--KN

*     *     *

"Raùl Castro Discusses New Economic and Social Policy Guidelines," Juventud Rebelde, November 11, 2010

Cuban President Raul Castro attended the first session of a national seminar to discuss the draft of new national Economic and Social Policy Guidelines.

The meeting was held on Wednesday at the Higher Institute of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and attended by leaders and experts who will guide the discussion process with the population.

In a brief address to the 523 participants, Raul Castro reaffirmed the importance of the work they will carry out in the following weeks to prepare personnel who, together with them, will lead the process of explaining and discussing the document at public forums.

The text will be discussed among the grassroots organizations of the PCC, with workers, and in all communities, the Granma newspaper reported.

During the meeting, Vice President of the Council of Ministers Marino Murillo assessed the state of the economy in relation to the content of the new policy guidelines.

The seminar, which runs until Saturday, is being attended by members of the PCC Political Bureau and the Central Committee Secretariat, vice presidents of the government, ministers, and leaders from the PCC, the Union of Young Communists, and mass organizations.

Members from the Ministries of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba; and journalists and professors from the PCC education institutes throughout the country also participate at the session. 

*     *     *

"Cubans to Debate Social and Economic Policy Project," Juventud Rebelde,  November 11, 2010

During the closing of the Fifth Ordinary Session of the Cuban National Assembly on August 1, 2010, President Raúl Castro spoke about the progress of the studies undertaken by the Economic Policy Commission of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, the results of which were to be discussed by Party members and the population in its entirety.

The work has been developing over a period of several months with the creation of the Economic Policy Commission headed by President Raúl Castro with Julio Casas Regueiro serving as vice president and Minister of the Economy and Planning Marino Murillo Jorge serving as coordinator.

To complete the commission's work of defining the direction to be taken in economic and social policy, working groups were formed, headed by members of the Political Bureau, vice presidents of the Council of Ministers, as well as other Party and government leaders from the relevant areas. 

The working groups focused on the following topics: the economic management model; macro-economic policies (monetary, exchange, fiscal, pricing); foreign economic policy; investment policy; social policy; agricultural industry policy; policies for other sectors (tourism, transportation, construction, retail sales); science and technology; and a study of the country's system of two currencies. A working group was also formed to study the regulations and legal procedures related to changes in the economic model.

A number of other officials from departments of the Central Committee and specialists from other bodies and research institutions also participated.

As a result of the Commission's work, a document entitled "Economic and Social Policy Project" was drafted and will be discussed with all Party members, workers and the general population, in order to gather and take into account their opinions. It will subsequently be submitted to the Sixth Congress for approval.

The document has been published as a pamphlet, available to the population for sale at post offices and news stands across the country.

The Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba will take place in the second half of April, 2011, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) victory and the declaration of the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution.

105. The Cuban Communist Party to Hold 6th Congress

Raúl Castro presents Chávez with the
second copy of the Economic and Social
Policy Development Project.The first
copy was presented to Fidel

On Tuesday, November 9 in a joint press conference with president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, president Raùl Castro announced the decision of the Cuban Communist Party's Political Bureau to hold the 6th Congress in the second half of April 2011. The time frame is chosen to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the victory against U.S. sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent proclamation  of the socialist character of the revolution by Fidel Castro. 

The 5th Congress was held in 1997 largely to discuss the economic policies in the aftermath of the massive economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). 

Once again, it is the economic imperative that is the focus of the upcoming Congress.  Thus president Raùl Castro said:  "... the 6th Congress will concentrate on the solution of problems within the economy and on the fundamental decisions involved in the updating of the Cuban economic model and will adopt the economic and social policy development project of the Party and the Revolution."

The Communist Party has already begun the process of pre-Congress discussion as outlined by Raùl Castro:

"...the 6th Congress will be one of all the membership and of all the people, who will actively participate in the adoption of the fundamental decisions of the Revolution.

