"Did God Create the Universe?" is the premiere episode of the new Discovery series "Curiosity," which will air concurrently on TLC and Animal Planet, and there is something hopeful about that. Even in these jaded times, God manages to trump sex, aliens, evil and the panoply of other tantalizing topics that will be explored in future episodes, while, in the world of Discovery anyway, Stephen Hawking, who's featured in the episode, remains a bigger name than Robin Williams, Samuel Jackson, Maggie Gyllenhaal or any of the other A-listers who participated in subsequent episodes.
Of course it is a rhetorical question. Hawking has long insisted that no supreme being was necessary to make the universe or even get the astrophysical ball rolling. "Did God Create the Universe?" is based on his most recent book, "The Grand Design" (co-written with Leonard Mlodinow), which divided critics along religious and scientific lines.
But even those unfamiliar with Hawking and his work are tipped off early on. Hawking acknowledges the controversy in the opening moments of the hour-long segment, reminding the audience that the rift between the scientific and theological communities is a long and bitter one, with the Catholic Church often, over the centuries, attempting to suppress scientific advances and punish those who made them.
As usual in these sorts of conversations, the brilliant and much abused Galileo gets a lot of play, as does Pope John XXI, who in 1277 declared the laws of nature to be heretical, only to be killed by one of them — gravity (and weak mortar) caused a roof to fall on him. (The fact that John XXI was also a scientist and physician who wrote an influential book on birth control is not mentioned.)
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