Everyone would like to feel that life has meaning, which implies that the setting for life -- the universe at large -- isn't a cold void ruled by random chance. There is a huge gap here, and for the past century science hasn't budged from its assumption that creation is ruled by random events.
All we can realistically do is achieve whatever knowledge is open to us to understand. This might well fall short of the expectations of my more optimistic fellow scientists. I think a little humility is in order.
What we need is a dialogue between science and metaphysics, recognizing both as valid but complementary aspects of one reality. To refute one or try to merge both goes against the efforts of dialogue.
The Grand Design exposes a major departure on the part of physicists arising from the realization that there is no single theory, or for that reason, a single reality, that can be ascribed to the universe.
By Dr. Mark R. Showalter
Planetary astronomer at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute
It was just a few months...
Hawking and his co-author Leonard Mlodinow lead readers on a journey to the very edge of "nothing." But the closer they get, the more their findings lend no contradiction to a universal presence, often referred to as God.