Leading Physicist Stephen Hawking has created an international stir by joining a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and travel to Israel after sending a letter declining an invitation to attend the President’s Conference. While Cambridge originally claimed that Hawking was not attending due to his health, Hawking sent a letter to Israeli President Shimon Peres saying that he was in fact boycotting Israel due to its Palestinian policies.
The letter was an embarrassment for the University of Cambridge which appeared like it was trying to spin the declination of the invitation for reasons of health. Tim Holt, acting communications director at the University of Cambridge, issued a statement that tied the decision to Hawking’s continued struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known as Lou Gehrig’s disease:”For health reasons, his doctors said he should not be flying at the moment so he’s decided not to attend. He is 71 years old. He’s fine, but he has to be sensible about what he can do.”
However, Hawking sent a letter to Peres clearly stating that he was refusing on principle to travel to the conference in Israel. Hawking described Israel’s treatment and policy of the Palestinians as a “disaster” and reprehensible. Hawking stated that he initially accepted the invitation with the intention to speak out against the policies: “Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.” He then explained that “I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement, but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank. However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”
There are various groups of academics supporting the boycott of Israeli products as well as academic and cultural ties with Israel, including a group with Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus. The boycott has also received support of groups this year like the Asian American Studies Association. Various divestment policies have been proposed or passed at American academic institutions.
Ironically, MIT linguistics professor and political author Noam Chomsky actually opposed the ban by scholars but was himself banned from Israel simply because of his political views by the Israeli government.
The Hawking controversy reveals a deepening divide among academics in the United States over the boycott — an increasingly heated debate. The Hawking decision comes as Israel has ordered the building of new settlements opposed by the United States and the world community as well as a report this year from the United Nations stating that Israeli have taken a “heavy toll” on the rights and sovereignty of Palestinians. The U.N. complained about the creeping annexation” by Israel in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Others have disagreed that such boycotts are productive and insist that more interaction with Israel is better for pushing reforms. Israel Maimon, chairman of the Presidential Conference, added this week that “Israel is a democracy in which all individuals are free to express their opinions, whatever they may be. The imposition of a boycott is incompatible with open, democratic dialogue.”
The response to Hawking from conservative publications have been extreme. One such site asked “Would Professor Hawking ever survive in any Arab country or under the Palestinian autocracy he shamefully defends?” The Israeli publication noted that “[w]hile in the Arab world disabled people have been called ‘the invisibles,’ because they are segregated and hidden from the public eye, Israel’s work with illness and disabilities would merit a book in itself.”
Hawking’s letter has put the boycott and divestment movement on the front pages of international newspapers and is likely to rekindle the debate on U.S. campuses.
Darren,
You do mean those commie, leftist Marines, right? 🙂
What Darren and Gene said. What exactly is your “core area of expertise,” Ralphie (not from New Orleans)?
Yeah, Ralph. Inquiring minds want to know exactly what you claim as your expertise. Because whatever it is, it isn’t anything related to law, political science, history or science and any of its related sub-disciplines. We’ve got people around here who are actual experts in those fields and they make you look like a dancing monkey on a regular basis.
Ralph:
So what is it that you are such an expert in anyway? You mentioned “ In my core area of expertise, I must pit my wits in each case against some of the best minds in my field, and I rarely lose”
What is this core area of expertise you partake in?
As usual, you Leftist morons pick up on trivial details like spelling when I type at high speed, but you can’t discuss any of the conceptual issues I’ve raised. But I fully understand that. You’re simply too stupid to discuss anything unless it’s boilerplate spoonfed Leftist ideology.
That’s just too bad, pete, because what I said was true.
ralph sez
” However, unlike Hawking, I have an incredible depth of knowledge, training, and experience in many areas other than my core area of expertise”
======================================================
do ya know how bad it hurts when lemonade shoots out of your nose. i’ve seen you write some dumb fu#kin things here ralph but that officially takes the cake.
I’m waiting for the news footage of him wheeling over to a hardened enemy gun turret and saving his whole platoon by lecturing the gunners inside on tensor field dynamics.
“didn’t you hear that Stephen Hawking enlisted in the Marines so that CMH is possible” -Larry
~+~
Leftist Marines that is.
“I meant the National Media of Technology and Innovation, not the CMH. “
~+~
An easy mistake to make, they are so closely related.
Oh, and last I heard that is the National Medal of Technology and Innovation not Media.