"The Economic and Social Development Policy Project is to be published tomorrow and a national seminar of leaders and specialists will immediately begin in order to guide the process of the mass discussion of this document. Subsequently, from November 15 to 30, seminars will be organized in all municipalities to prepare the cadres who will take part in meetings with the nucleuses of the Party, workers and in all the communities. This mass process will take place over three months, from December 1 to February 28. From that date, there will be reserve of time, until March 11. At the same time, opinions and suggestions will be collected and analyzed to be taken into account for the adoption of the document by the Congress."

The full text of Raùl Castro's speech which consists of two sections appears below. The first section addresses the 10th anniversary of the Cuba-Venezuela Integral Cooperation Agreement. The second section deals with the 6th Congress of PCC.  The speech appeared in Granma daily.  The English translation is taken from Granma International. 

-- KN

*     *     *

The Sixth Congress will be one of all the membership and of all the people

• To date, this Integral Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and Venezuela has constituted the fundamental basis for the consolidation of our links
• Speech given by General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz, second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the Councils of State and Ministers, in the event commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Cuba-Venezuela Integral Cooperation Agreement, at the International Conference Center, November 8, 2010, Year 52 of the Revolution

Dear compañero Hugo Chávez Frías, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:

Compañeros ministers and members of the Venezuelan delegation:

Compañeras and compañeros:

Ten years have passed since the signing in Caracas, on October 30, 2000, of the Integral Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and Venezuela by Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías and Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz. Everything that we have achieved since then has been momentous.

To date, this Integral Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and Venezuela has constituted the fundamental basis for the consolidation of our links. Through its execution, we have carried out actions of significant economic and social benefit to both peoples.

The sectors which have most benefited from these programs include those of public health, education, culture, sport, agriculture, energy savings, mining, informatics, telecommunications and the comprehensive training of cadres, among others no less important.

The Social Missions that we are developing in conjunction with Venezuela, such as Barrio Adentro I and II; the Educational Missions, Barrio Adentro Deportivo; Operation Miracle; Mission Campo Adentro, and the Medical Training Program, with a significant improvement in the living conditions of the Venezuelan population, fundamentally for its most vulnerable members, have surpassed the limits of bilateral exchange and are extending, as an expression of our internationalism, through the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

We are directing our efforts to the economic union of Cuba and Venezuela within a new kind of relationship that will facilitate the greater ordering, rationality and efficiency of joint projects and which constitutes, at the same time, an important step toward the objective of achieving genuine economic complementariness, based on the optimum utilization of the infrastructures, knowledge and resources existing in both countries and, above all, on the political will of our governments.

This relationship has been strengthened in the last 10 years and should continue its ascent, taking into account the strategic planning of both countries in the Cuban 5-year Plan and the Venezuelan 3-year Plan, as stated in the documents approved in the Cuba-Venezuela 1st Presidential Summit, which took place this past July 26 in Villa Clara, always on the basis of the following principles; I quote:

• Solidarity, understood as a commitment to mutual support and shared efforts to attain sustainable development and opportune attention to their emerging needs, according to their possibilities and shared responsibilities.

• Cooperation, as the will to consolidate their relations, directed toward the development of joint projects and strategic alliances of mutual benefit.

• Complementariness, understood as a commitment to identify and develop joint projects that will permit the integration and synergy of their capacities in accordance with their potential and common interests.

• Reciprocity, as an obligation to establish a relationship based on just considerations, taking into account differences and the principles of equality and good faith.

• Sustainability, understood as a commitment to identify and develop cooperative projects, directed at attaining sustainable development from economic, social and environmental points of view.

• Technological sovereignty, recognized as the right of each state to decide its own technological development, through taking advantage of its potential, in order to change current patterns of dependence and consumerism, thus guaranteeing that the needs of the respective ALBA national markets and the countries of the region are met.

• Economic union, understood as the construction of a space within the political context of the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, which will allow it to present itself as a bloc facing organizations of other nations or spaces of the same nature.

End of quote.

The effort that we have made to date commits us to continue working together to advance to the maximum in shared projects. We have to plan in the medium and long term, with a strategic vision between both countries and with a view to extending this cooperation to sister nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and the rest of the region.

