Book Review
THE GRAND DESIGN
By Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Published by Bantam Books, $28
Stephen Hawking, the great physicist, has made a great splash with his new book The Grand Design, and especially with the remark close to the end that will certainly live on in Bartlett’s Quotations: “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” This remarkable flourish caps a book filled with subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at religious worldviews and religious faith.