Ralph:
Your assertions about Stephen Hawking are so far beyond just being preposterous, it is a shame that Max Planck isn’t alive today; for he would have coined a new Planck Derived Unit to describe it. It would probably be Your hatred (as measured in Planck Temperature) plus your brain (as measured in Planck Density) multilied by your hubris (as measured in Planck Power)
Gene destroyed your arguments as effectively so there is no reason to repeat it, but I will add that your attempt at chastising a scientist at the caliber of Stephen Hawking is hugely insulting to a man of his brilliance who can arrive at such historic scientific accomplishment despite total physical disability.
How about doing something worthwile for a change, something that actually benefits humanity instead of attempting to feign wit through the criticism of others greater than you. In an analogy, your approach is akin to going to a fine art gallery and with a can of spray paint destroying a Rembrandt painting, claiming he knew nothing of art because your graffiti is the only true artistry. Any common thug can destroy, but it takes genius to create something excellent. Destroying excellence is not of equal genius to creating it.
It is really getting old having to read your jabberwocky.
I meant the National Media of Technology and Innovation, not the CMH. (Even though Hawking has innovated nothing.) Happy now, morons? Now go slink back into your respective Leftist black holes.
Gino, that was a great cut-and-paste, but you’ve established nothing, as usual. And the only thing that Hawking would be smarter than I am is in physics, because that is not my field of expertise. However, unlike Hawking, I have an incredible depth of knowledge, training, and experience in many areas other than my core area of expertise. In my core area of expertise, I must pit my wits in each case against some of the best minds in my field, and I rarely loss, making for a very happy client base. And in those rare cases of a loss, they’ve always involved factors beyond my control.
Certainly Hawking’s Leftist politics exposes him as a total moron in practical areas of life. So I suppose that makes Hawking a form of an idiot savant in physics, but lacking in genuine depth, which is why his contributions to science are virtually nil. And from a practical standpoint of developing ideas or applications in physics that could possibly help humanity, he is a null set.
Gene,
didn’t you hear that Stephen Hawking enlisted in the Marines so that CMH is possible! 🙂
Way to go, Rove.
However, as with most subject, my cats know more than you much less me. Let’s start with what Hawking has accomplished. I’ll keep the list short.
1) He discovered that black holes leak particles and eventually evaporate in 1974.
2) As part of that work, he explained the mechanism by which black holes emit radiation via quantum mechanics.
3) The Hartle–Hawking state is a model in theoretical physics that he developed with James Hartle which is a proposal about the universe during the Planck epoch which postulates that the the universe is infinitely finite. In other words, that there was no time before the Big Bang because time did not exist before the formation of spacetime associated with the Big Bang and subsequent expansion of the universe in space and time.
Bonus: He popularized the rather esoteric fields of theoretical physics and cosmology via his bestselling books, many of which are geared toward the layman.
As I said, there are other physicists his equal or better, but to say he’s accomplished nothing is simply a lie no matter how many times you repeat it. Personally, I prefer Penrose and Susskind and I don’t think Hawking is in any danger of winning a Nobel. As for the CMH? That’s a military honor, dingus. I know for a fact he’ll never get one of those.
And I know one thing for certain.
He’s smarter than you.
Gene, you can promote Hawking all you want and twist the facts to your Leftist heart’s content, but you cannot change the truth. As a Leftist, you are doomed to ignorance and stupidity. For you to project your deficiencies onto me is classic Leftist tripe. You obviously know nothing about Hawking and you can’t come up with a single thing of any merit that he’s accomplished.
Furthermore, Hawking KNOWS that he’s no genius and he KNOWS that he is far from brilliant. That is the main reason why he joined the anti-Israel boycott to begin with. He is envious of the Israeli and other Jewish scientists. Hawking NEVER received a Nobel prize, though I’m sure the Leftists have tried to convince the Nobel committees to give him one anyway. And he never will win one. Obama will probably give him a Congressional Medal of Honor (for his Leftist achievements). So you can applaud that when Obama does that for him.
And finally, I must point out–though it will fall on deaf ears and blank minds on this Leftist site–that Turley is a liar when he says the following:
“Ironically, MIT linguistics professor and political author Noam Chomsky actually opposed the ban by scholars but was himself banned from Israel simply because of his political views by the Israeli government.”
The anti-Israel, anti-Jew Chomsky was NEVER banned by the Israeli government, and Chomsky was indeed one of the anti-Israel boycotters urging Hawking to join his team. And please don’t tell me that Chomsky is a Jew. If anything, he is merely a JINO (Jew In Name Only). He has much more in common with David Duke than he has with Jews.
