A review by eronn
The Grand Design by Leonard Mlodinow, Stephen Hawking

Fascinating and incredibly stupid all at once. Hawking again does a great job of teaching very complex ideas in very understandable and even memorable ways. That portion of the book was amazing. What was stupid was the inclusion of a great deal of philosophy (from the opening line of the book on) in what was supposedly a purely scientific answer to design theory. Hawking and Co. have great mathematical arguments and insights but they cannot escape from a creator. It was interesting that the last few chapters talked a lot about the "creation" - not a term you would expect if everything just randomly popped into existence. And that popping into existence thing - it only works if there is already a space with zero energy - but if there is a space like that then you already have a universe (blast!) which means that ultimately all this book does is push the need for a Creator one step further away from us but no closer to being gone.