Stop the presses: A British-born lifelong leftist doesn’t much care for Donald Trump. In other news, a dog has bitten a man.
Stephen Hawking is in the news this week, for comments he made about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In an interview, Hawking called Trump a “demagogue” who appeals to the “lowest common denominator.” These banal musings from a long-time supporter of left-wing causes (including the movement to boycott academic exchanges with Israeli scholars) have lit up across the Internet. “Noted genius Stephen Hawking literally can’t with Donald Trump,” was one news website’s take on it. “Stephen Hawking, who can and does elucidate a great many phenomena, said he could not explain Donald Trump’s ascendency, other than noting, ‘He is a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,'” was how the New York Times relayed it.
Of course, it’s hardly news that a well-known leftwing campaigner doesn’t like Donald Trump. What’s next: Will—gasp—Barbra Streisand come out against the mogul? (By the way, given Hawking’s statements on the Iraq war, one would think he might actually be somewhat sympathetic to Trump’s candidacy.) And the coverage of Hawking’s political mutterings does seem to have something in common with the coverage of Hollywood stars’ political stands.
But the fascination with Hawking’s sentiments would also seem to stem from the rather naive belief that those who possess mechanical intelligence also—inherently—posses political wisdom. Hawking is good at science, and Hawking doesn’t like Trump, therefore Trump is bad, seems to be the logic. None of this means that Hawking is right or wrong about Trump, of course. But those who think that we should be willing to accept the unimpeachable moral wisdom of intelligent scientists would do well to remember the examples of three Nobel laureates, Arthur Butz,and A.Q. Khan, among many, many, others.
