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If you are interested in science and religion then it will probably not have escaped your attention that Stephen Hawking, arguably the most famous scientist in the world, has recently written a new book (co-authored by Leonard Mlodinow), entitled The Grand Design. A number of commentators highlighted the physicist’s supposed shift in thinking from a position that theoretically left the door open to the possibility of there being a creator (when he hinted in A Brief History of Time that scientific developments might help us to “know the mind of God”), to now saying that a deity is no longer needed as an explanation for the universe, because the physical laws of nature themselves can explain how everything here began. Although his earlier reference to a creator was almost certainly meant in a metaphorical sense, this latest work leaves the reader in no doubt about his position, as he says “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going”.