Given these proposals, we have decided to re-launch our Cuba-Venezuela Integral Cooperation Agreement for the next 10 years.

The development of our relations has not been exempt from obstacles. Together, we have imposed our will over adversities, many of them generated by external factors opposed to the advance of our revolutionary and emancipatory projects.

The development of these links has not been paralyzed by any difficulty, not even financial ones, because the basis of our actions is cooperation and solidarity to our mutual benefit. What is required now is the rigorous follow-up and assessment of everything agreed in order to guarantee the development of both economies and meet the needs of social development.

This is what our peoples are demanding and what constitutes a pillar for the strengthening of the ties of sisterhood between the two nations.

While confrontations in Latin America are intensifying among the reactionary and conservative sectors, which defend a dependent and exploitative political economic model, on the other hand the revolutionary and progressive forces committed to justice, equality and the independence of the peoples of the region are advancing.

In this context, the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela is becoming the finest example of how links between the peoples should be, and is acquiring a greater dimension, bearing in mind that it is developing in the midst of the current difficult international situation, in which political and economic instability is paramount, and in which the global economic, energy, food and environmental crises are being compounded by grave threats to world peace.

Compañero Chávez:

Compañeras and compañeros:

In addition to celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Integral Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and Venezuela and its re-launch for the next 10 years, our meeting this afternoon presents an opportunity to convene the Party and all our people to participate in the preparatory process for the 6th Congress of Cuban communists.

The Political Bureau has agreed to convene the 6th Congress for the second half of April next year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs victory and the proclamation of the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution.

On August 1, in the 5th Session of the National Assembly of People's Power, I explained that we were making advances with respect to the studies under the responsibility of the Congress Economic Policy Commission and that the diverse working groups created were functioning uninterruptedly in drafting proposals to be discussed with both Party members and the population.

For all of these reasons, the 6th Congress will concentrate on the solution of problems within the economy and on the fundamental decisions involved in the updating of the Cuban economic model and will adopt the economic and social policy development project of the Party and the Revolution.

The Congress is not only the meeting of those elected as delegates, but also the previous discussion process on the part of the membership and of all the population on the alignments or decisions to be adopted at the Congress.

In that speech at the National Assembly I also said, "Unity among revolutionaries and among the leadership of the Revolution and the majority of our people is our most important strategic weapon, the one that has made it possible for us to reach this point and continue perfecting our socialism in the future," and that, "Unity is fomented and reaped in the broadest socialist democracy and in the open discussion of all matters, however sensitive they may be, with the people."

For that reason, the 6th Congress will be one of all the membership and of all the people, who will actively participate in the adoption of the fundamental decisions of the Revolution.

The Economic and Social Development Policy Project is to be published tomorrow and a national seminar of leaders and specialists will immediately begin in order to guide the process of the mass discussion of this document. Subsequently, from November 15 to 30, seminars will be organized in all municipalities to prepare the cadres who will take part in meetings with the nucleuses of the Party, workers and in all the communities. This mass process will take place over three months, from December 1 to February 28. From that date, there will be reserve of time, until March 11. At the same time, opinions and suggestions will be collected and analyzed to be taken into account for the adoption of the document by the Congress.

This plenary session will involve the Councils of State and Ministers, the presidency of the National Assembly, the Political Bureau, as well as hundreds of cadres and economists from all the provinces of the country who are preparing themselves to contribute to explaining to Party members and the people the content of the proposed decisions, as well as to listen and convey their opinions.

As I noted this past April 4 at the Congress of the Union of Young Communists, "today, more than ever before, the economic battle is the principal task and the focus of the cadres’ ideological work, because the sustainability and the preservation of our social system depend on it." For that reason, this constitutes the only theme of the Congress and later, within the same year, we shall hold the 1st National Conference of the Communist Party, to deal with other matters of an internal nature that are not discussed at Congress and which also need to be improved in the light of the experience of these last 50 years.

I should clarify that we had announced holding the Conference first and then the Congress, but given the advances in preparing the documents, we decided to invert the order and hold the Congress first in order to discuss the principal issue, which is the economy.

