The Hawking dilemma

Stephen Hawking has been open with his doomsday concerns. He certainly has impressive credentials, but should we trust him?


Given a choice between an average Joe and Stephen Hawking, I am more likely to trust Stephen Hawking. As a big believer in independent thought, I don't think things are quite that simple. Should we really be reliant on someone like Stephen Hawking to dictate our thoughts on our behalf?

Stephen Hawking is not perfect. There are a lot of things that he knows very well. Even within his scope of expertise, however, there is a chance that he doesn't see something that people without his credentials might.

I have seen it numerous times. Someone online dares to question Stephen Hawking. There is almost always a response pointing to a lesser disconnected profession as proof that the opinion is meaningless.

We are all different, and we can all see different concepts in different perspectives. It is a serious burden for one individual to provide the beliefs and opinions of society in its entirety. I find it disturbing every time someone discourages the thought process of an individual on the grounds that we should all let the most qualified individual think for everyone.

I am not writing this to criticize Stephen Hawking. I am writing to encourage people to maintain mentally active lifestyles. It is certainly acceptable to read up on his concerns as a means to improve our own understandings. The issue for me is that many people are pushing the idea that our collective understanding of everything seems to be developed by the brain power of a single individual. If we could find a way to harness the collective brain power of the billions of people on this planet, we should have no problems collectively surpassing Stephen Hawking's expertise by a very wide margin.