Hawking: Religion will be defeated by science

There were some techies Monday who believed they experienced a sighting of God somewhere in San Francisco.

Those people might care to hark at deeply relevant news. God will be defeated by science. No, not by faltering Wi-Fi systems at a conference. And, no, these are not my words. This is the considered opinion of someone sometimes referred to as the cleverest man in the world, Stephen Hawking.

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, due to air Monday evening, Hawking expounded upon the largest questions, those that transcend iPhones and androids: Can science and God live happily ever after?

According to ABC News, Hawking first tried to define God in a way that he, as a scientist, might feel comfortable: "What could define God (is thinking of God) as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," he said.

Indeed, he expressed disappointment at how humans have thought of deity.

 
(Credit: CC Alex Lee2001/Flickr)

 

"They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible," he said.

Perhaps there will be some who might conceive that stranger things have happened. Others will nod sagely, while still secretly hoping there is another life after this one. However, couldn't one imagine a point at which science and religion somehow meet, shake hands and positions and agree on a concord?

Hawking, who has already recommended that we should steer clear of aliens, suggested to Sawyer that this was somewhat less likely than North Korea winning the World Cup: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, (and) science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

I wish I could live in and with such certainty. Somehow, the more we know, the further away we are from something that feels real.

I cannot help thinking of baseball players, filled to their hat peaks with science's latest creations: HGH, steroids, and all sorts of female hormones. They smite the ball into the nearest river.

Yet, as they stomp on to home plate, what do they do? They look up at the sky and cross themselves. Perhaps they get their HGH from aliens. Perhaps, though, there is still some way to go before we can be sure that science will prove absolutely everything about our weird and occasionally wonderful universe.
I mean, can science really explain the deity that is Justin Bieber?

  By Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 

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Advice For New Graduates

Congratulations New Graduates

Well, it’s that time of year again, but this time nobody asked me to give a commencement address. Wonder why?

I’m full of good advice for those just starting out in the world of work. I’m full of it because neither of my boys took any of it in their time. I can see the married one now, passing some wisdom along to his kiddos, but I don’t think he realizes where it came from. It’s a good thing he married well. I know he did because both his kiddos are smarter than anyone on my side of the family. We’re from the shallow end of the gene pool.

I often tell new graduates the secret to choosing a spouse—particularly a wife. What you do is watch them ride up an escalator, especially a real tall elevator like some they have in the D.C. subway system. What you hope for is for her to take at least a few steps toward the top—a small sign that she isn’t satisfied just moving along with the crowd. If she passes the escalator test, check to see if she checks luggage on a short plane ride. My wife flunks both those tests, but what is it they say? The exception that proves the rule?

Escalators and moving sidewalks are great metaphors for economic progress. You can make pretty good progress just standing still. A rising tide lifts all boats. The good prospects, however, add a little additional effort of their own.

When we think of our entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, the metaphor is how many people we have pulling the wagon versus how many are riding in the wagon. We have more and more riders relative to pullers, and we need to do something about it. We need to get smarter about our immigration policies, for one thing, and invite more good pullers into our great melting pot. I’d welcome really good pullers from just about anywhere, but I’d start looking in Asia. All the Asians I come into contact with seem to be hard workers and are very smart.

The favorable brain drain our country has enjoyed for decades is diminishing, maybe even reversing. We need to reverse the reversal. For starters, get rid of those crazy limits on H1B visas.

It’s standard advice to tell graduates they will need to work smarter as well as harder. That’s not always easy. Our natural inclination is just to pedal faster if we start slipping behind.

I touched on this theme recently when I suggested that standing over BP—boot to neck—demanding that they try harder or else may not be all that helpful. It’s like the SOB behind you honking his horn while you’re trying desperately to start your stalled car. Offer to honk his horn for him if he will start your car for you. (See "Beating On BP Won't Get The Gulf Cleaned Up")

I pointed out that this self-defeating tendency we have to just try harder is common among sports fans who assume their team would win if they only cared enough and tried hard enough.

Tennis is where you find the answer to smarter not harder, and not just by losing yourself contemplating the spin of the ball. Most of us who learned to play tennis as adults never learned to use topspin, which put a low ceiling on how good we can ever be. Top spin pulls a hard hit ball down into the court. Without top spin, it floats, and you have to ease up to keep the ball in the court. After mastering top spin, you can hit it hard and still keep it within the lines. Unfortunately, top spin can’t be taught to adults. I have personal knowledge of this.