Dear Chávez:

Compañeros in the Venezuelan delegation:

Compañeras and compañeros:

Precisely, one of the directions of this project, states: "To give priority to participation in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and to work swiftly and intensely on economic coordination, cooperation and complementation in the short, medium and long term, for the attainment and profundity of the economic, social and political objectives that it is promoting," which is closely related to the issues covered in the course of today between ministers of the two governments.

We have already presented to the leader of the Cuban Revolution, compañero Fidel Castro Ruz, the first copy of the Policy Development Project.

To you, compañero Hugo Chávez Frías, Comandante of the Bolivarian Revolution and President of that sister Republic, I am presenting the second copy.

Viva Our America!

Viva socialism!

Translated by Granma International 

104. Book Review: The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking (& Leonard Mlodinow)

The Grand Design
By Stephen Hawking (& Leonard Mlodinow)
Random House, 2010

Review by Christos Kefalis

Stephen Hawking has frequently been called the most eminent natural scientist of our age. Justifiably so, since the renovation of all natural science by someone stuck in a wheelchair, his brain being the only remaining functional part of his body, is something we do not see every day. Besides showing the limitless horizons of the human mind, Hawking offers precious proof of the strength of the will and of the creative potential of humanity, which will fully blossom only in a different society, free from exploitation, vulgarity and the mean motives borne of the pursuit of profit.

Hawking’s recent book, The Grand Design, written in cooperation with Leonard Mlodinow and published in September 2010, offers tangible proof of the way leading authorities in science, led by the very logic of their research, end up in clearly materialistic positions and conclusions. It does not therefore only possess an enormous importance for the development of epistemology and natural philosophy, but should also be extremely welcome to Marxists and materialist thinkers in general.

An attempt to evaluate everything Hawking says in his new book would be rather premature. However, extracts of his main positions and analyses already published are quite enough to form an understanding of the gist of his thought.

Hawking declares explicitly in this work in favour of the irreconcilability of natural science with the God hypothesis, stressing that the idea of a Creator is totally useless and that natural laws suffice to explain the whole movement of the universe. As he puts it himself:

It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.[1]

The reference above to “creation from nothing”, as Alan Boyle aptly remarks in a brief but comprehensive review of Hawking’s argumentation[2], does not at all imply that the universe emerges in a magical way out of nothingness. Such a picture would be shallow mysticism rather than an explanation and would not add much to the debate about God.

Hawking argues that in our study of the origins of the universe we should proceed from present to past, starting from the present situation and our knowledge of natural laws and not from a hypothetical zero-point, which would necessarily be something radically different from what we know. He calls this “top-down cosmology” and constructs a model of “cosmic creation” based on opposing forces and the specific role of gravity.

Because gravity shapes space and time, it allows space-time to be locally stable but globally unstable. On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of the matter can be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes.[3]

Hawking approaches thus the basis of materialist dialectical thesis about the coexistence of opposing features in all parts and phenomena of nature, whose mutual struggle causes development. “Nothingness” in that picture does not imply non-existence, but the two opposites, which in a typical addition would nullify each other, but are in fact engaged in an eternal, enduring conflict. It is essentially the same picture of the Heraclitian fire that turns on and off, and of the self-organisation of matter through this process.

Richard Dawkins, the distinguished materialist biologist, hailed Hawking’s book as a confirmation of materialism and atheism in the field of cosmology, a continuation of the tendency of ousting God from science which has practically been completely ascertained in biology through Darwinism. “Darwin kicked him out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain”, Dawkins said. “Hawking is now administering the coup de grace”[4].

In fact, we are not faced here with the partiality of a militant atheist, who hastens to hail as decisive a work which is in agreement with his own view. An identical estimation is being made in the Times presentation: “Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Just as Darwinism removed the need for a creator in the sphere of biology, Britain’s most eminent scientist argues that a new series of theories have rendered redundant the role of a creator for the Universe”.

Ruth Gledhill, Times correspondent about religious issues, also notes that, in distinction to the sharply polemical style of a Dawkins, Hawking follows a more sober approach. “His argument is likely in the long term to be more dangerous to religion because it is more measured than The God Delusion”[5].