Personally, I’d like to see Chomsky and Hawking go to Syria for a tour of that country. I have a very good feeling that if they were to do that, they’d end up like Chris Stone or US Ambassador Christopher Stevens–two anti-Israel, Pro-Islam lowlifes, who experienced Islam first-hand for a change, the former getting knifed and the latter murdered. It would be difficult to imagine a more fitting end to Hawking and Chomsky–two vile, hypocritical, cowardly, worthless, inferior, lowlife Leftist scumbags. (Yeah, I know, a lot of redundancy in my adjectives. Too bad.)
“For example, Jacob Bekenstein, an Israeli scientist, was the first to suggest that black holes should have a well-defined entropy.”
That’s false and the rest of your rant is a mischaracterization of what happened. In the early 70’s, Hawking along with James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, proposed four laws of black hole mechanics by drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, eventually went further—and ultimately correctly—applying thermodynamic concepts literally. While this did irritate Hawking, he was along with Bardeen and Carter the first to apply thermodynamics to black holes. But this is the nature of science. Just as Einstein improved upon Newton’s explanations of what gravity did by explaining what gravity was, new discoveries are often based upon a nearly complete or correct notion presented in earlier work. None of this seemed to bother either Hawking or Bekenstein as in 1975 they both worked on a project that ultimately ended up identifying what is now called “Hawking radiation” and resulted in the famous “war” between Hawking and Leonard Susskind about the black hole information paradox.
Your remaining disparagement of Hawking based on his politics is just more of your usual gibberish, Ralph. As a matter of fact, Hawking is a genius – not just a competent physicist – but he is not a revolutionary genius like Einstein. He’s an evolutionary genius. His work builds slowly on and in conjunction with the works of others and not in revolutionary leaps which is the normal way of things in the continuum of knowledge that is science. Evolution happens daily. Revolution? Not so much. There are many other physicists just like him that are his equal are better – such as Kip Thorne, Roger Penrose, Leonard Susskind and Gerard ‘t Hooftand to name a few – but they aren’t as famous as Hawking. Being a bestselling author as its advantages.
Ralph, the only thing you’ve accomplished as far as anyone here can tell is amass a staggering amount of ignorance that is only surpassed by your seemingly endless hate.
Get back to me when you’ve solved a major cosmological problem or they offer you the Lucasian Chair in Mathematics at Cambridge.
I am proud to say that I was not surprised at all to find that Hawking would end up joining the anti-Israel boycott crowd. I’ve never considered Hawking to be brilliant at anything. He’s a competent physicist. That’s it. Is he an innovator? No. Has he won a Nobel prize in science (the real prizes, not the bullsheis prizes)? No.
Bottom line: Hawking knows that he has accomplished little of importance compared to the great Jewish/Israeli scientists, and Italian scientists for that matter.
As cutting edge science writer George Gilder would put it, referring to his esteemed book, “The Israel Test,” Hawking has flunked it. And he flunked it because of his sense of inferiority compared to the Israeli scientists.
However, this is one way to call attention to himself and to become a “winner” with the Leftist media. But even he knows the real score. He’s a just a B+ physicist and always will be for as long as he lives.
Those who call Hawking a “genius” or “brilliant” know next to nothing about him. Hawking is far from a genius. And, more important to the boycott news, Hawking himself KNOWS that he’s no genius.
The underlying reason he’s boycotting Israel is because it gives him a boost in the Leftist media and it gives him a way to attempt to be “superior,” when, in fact, he knows that he is inferior in every way to the Israeli and other Jewish scientists. For example, Jacob Bekenstein, an Israeli scientist, was the first to suggest that black holes should have a well-defined entropy. Bekenstein also formulated the generalized second law of thermodynamics, black hole thermodynamics, for systems including black holes. Hawking originally took the position that Bekenstein’s groundbreaking research was wrong, even though Hawking did no work or research of his own. Eventually, though, Hawking begrudgingly acknowledged that Bekenstein’s conclusions were correct, though Hawking made no public apologies for his complete lack of integrity and his total failure as a scientist.
In a way, though, I’m glad he did join the anti-civilization–anti-Israel crowd. When he dies in the not too distant future, he will forever be known as that would-be scientist who hypocritically and with cowardice joined the Leftist anti-Israel crowd because he felt so inferior to Israeli and other Jewish scientists, and had to use equipment made by Israeli scientists in order to live each day of his wretched, pointless, and unprincipled life.
henri, Brainstorm, an Israeli company, is in stage 2 trials for their Al’s treatment. It seems to be very successful, so far.
Boycott Israel anyway!