New graduates should start planning for your first-born’s first tennis lessons in about three to four years. Start saving your money.

Let me close with a lesson I learned many years ago, but was reminded of again last week. The lesson is that the smartest, most successful people you will come into contact with speak very simply and clearly. It’s the novice on the make who tries to impress you with his newly acquired jargon and fancy talk. They are the ones that form the tight circles at receptions and allow only the few they consider worthy to break in. Actually, by self-selecting, they are doing you a great favor. Keep on circling; you can do better.

I did better this week, benefiting from the generosity of a kind hostess. At a dinner, I had the honor of sitting next to one of my heroes. It was Burton Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, the classic on efficient financial markets. That he was the smartest man in the room went without saying. That he could endure the likes of me through a long dinner without looking over my shoulder and without trying to impress me with his smarts was . . . well, impressive.

You know, graduates, that efficient financial markets are sort of a special case of what some economists call rational expectations. They both say, in effect, that new information is useless, largely because it has already been used.

It’s like “Nobody goes to that restaurant any more; it’s too crowded.”

Congratulations graduates, wherever you are.

By Robert McTeer 

Bob McTeer is a fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He was also President of the Dallas Fed for 14 years. 
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The Economics Of Why American Soccer Lags Behind The World

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The U.S. Men's National soccer team opens its play in the 2010 World Cup against England in a much anticipated matchup Saturday, June 12 in Rustenburg, South Africa.  A rematch of 2 countries that met 60 years ago in group play at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and the site of perhaps the most glorious U.S. soccer victory of all time.

And though a victory over England in 2010 would not be the monumental upset it was in 1950, and though the American side during the summer of 2009 at the Confederations Cup beat 2008 European Cup champions Spain and led Brazil 2-0 before succumbing in the finals, U.S. soccer is still viewed as a second-class citizen by most soccer experts.


Brazil, Italy, Holland, Germany, Spain, Argentina, France and England are traditionally considered top tier soccer nations.  Most experts would rank the U.S. somewhere among the 10th to 20th best soccer playing nation in the world.

U.S. soccer has made tremendous strides since 1950.  Popular enough to sustain the North American Soccer League from 1968-1984.  Resilient enough to renew pro soccer with MLS starting in 1996, and the league has grown from 10 teams to 18 teams by the start of the 2011 season.  Internationally, we've qualified for 6 straight World Cup trips starting in 1990 after a 40 year hiatus.  And the U.S. will likely be awarded another World Cup in either 2018 or 2022 after successfully hosting the 1994 World Cup.

Despite all these positives, there are various economic explanations why the U.S. continues to languish behind the world soccer powers.  Namely, a lack of TV and corporate money in the U.S., 'first-mover advantages' and socioeconomic differences between the U.S. and many superior soccer playing nations.



TV and Corporate Money

Spaniard Pau Gasol of the LA Lakers plays in the NBA rather than Spain's top basketball league because there's more wealth and prestige in the NBA than he can find in any other basketball league in the world.  Similarly, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard of the U.S. soccer team play their professional soccer in England because it has far more wealth and prestige than the MLS.

This difference in wealth and prestige stems from international differences in the way TV and corporate money is expended on soccer.  There is a domino effect that continues to hurt the visibility of American soccer leagues like MLS because lower revenue streams from media and corporate sponsorship deals hamstrings the league's ability to offer salaries that will attract the world's best players to America.

If fans aren't watching on TV, then ratings are lower.  If ratings are lower, then MLS can't garner the type of TV contracts that you see in the English Premiere League or the National Football League.  If ratings are lower, then MLS can't charge premium sponsorship and advertising rates.

With a paucity of TV and sponsor/ad revenue compared to other world soccer leagues and other American sports leagues, the league cannot afford to pay top world players in their prime the kind of dollars they can command in the top leagues in Germany, England, Italy, or Spain.

In American sports, the most lucrative playing careers in team sports have been and continue to be found in professional basketball, baseball, hockey, and football.  Since these sports yield a higher rate of return to the professional athlete in terms of a greater likelihood to make more money and not have to travel abroad to do so, these inherent realities - which owe themselves to the popularity of these sports and their subsequent ability to secure significant TV and corporate revenue - further depletes the potential talent base for American soccer since some top-flight amateur athletes may choose more lucrative sporting careers.

