The End is Nigh...Again

Submitted by admin on Sat, 10/04/2008 - 18:33.

If you like me are frustrated by people moaning about the Large Hadron Collider destroying the world I've got some fresh bit of ammo for you to use in those conversations. I have to admit that I haven't had much luck persuading such people that they End isn't Nigh. Some people have a deep seated conviction that Science is Bad. However not everyone falls into that camp. Some are just misinformed, and you can't blame them with rags like the Daily Mail pumping out Pro-Woo, Anti-Science garbage into the MemeSphere on a regular basis.

It might be useful to point out to the doomsayers that this whole controversy isn't anything new. We went through this all before ten years ago just before the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) was switched on. Well the RHIC was switched on and reliable sources tell me that the world still exists. The BBC still has an article on the RHIC hoopla which you can read here. The controversy goes back even further than that, in 1995 Fermilab was picketed over similar ideas. It turns out that truly dumb ideas are rarely original.

Unfortunately for many I don't think a rational counter argument is going to work. The reason being is that the fear of the LHC isn't based on a rational objection in the first place. I see their fear as a Lovecraftian "things man was not meant to know" phobia which is basically a fear of change. A common theme in Lovecraft's fiction was exploration leads to disaster. That fear might seem irrational but there is an internal consistency to it. Science has undoubtedly brought about change. If you're someone who is enthusiastic about that technological progress then you're probably enthusiastic about the LHC. If you're someone who waxes nostalgic for the Victorian era (as a rich Victorian naturally) then being suspicious and downright hostile to the LHC is perfectly consistent with the worldview. Such people aren't going to be reassured by arguments testifying to the LHCs safety because their objections aren't really about the safety of particle physics experiments in the first place.

The best antidote to fear is understanding and an infectious enthusiasm for Science. In that vein here's one of my favourite speakers on Physics, Brian Cox, talking about the Large Hadron Collider at TED.