CERN sued by European Court of Human Rights over Large Hadron Collider

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Here is a comment from a friend in Seattle. I basically agree with it so you can read it as if it is a post from me, but I didn’t write it.

Something interesting to consider is the philosphical and intellectual movements that arose during the 20th century, in direct response to the attrocities of the two World Wars. The more philosphically inclined amongst the intellectuals of the time period realized that the romantic/enlightenment movement upon which western intellectualism had long been founded had been used as the means to what became very horrible ends. Enlightenment philosophers believed whole-heartedly that if knowledge (and science comes from the latin word sciencia, which means knowledge) were accumulated and the scientific ideal was forwarded long enough, we would reach a state of perfect enlightenment and equilibrium. This extended into the social fields as well, most likely leading to such movements as eugenics.

These enlightenment philosophers/scientists believed very much in the righteousness of man, and the good that would come from knowledge; they also believed that man could know far more than he has at any given point in history, and that through this knowledge great deeds would be accomplished. The 20th century debunked the enlightenment philosophy for everyone except the scientists. Most scientists (and I speak from personal experience; many of my very good friends, who are very intellegient, are scientists) have no inkling of the history of science, and they are loath to combine their “hard sciences” with such wishy-washy things as history, philosophy, and introspective intellectualism. (I had one friend tell me, when I brought up a historical point, that he was “not concerned with the way things have been, but the way things are now”… as if there’s some vast difference between the two).

I have friends who blindly believe that science will lead us out of dark times and into vast realms of beautiful knowledge and existence, and that if we just follow science all of our problems will eventually be solved. None of them have studied very much history at all. And none of them understand the philosophical movements that have arisen to combat the blind nepotism of science. For science, as many of us are wont to forget, is simply a worldview; yes, it is a worldview based upon a infinitude of observations made by some incredibly strange and (at least from a purely objective standpoint) bizarre instruments, and yes, it is based upon a firm ground of intellectual history and philosophic development; but it is, nevertheless, simply a worldview, and in such, is quite fallible and quite susceptible to human error and reckless ambition. As far as colliding sub-atomic particles goes… well, quantum physics is fucked up. and no one really understands it. and if they act like they understand it, they don’t actually understand it (someone said that… i think it was Neils Bohr).

And, by the way, when Natural Science first arose, it was an offshoot of philosophy. At some point, late in the 19th century, science divorced itself from philosophy (Nietzsche lamented this schism, saying that natural science should remember its roots in philosophy). Now science has little respect for philosophy or “soft” intellectualism; even though the avant-garde areas of science are NOTHING BUT philosophical theorizing (especially in physics… and more especially in quantum physics).

42

Is there any particular reason to suspect the LHC might destroy the world other than “Hey, anything’s possible”? I mean, is there more reason for such suspicion than with, say, the possibility that mixing household chemicals 1 and 2, hitherto never combined, might also destroy the world because, hey, who knows, it’s never been done before?

43

Strangely enough, that’s pretty much the same effect your posts have on me. :stuck_out_tongue: (Congrats on quitting, though, I just hit two weeks on Tuesday myself.)

I’m afraid though that at this point noone can really disabuse you of the notion that the LHC will turn out to be a doomsday machine, so I’ll just take comfort in knowing that your wanton ignorance will turn out to be self-punishing: it’ll have you all anxious now, and later on you’ll kick yourself for making such a stupid fuzz about it in the first place.

Also, I’m a bit surprised that your historically minded philosopher friend would have such a simplistic view on the Enlightenment’s opinion of science as a panacea for all of society’s ills, and that he could apparently overlook the very real improvements to both standard and length of life brought on by, well, science, to use the term in his near-meaningless generalised way. I’d suggest both of you familiarise yourselves with the Dunning-Kruger effect and take into account that most of the time, it is indeed those that have studied a subject for years that know the most about it.

Oh, and it was Feynman who said: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”; Bohr said “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” (Which, by the way, doesn’t mean that just because you’re shocked you’ve understood even a single bit of it.)

44

It sounds very serious until you read the info Kytheria posted, and around here, somebody always posts that stuff pretty quickly. If the collider creates any black holes, they’ll flicker out of existence faster than you can possibly imagine and will not destroy the world.

All things considered I have bigger things to worry about.

45

Argent, what bugs me about your concerns is that you want to cherry-pick the physics.

The physics that tells us that there is a possibility of creating micro-black-holes in the LHC is the same physics that tells us that they pose no threat since they’ll just evaporate. If you are skeptical of the claim that the black holes will evaporate, why aren’t you equally skeptical of the claim that they’ll be created in the first place? The equations governing particle physics and general relativity don’t stop and start at your convenience.

46

It’s also the same physics that tells us the far more frequent and far, FAR higher-energy collisions which occur naturally all around us as a result of constant cosmic ray bombardment hasn’t created an Earth-sucking black hole in the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the planet.

I though ignorance was supposed be bliss?

47

Argent, you misunderstood. It’s the same likelihood that there will be unaided human flight. Like Superman, not the Wright Brothers.

48

You are more likely to die of West Nile Virus.

Do you piss yourself every time you see a mosquito?

49

The real tragedy is all the atom smashers who are losing their job to this machine.

50

For me, this thing might worry me if the chances of it destroying the earth weren’t so small. That and there are approximately 3 million other forms of death I consider more likely. In no particular order:

-Being killed in a car accident while commutting to/from work.
-A giant rock falling on the earth and setting civilzation back back a couple centuries at least.
-King Jong Ill getting a nuclear weapon.
-Zombie Apocalypse.
-Nuclear Meltdown(I work within 3 miles of 15 nuclear reactors. It’s a possibility). -Falling down the stairs and bashing my head open.
-Being sent to Gitmo and held without trial forever for not being patriotic enough, er terrorism.

So, the LHC doesn’t exactly worry me.

51

In fact, everything on your list with the possible exception of the Zombie Apocalypse is several to several hundred orders of magnitude more likely than destruction via the LHC.

Anyone who’s as afraid of the LHC as the OP claims to be should just not bother getting up in the morning.

52

For those still interested, here’s a pretty damning rebuttal (PDF) of the paper cited in the OP by Giddings and Mangano, who wrote the original risk assessment regarding micro black holes.

53

Yeah, so much so that one of them already has happened! :eek:

[/nitpick]

54

As I recall, this is what the Romulans use to power their warbirds.

So I say, “Cool!”

55

Damn, I was hoping it was the Zombie Apocalypse.

56

You’re stretching this one. No one was given syphilis that didn’t already have it. The subject pool was limited to people who were already sick. Where the story goes wrong is that they were systematically denied treatment just to see what would happen. Also, it was horribly unorganized and the only person who had continued participation in the project was, IIRC, some charge nurse at the hospital who didn’t have many duties beyond “take pulse, still alive check.”