Bad Astronomy points theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking very rightly ripping British politicians for eviscerating the science budget. It’s a great article, well worth reading, but Hawking doesn’t get the good quote. That comes at the end of the article, and is from Brian Cox, of the Large Hadron Collider project:
The notion that scientists will make a more valuable contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of the world if their research is closely directed by politicians is the most astonishing piece of nonsense I have had the misfortune to come across in a long time.
["Very Scientific"?]
Tags: Bad Astronomy, Brian Cox, government, Large Hadron Collider, LHC, politicians, Science, Stephen Hawking
“Nonsense”? That’s funny coming from Cox. There is some real nonsense at CERN LHC’s website. A quote from there is taken apart below;
Playing God! – ‘The World is not Enough’
Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed ‘Higgs Boson’(aka ‘God’) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments to try to solve theoretical problems when urgent real problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world’s most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing clouds of Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena.
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states quote: “There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,…” This stunning admission is because they truly don’t know what’s going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don’t understand to obtain results they can’t comprehend. If you think like most people do that ‘They must know what they’re doing.’ you could not be more wrong. The second part of the quote reads “…but what’s for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,…” A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads “as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe.” These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn’t a particle experimentalist physicist alive who wouldn’t gladly trade his life to glimpse the “God particle”, and sacrifice the rest of us with him.
This quote from Nation Geographic exactly sums this “science” up: “That’s the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out.”
For more information visit;
http://www.lhcdefense.org/
http://www.lhcconcerns.com
http://www.SaneScience.org/
http://www.LHCFacts.org
Popular Mechanics – “World’s Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock ‘God Particle’” – http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html“
[...] Awhile back, I quoted Brian Cox, a scientist on the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator project, who called the idea of politicians micro-managing scientists “nonsense”. [...]