Moorlock reviewed The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
Review of 'The Grand Design' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I suppose it's a pretty good summary of the arc of physics thought over the past centuries. But a lot of that was well-worn paths from many other pop sci books over the last twenty-five years or so. If this is the first one you encounter, you'll probably find it a helpful overview, and it's pretty well-written so it's good as a review if you've been away from this stuff for a while.
The book has got a lot of bad jokes, none of which would be missed if they were omitted from the next edition.
The authors start off by saying "Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics" but then go on to spend way too much time arguing with the God hypothesis that Nietzsche had happily buried ages ago, and reinventing William James's century-old pragmatism as "model-dependent realism." Who's not kept up with …
I suppose it's a pretty good summary of the arc of physics thought over the past centuries. But a lot of that was well-worn paths from many other pop sci books over the last twenty-five years or so. If this is the first one you encounter, you'll probably find it a helpful overview, and it's pretty well-written so it's good as a review if you've been away from this stuff for a while.
The book has got a lot of bad jokes, none of which would be missed if they were omitted from the next edition.
The authors start off by saying "Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics" but then go on to spend way too much time arguing with the God hypothesis that Nietzsche had happily buried ages ago, and reinventing William James's century-old pragmatism as "model-dependent realism." Who's not kept up with whom?