'First Mover' Advantages and Socioeconomic Factors

Soccer is England's game, much like hockey is Canada's game and pigskin football is America's game.  Going back to the Cambridge Rules drawn up at Trinity College in 1848 to help standardize the organized rules of 'football' across various English public schools, this highlights the significance and long-run power associated with the  'first mover advantage'.  It was England's sport first, and as such to this day, their nation lives and breathes soccer...and this is reflective in the broadcast rights fees and the corporate dollars the EPL can command.

The historical popularity of soccer in South America and other nations with lower per-capita income levels may owe itself to economic logistics.  Soccer is not an expensive game to play.  You need a ball.  You need space.  And sometimes not even that to grow a passion and skill for the sport.  Pele, often regarded as the best player ever and who came from humble beginnings, juggled oranges in the streets of Brazil as a boy.
For many lower income nations, most other sports are cost prohibitive either in terms of the simple logistics of playing the sport at the youth level (e.g. hockey, American football) or the infrastructural and organizational costs of player development, equipment and facilities and league administration.  As such, soccer is THE sport of many nations where the socioeconomics dictate that soccer is the most financially accessible option to a nation's residents.

Conversely, the U.S. has the wealth and infrastructure to sustain and support leagues in plenty of sports more historically native to North America.  And with more money to throw at players in these sports, there is arguably a financial incentive that may steer the best amateur athletes away from soccer.  In other nations, the main draw both financially and in terms of prestige is soccer.  Subsequently, other nations are more likely to attract their best athletes to the sport of soccer.

As a soccer enthusiast, I'm ever hopefully that the popularity and interest in soccer on a professional level in the U.S. will continue to grow, which is why the U.S. performance in the 2010 World Cup, and in particular their first match against England, is so important for promoting soccer to the casual American sports fan.
Because without higher TV rights fees and greater outlays from the corporate sector, it's hard to overcome first mover and socioeconomic factors which partially explain America's current 2nd to 3rd tier place in the world of soccer.

By Dr. Rishe is the Director of Sportsimpacts and an Associate Professor of Economics at Webster University in St. Louis, MO. 

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Tackling the World Cup

As football madness goes global again, it’s best to relax and ride with the roars. 

I KNOW what some of you out there are thinking. Why would anybody sacrifice free time to watch 22 grown men running around a field in pursuit of a ball? More to the point, why would they rather do that than spend time with ... me?

This is the mantra repeated time and time again throughout the year, but it reaches its climax every four years. And this week, the madness has started again – the World Cup is back.

This quadrennial event pits the best national football teams from around the world against each other in an effort to find the world champion. This year, it takes place in South Africa, where between June 11 and July 11, 32 nations will compete in 64 games in a somewhat complicated tournament format.

More importantly, it is a spectator show that draws people from all around the world to a single focal point.

Ever since the World Cup was first televised in 1954, watching it has become a worldwide phenomenon. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) estimates that about 2.2 billion people watched some part of the 2006 event, , with a staggering 715 million people catching the final itself.

Given a world population of about 6.6 billion and several assumptions (including the unlikely one that football viewing patterns don’t change significantly after a person is married or gets a boyfriend girlfriend – we’ll just assume that the World Cup is a great exception), we can estimate that four out of nine couples will have one partner who will watch the World Cup.

And taking a cue from the statistic that only 14% of English soccer’s premier league spectators are women, we say that it’s mostly wives and girlfriends who will be wondering what the fuss is about.

So, this is my appeal to all the women out there: Give your man a break. More than that, give your man support.

This is the world’s greatest sporting event and it only happens once every four years. It is a (mostly) non-violent sport, exhibiting artistry and technique, evoking the greatest in commitment and competitiveness from players and spectators alike.

These are all noble ideals, and to all those who have complained that the Industrial Revolution marked a decline in humanism, and a rise in materialism, I will hereby argue that the rise of commercialism in football has demonstrated that the two can dovetail neatly.

There are many benefits to watching football:

* When your significant other invites friends and family to the house to eat and watch a game, it is a reminder that we don’t need an open house as an excuse to get together, and that there are other things besides religion and nationalism that bind us – as long as we support the same team.