All these are essentially correct. And despite the fact that the materialist worldview ensues from the whole development of science, and has been proclaimed and defended by many great natural scientists – more notably by physicists like Weinberg, Kaku, Gell-Mann, Smolin and biologists like Crick, Mayr and Dawkins – its unreserved support by the most outstanding scientific authority of our time is indeed a landmark which cannot be ignored or underestimated by anyone.

Commentaries in the Greek press, like that of Vima, recognise the importance of the occasion, making reference to “the famous British scientist (who) has finally accepted the view that cosmology and theology are incompatible”. At the same time however, an attempt is made to present Hawking as having made a radical turn, with claims that he had formerly expressed deist positions and only now “has changed his mind”. As proof, a former declaration from his 1988 book A Short History of Time is quoted: “The discovery of a complete theory would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God”[6].

In fact, there is no such radical turn and “change of mind”[7] by Hawking. On the contrary, with his last work he develops and elucidates a direction already existent in his former publications, a direction materialist and atheist in essence. Even in the aforementioned work, Hawking had definitely stressed that the idea of God is superfluous and the universe is limitless:

There are no abnormalities where laws of physics break down; there is no need for some new laws which will determine the limiting conditions of space-time; therefore it is superfluous to invoke a God. One could say `The limiting conditions of the universe are that the universe has no limits'. The universe contains itself and is not influenced by anything external to it. It is neither created, nor destroyed. It EXISTS[8].

Hawking’s references to “the mind of God” in that work were meant as a synonym to natural order, having the character rather of a verbal remnant, which may confuse a bit, but does not fundamentally alter his then already materialist approach. However, it is most significant that this occasional form of expression is definitely abandoned and that consequently, the great scientist now stands on materialist positions in a more consistent and deeper way. Boyle is again right therefore when he remarks that “The Grand Design puts together ideas that Hawking has been trying out for a long time”[9]. It is indeed a step of integration and synthesis in his thinking, the essence of which consists in that while formerly Hawking had considered the idea of God superfluous, now he deems it vain and harmful, engaging in a systematic attempt to show that science is radically opposed to it.

This is a major advance from the past situation when science left an open window for divine creation, in the sense that big bang theory was incomplete and could be misinterpreted, by the Popes, etc., as describing “the moment of God’s act”. Formerly this could appear as an equally legitimate interpretation to the materialist one, or at least as a possible alternative. What Hawking is telling us now is that cosmology itself suggests the materialist interpretation. This, objectively, is a decisive blow to all theology.

A serious objection which can be raised to Hawking’s ideas – besides the somewhat inexact choice of the book’s title – is his conception of the evolution of the universe on the basis of a “many universes” or “worlds” model, which ensue from the Big Bang and can develop and coexist in a parallel way, while being completely different from each other. As he himself puts it in his presentation of the work:

In The Grand Design we explain why, according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence, or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. We question the conventional concept of reality, posing instead a “model-dependent” theory of reality. We discuss how the laws of our particular universe are extraordinarily finely tuned so as to allow for our existence, and show why quantum theory predicts the multiverse–the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. And we assess M-Theory, an explanation of the laws governing the multiverse, and the only viable candidate for a complete "theory of everything”[10].

M-theory, the most recent scientific advance in the search for the “unified theory”, may indeed forecast a “multiverse”, and modern physics and cosmology have given a meaning to the notion of “parallel physical entities”. The hypothesis of “dark matter”, e.g. – a from of matter comprising about 90% of the overall matter in our visible universe, which can interact with the rest of matter only through gravity and is therefore not visible – is substantiated by a number of data and introduces a new notion of material differentiation, which is not only quantitative, a result of the different structuring of a number of elementary units, but qualitative as well, containing the acceptance of elements of reality that are not directly linkable to each other. Yet, by introducing dark matter, cosmology in fact precludes an infinity of other possible matter forms that might be hypothetically conceivable but have no real existence, at least in our universe.

