Stephen Hawking perfectly illustrates false appeals to authority

Stephen Hawking: Exhibit A on what
constitutes false appeal to authority.

Fallacious appeals to authority are a classic error of common-sense, informal logic, and Stephen Hawking continues to make statements that others give credence that might not be warranted. (Per the first commenter, it's the "others giving credence" that's a fallacious appeal to authority, per the third paragraph and following.)

His latest? We're about to wipe ourselves out.

Maybe we are, maybe we're not, but he brings no special scientific credence to the table on the issue, unless there's a previously undiscovered black hole hurtling toward earth, and even then, that would be the black hole wiping us out, not we ourselves.

Look, he may be right.

But, that's not because he says so, it's because the most pessimistic climate scientists turn out to be right, or the most pessimistic students of nuclear weaponry turn out to be right.

On the former, while I'm no Pollyanna, I'm no James Howard Kunstler, either. On the latter, while I'm no modern day Atoms for Peace type, I think the world, by slow fits and starts, continues to become slightly less nuclearized.

Back to Hawking.

He's been wrong in something halfway approaching his sphere of expertise before, which further undercuts his credibility outside that sphere.

He has claimed, for example, that aliens could wipe us out. Given that we've not discovered any evidence of such aliens so far, and given that, IMO, many touters of SETI have overestimated the values of most variables in the Drake equations, may have psychological reasons for so doing, especially in America, and are deservedly spoofed, I highly doubt his claims.

Of course, his answer has been manned colonization elsewhere.

Per the commenter below, if use of sarcasm is an ad hominem
then we've opened the French window Overton Window.

Well, first of all, Prof. Hawking, if aliens attacked Earth, they'd attack Mars, too, and we certainly won't have the ability for interstellar colonization for thousands if not tens of thousands of years.

Second, given that you've been wrong about manned travel to Mars, overlooking the dangers of cosmic radiation, and other costs, your credibility in this whole area is kind of shot.

I'll grant a slightly higher likelihood Hawking is right about high-tech robots, but, to the degree I do, it's not because of his say-so, it's the say-so of experts in the field.

Back to the main point.

False appeal to authority is just one of a couple of dozen fallacies of informal logic. I encourage people to bookmark that link.

Update: I'm going to tackle the aliens part in further depth.

First, by when our first big radio telescopes were built, we know pretty well that there's no intelligent life within 100 light years of Earth.

Second, alien civilizations advanced enough to travel 100 light years or more probably wouldn't even bother wasting their time on us.

Third, if they did want to wipe us out, they'd have Star Trek-type cloaking devices or something. We'd never know what hit us.

Update 2: Per the second round of comments, I've tagged this post with the tag "salvific technologism." To explain, that's the idea that technology will always be the cavalry, always riding over the hill to save human nature. Having seen the massive problems with importing one invasive species to battle another, the idea that humans would go beyond that, the idea that human control of biology will always save us (it won't always fail us, though, and this should not be read as something anti-GMO), to the idea that human technological engineering will always save us, like in geoengineering against climate change, or blasting off to another planet after wrecking this one, is appalling, as well as being about as likely to be true as biological controls I mentioned at the start of the sentence.

And, for either of the commenters, or others, who have not read through my blog otherwise, those thoughts aren't just mine. I strongly suggest reading the likes of Evgeny Morozov.

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Update, Oct. 20, 2018:

And since it's my blog, Seeker, I get to weigh in two years later with the next word, based in large part on John Horgan's review of Hawking's last book.

Hawking does practice scientism, though perhaps not as badly as other scientists. (I'm looking at you, Tyson.)

And, Horgan is right on another issue, which he touches on indirectly — the energy cost to settle any significant number of humans on Mars would be massively more than to address climate change or pandemics here. A Yucatan-like asteroid we should be able to deflect by the time one gets here. Hawking is far from alone in making these mistakes, but ... he's made them.

Beyond what I posted in comments below, I wish you so-called "scientific skeptics" would stop practicing scientism yourself, stop indulging others who practice it, and actually give yourself at least a basic acquaintance with philosophy.

I realize I might as well wish for Ted Cruz to support national health care, as far as the likelihood of that happening.

I will still wish and hope. 

Previewing Obama’s healthcare town hall

First, the always-insightful Dan Froomkin says he won’t be surprised at all if we eventually see Obama the pushover on national healthcare. House-Senate conference committee serving as the ultimate smoke-filled room to put new life into the current dysfunctional system, thereby pushing real reform even further away.

Froomkin’s old employer, the Washington Post, more circumspectly talks about Obama being driven to the defensive on national healthcare.

But, the GOP shouldn’t exult in any of this. New polling shows the Congressional GOP getting zero traction from Congressional Democrats’ slide.

Meanwhile, George Soros is reportedly ready to pony up $5 million to make national healthcare happen. Of course, we saw what that did for John Kerry in 2004.

Finally, Stephen Hawking, still alive in Great Britain and with its single-payer healthcare system after more than three decades with ALS, refutes ’wingers’ claims of “government-mandated euthanasia.”

That said, back to Froomkin. I suspect he’s right. And, the question is, will this be a “failure” from Obama’s failing to take the lead on this issue, from Congress, early on, like LBJ on Medicare? Or will this be “reality,” because Obama wasn’t behind this, except for verbiage, all along?

Hawking bets against ‘God particle’

Well, actually, to be more scientific, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is betting against the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, on the Swiss-French border, finding conclusive evidence of the Higgs boson, the primary reason it was built.

We’ll see. Remember, Hawking is a cosmologist, not a particle physicist.

And, he’s certainly right that plenty of other physics discoveries mean the LHC won’t be a “failure,” no matter what.

Hawking still clueless about the problems with manned space travel

I’ve blogged about this before, but since Hawking continues to bring up the idea of trans-lunar manned space travel, it needs to get shot down again.

Recent research has indicated that current-level spacecraft are FAR from adequate to protecting humans from cosmic rays on a trip as long as going to Mars and back. And, already in earth orbit for six months, long-term astronauts have shown a tendency toward psychological problems rearing up in close, yet isolated, quarters.

It’s a year round-trip to Mars, and that’s if you just spend a couple of days actually on the planet. If you opt to have astronauts stay there until the next return-favorable alignment of Mars and Earth, you’re six months or so past that.

Hawking claims that, in terms of global dollars, this wouldn’t cost that much. Well, let’s address arresting global warming, and dealing with the non-arrestible effects, first.

Then, let’s take note of designing a spacecraft to be safe enough to go to Mars, and what we have to do to address psychological issues, whether through crew size, a psychiatrist crew member or whatever, and let’s retotal the bill.

Yes, Hawkins is a nuclear/particle physicist, and a cosmologist of some sort, too. But he is NOT an astronaut, a planetary astronomer/physicist, nor an astronautics engineer. People who believe that he knows what he’s talking about on this issue, take note that this is a good example of the fallacy of false appeal to authority.