* You will know where your man is and what he is doing at all times. And depending on how loudly he cheers, you will also know what he is thinking.

* Allegedly, condom sales increase during the World Cup. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on your situation. Share in the passion, that’s what I say.

There will be a few downsides, too:

* For about a month, the only decent conversation you can have will be related to either a game that had been played, a game being played, or a game that’s about to be played. Instead of fighting this, it is more beneficial to reword your conversations to reflect this. “Remember how you admired Ronaldo the other night when he tracked back to pick the ball up in defence? Well, don’t forget to pick up your anak from tuition afterwards, okay?”

* Set ground rules before the game begins (“Clean up after yourselves”, and “Don’t wake up the baby” are probably the most common). They will probably be pushed to the back of the mind during the game (the limbic system has a tendency to dominate thoughts), but that’s temporary. You will find football fans quite receptive at half-time or after a game. That is, as long as their team is winning, or has won.

* Passion is infectious and uncontrolled, and food and drinks are commonplace at football viewing parties. Remove all fragile items from the living room, and replace all the nice tablecloths and carpets with cheaper versions.

* For this World Cup, some of the best games will be played at 2.30am. Don’t be shocked to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder why the house is about to cave in. You can go to bed early so you don’t lose out on sleep. Or, better still, tell your significant other you want to check out that new boutique hotel in town. Your partner might even pay for your stay.

At the end of the day, it is important to realise that when your partner wants to watch football (even if it is three times a day for a fortnight), what he is doing is particiaptin a global event that brings people together, while catering to the primal need for competitiveness. In the old days, tribes had to go to war to fulfill those basic instincts. Now the war paint has been replaced by coloured scarves, and instead of bile and blood being shed, there are just yellow and red cards.

And once the month is over, so will the madness – for another three years and 11 months. Unless he’s a die-hard Premier League fan, in which case you’ll only have about 30 days.

CONTRADICTHEORY, By DZOFF AZMI

Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make of life’s vagaries and contradictions.

Fifa World Cup - Time to give Malaysian team a sporting chance

Scandal robs interest in local soccer

JUST imagine this conversation taking place in a cafe. “We are going to win the World Cup! No question about it,” says Football Fan One.

“You cannot talk about 1966 forever. With our strength in penalties, we will take it,” says Football Fan Two.
But says Football Fan Three, “Our squad is not as strong as when we won the last World Cup. I don’t really fancy our chances this time.”

Chances are you might have overheard or even been involved in such a conversation. Football fans will recognise the “we” in the conversation as England, Germany and Italy respectively.

Golden team: The Malaysian football team redeemed itself when it beat Vietnam 1-0 to win the Sea Games gold medal after 20 years. — S.S.KANESAN/ The Star

 

An outside observer might think that the trio involved in the conversation were born in London, Berlin or Rome – but in fact, these people are from Gunung Rapat, Banting and Besut, 100% born and bred Malaysians.

“I find it amusing when people say “we” when talking about teams located thousand of miles away from where they were born,” says Kenny Lee*.

A Liverpool fan, Lee admits that he is guilty of the same when talking about his favourite team. But he realises that he should be following the local football scene instead.

Many local football fans affiliate themselves with foreign teams, especially those from the English Premier League, and some are hard-core supporters of these teams.

Now, with the 2010 FIFA World Cup around the corner, many are proclaiming themselves to be Brazilians, Italians, Germans, Argentinians or Spaniards.

Many Malaysians can rattle off the starting eleven of a famous team, but ask them to name the starting 11 of the Malaysian team and many would struggle to name a single player.

When the Malaysian team played two friendly football matches against Manchester United earlier last year, the red of the English team outnumbered the yellow of the national team among fans at the stadium.

This prompted J.D. of Red FM’s Breakfast Show to come out with a public service announcement urging Malaysians to support their local football team.

“Although people were wearing the MU jersey, they were supporting Malaysia, and this was a cool experience,” he says.

He was encouraged by Malaysia’s performance against Manchester United and said he would support the team if they gave their all in every game.

J.D, says he always reads news of his state team, Perak, and watches a game when he has the opportunity.
As for Lee, he follows the progress of the national team. He was happy that Malaysia won the SEA Games gold medal in Laos last year after 20 years.