Certainly, while it is possible to broaden our view so as to include various seeming paradoxes of our world revealed by science, the hypothesis of parallel worlds, without a necessary connection or similarity with each other, presents a much greater difficulty, as it does not blend with experience and disrupts the unity of nature.

A way out of the difficulty could be found in the dialectical conception of the world as a complex of “interconnected spirals”, formulated by the Russian idealist philosopher P.D. Ouspensky[11]. That concept is perfectly compatible with the proof of the spontaneous formation and evaporation-explosion of black holes we owe to Hawking himself, leading to a pulsating model of the universe, in which big bangs can be viewed as local contractions and expansions. Such a model may leave scope for a greater variety of material phenomena and forms than those observed in the visible part of universe, since particular spirals will differ from each other. At the same time, however, the demand to preserve a connection between the spirals places a severe limit on this variety, abolishing various hypothetical versions of universes, as it is clear that only forms compatible with the necessary type of connection between the spirals’ will be allowed.

However, we are entering here the area of philosophical hypotheses about the universe, the formulation of which may help scientific investigation, but cannot solve its concrete problems. Only cosmology itself, with its further advances, will answer such questions.

Modern physics, in the course of developing its theories and making them all the more subtle, has evidently reached such a level of complexity and mathematical abstraction that its tools and models are comprehensible only to a narrow circle of experts. Its conclusions and inferences though, the questions it puts and the world view it is constructing – thanks to the popularising work of its representatives – are readily understandable by the average person. They are the same questions which troubled human mind from the beginnings of philosophical thinking and became the object of struggle between materialism and idealism, the dialectical and the static-metaphysical worldview.

The fact that the most eminent modern authorities like Hawking answer these questions taking a decisively materialist position is one of the most important facts of our time. It confirms that the dispute between materialism and idealism has become ripe for solution, just like the dispute between progress and reaction in our age.

It is of course impossible to exhaust the questions posed by modern natural science as it would be futile to attempt to deal with all the problems raised by Hawking’s new book. From the standpoint of Marxist philosophy, such an undertaking would require an excellent knowledge both of natural science as well as of dialectics. Yet, it is the duty of materialists and progressive thinkers to seriously study such monumental works, in order to acquire a better knowledge of the nature of reality, a knowledge invaluable and necessary in the struggle to change it.

[Christos Kefalis is a chemist and Marxist writer from Greece. He is also the editor of October and Our Age, a collection of essays on the October Revolution and its aftermath, soon to be released by Topos Editions in Greece.]

Notes

[1] Quoted in Michael Holden, “God did not create the universe, says Hawking”, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/lf_nm_life/us_britain_hawking.

[2] Alan Boyle, “Hawking says god not needed. So?”, http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/01/5028472-hawking-says-gods-not-needed-so. Boyle favours deist views, but this only emphasises in this case Hawking’s argument, the materialist content of which is presented with precision by a conscientious opponent.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] See Hannah Devlin’s presentation in The Times and relevant articles as quoted in “Hawking: God did not create the universe”, The Richard Dawkins Foundation, http://richarddawkins.net/articles/509536-hawking-god-did-not-create-universe.

[6] See “The Universe did not need a Creator, says Hawking”, To Vima, 3-9-2010.

[7] The view about Hawking’s “change of mind” appears in most commentaries of the international press as well. See, e.g., Michael Holden, l.c., Jennifer Quinn, “Author Hawking says God not needed for creation”, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100902/ap_on_en_ot/eu_britain_hawking and Liliana Dumitru-Steffens, “Stephen Hawking and The Grand Design”, http://www.pamil-visions.net/stephen-hawking-grand-design/218270/.

[8] St. Hawking, The History of Time, Greek edition by Katoptro, p. 207, capitals put by Hawking.

[9] See Boyle, l.c.

[10] Quoted by Liliana Dumitru-Steffens, l.c.

[11] See P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, London 1978, p. 451. Ouspensky was a mystic and staunch opponent of materialism, but he was also distinguished by a keen dialectical instinct, having been the first who gave the long standing metaphysical ideas of “other dimensions” a realistic formulation compatible with the ideas of modern science.