He watched almost every game live and made it a point to go out and watch the final.
“Very few people were watching the game. If it were a Liverpool vs Man United game, the whole place would have been packed,” he says.

Lee says that he does not follow the local leagues as much today compared to the early 90s, citing the lack of quality on display as the reason.

The national team hit its peak in the 1960s and 70s, and the older generation always talks about how the players of this era played with their heart and soul. One always mentions Mokhtar Dahari, Santokh Singh, Soh Chin Aun and R. Arumugam, and the national team qualifying for the 1972 and 1980 Olympic Games as the heights of Malaysian football.

Local soccer experts say many Malaysians lost interest in local football after the bribery scandal in 1994/95, and attention was diverted to the European leagues.

Datuk M. Jegathesan, the Olympic Council of Malaysia deputy president, believes people adopt teams for a sense of belonging. He points out the recent Thomas Cup finals where Malaysians packed the stadium to watch their heroes play.

“There was a great frenzy and tickets were sold out. A winning team captures the imagination of people,” he says.

That is the reason why people support the more successful clubs.
“If you watch only for the technicalities, there are no emotions. But if they pick a team, there is a surge of adrenaline. That 90 minutes distracts them from their other cares in life,” he says.

He points out that the various local cup finals still attract a fair bit of on-off support.
“There just isn’t enough to sustain it from day to day to rival what is being offered. They have to compete with the market forces,” he says, adding that local sports needs mass support to propel it to greater heights.

As for the World Cup, Jegathesan will be watching it from a technical point of view.
“I am watching to appreciate the game. I don’t have a stake in any of those teams,” he says.

Ravind Ramesh, 33, considers himself to be a patriot. This avid football fan is not planning to follow the World Cup until the later stages.

“Basically, I don’t have anyone to support,” he says.
While he supports Arsenal, he still follows the fortunes of his home club Kedah. He recently attended the FA Cup Final which saw Kedah lose to Negri Sembilan. And whenever Malaysia is playing, he makes it a point to go for the games.

James Wong* also follows the fortunes of Perak, despite the lack of excitement and quality. He attends games and follows the highlights when he has a chance.

“I feel that they need more support now because a club can’t survive without its fans,” says Wong, who is an avid Tottenham Hotspurs fan.

But not everyone shares the same passion. V. Prasad, 37, used to watch Malaysian and Selangor games live until the 1994/95 football bribery scandal.

“I felt cheated,” says the Tottenham Spurs fan.
He says that his interest in Malaysian football waned after that, and the last Malaysian game he watched live was a World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia in 1993.

Prasad says that in the past, there wasn’t such a big gap in dignity and prestige between supporting a foreign team and a local one.

“No one would have laughed at you then if you said you supported Malacca,” he says.
One of his fondest memories of local football was when Malaysia defeated South Korea in 1979 to qualify for the 1980 Olympic Games.

“I remember hearing that live on radio. It was no different from watching Ricky Villa dribble past a handful of Manchester City players to score the winning goal in the 1981 FA Cup final,” he says.

Those are the two most memorable goals I remember in my first few years of following football,” adds Prasad.

So when will he start following the local scene again?
“If we do well in the next Asian Cup and qualify for the World Cup, we will have millions of Malaysian fans. We would all be painting our faces,” he says.

Blogger Rizal Hashim (rizalhashim.blogspot.com) believes that cable television has played a huge role in influencing Malaysians. He says that growing up in the 70s, the coverage of foreign football could not compare to today’s.

“The perception is that local football is in the doldrums,” says the former sports writer.
“Try to know our own team at least. Whatever you say about them, they are still our representatives. I do not like it when people say they cannot name the starting 11 of the national team. Because of technological advances, there is no excuse for it – it’s a matter of wanting to know,” he says.

He says that winning the Sea Games gold medal was a good start, and Malaysians should be supportive of their own team.

He points out that neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam have good support. It has to be noted, though, that these countries are not setting the world of football alight either.

“But their national team is a source of pride for them,” he says.
K. Rajagopal, coach of the national team, says that while people can support the foreign teams, they should support the national team as well.

“Come and support the national team. Not just for football but for all the sports. It is important for the future of sports,” he says.

*Names have been changed for anonymity.