Daily Mail Mass Hysteria Over LHC – Updated
Over the last week or so the Daily Heil has published several stories about the LHC all using their typical non-hysterical, sensible style of reporting. We’ve had:
Are we all going to die next Wednesday?
Meet Evans the Atom, who will end the world on Wednesday
and rather more sensibly:
Scientists receive death threats over Big Bang experiment from critics who fear end of the world
Unsurprisingly, the comments section on each of these articles reads like the witterings of a deranged maniac interspersed with occasional lucid displays. Schizophrenic to say the least. Here I’ve going to work through some of those comments and counter them. A lot of them follow the same general trend (nothing like adding your opinion to a discussion when it’s already been said many times before) so I’ll use examples of each. A lot of the comment’s probably should invoke Poe’s Law. My comments are in red and I’ve bolded some of the more worryng parts.
The Worlds Biggest and Most Dangerous EVER EXPERIMENT which could mean the end of it all!
Why are these Scientists allowed to take such dangerous decisions and undertake such dangerous experiments without knowing the outcome before they proceed! Someone seems to have forgotten the point of an experiment. An experiment is used to test a hypothesis. In particle physics the current model hypothesises the existence of the Higgs Boson, this experiment is designed to determine if it exists. If we knew the outcome already we wouldn’t bother
What right do these Scientists have to take my life or anyone elses life for that matter. Why has there not been a Court Injunction taken out and served against these Mad Men. Some have tried and failed. They failed because the courts tend to go with the people who actually know what they’re talking about and can back it up with evidence rather than listening to the minority of cranks.
If it all goes wrong and it is the end of the World, who is going to take them to task over their massive micalculation? No one. If it does all go horribly wrong in the way you’re thinking you’ll be beyond the point of being able to care.
If I could, I would stop this experiment taking place any way I could, believing in my own mind that it is sometimes better that a few suffer than the masses! This will go ahead of course and it will not be stopped but it is not right, nor is it fair and Scientists have definitely overstepped the mark this time! This, to me, is a thinly masked death threat.
As the Article says, we all have to keep our fingers crossed and hope the Scientists have got it right! Stupid people!! Sorry Keith, you’re the stupid one.
- keith, winchester, uk, 4/9/2008 11:12
Would it not have been better to spend this amount of money on making the world a better place, why can’t these scientists put their energy and brains into helping people, instead into projects which do not really mean anything. Joan, if we all took that attitude we’d still be in caves.
- Joan Finegan, Montmorillon, France, 4/9/2008 12:41
Four years from now we will see a Quaser emanating through the earth? In 2012 This refers to a quote from Otto Rossler, one of the people trying to stop the LHC
The Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012, and so have other theories within this, linked to the Bible and they too forecast the end of the world or Armageddon in 2012. The bible is not a source of science, it is a source of contradictory stories.
Is this a coincidence? It does seem scary Yes it is a coincidence. As is the London Olympics being held in 2012. Maybe lighting the Olympic torch will actually create this quasar and destroy the Earth.
- Sarah Jones, Brighton, England, 7/9/2008 2:15
If it’s that certain the earth will callapse, why does it take so long to decide and who is deciding on behalf of all of us….the same people that decide on laws from the EU? I wondered how long it would take for an anti-Europe comment. Now where’s the one about immigrants setting up the LHC to lower house prices in Tunbridge Wells? Oh, and how many times do you need to be told that IT’S NOT GOING TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!
Well here’s my vote now and it’s STOP THIS STUPIDITY NOW!-perhaps others will follow? Please do stop your stupidity, either that or shut the fuck up.- s.francis, BROMSGROVE WORCS, 7/9/2008 8:07
You have got to be kidding me!
I all for science but why would people allow this to go ahead if this will end the world don’t they think about their family, friends and pets!
i wouldnt care about this going wrong and killing me but i care about how my friends family and pets would be affected! That’s right they’re doing it to kill your cat.
if scientists are watching this, plase find a better way to find out about the world rather than risking your lives! If annonymus is reading this learn about spelling, punctuation and grammar.- annonymus, england, 7/9/2008 16:02
Interesting to see that Britain has contributed £34 million towards provision of energy for this monster machine! ( Thought we were supposed to be tightening our belts ! ) A lot of people seem to think that all money spent on research that doesn’t give them a new type of ipod next year is somehow a waste of money. Although this warrants a full post of its own people need to realise that the UK economy is heavily driven by intellectual property these days. Manufacturing has all but disappeared because it is cheaper to outsource to Asia. Science is rapidly heading the same way as labour is cheap and many routine experiments can be conducted with little knowledge of what is actually going on. Similarly, China etc. are investing huge sums of money in research facilities to produce high quality science because they know that it will boost their economy through increased IP.
Here we are told we must conserve energy, and we could be doing that all wrapped up in our extra cardigans and foot warmers,using our energy saving bulbs and candles, recycling our newspapers in the fireplace, eating less meat, walking to work, running up and down the stairs to keep warm and lose weight.
Good job I can see the funny side of this
Before we all disappear down a big black hole next wednesday, we could celebrate bonfire night early, say next Tuesday, party to end all parties, at least we could be warm, and instead of burning Guy Fawkes effigy he could be guest of honour.- P.S., West Midlands, 8/9/2008 12:07
Dr Cox, who in the 1990s played keyboards in the chart-topping band D:Ream, will be in the CERN control room for the ’switch on’. He was indeed and in Dare before that
Well his excellent credentials are all in order, he played with D:Ream in the 1990’s, so what’s to worry about? Those of us objecting to this should now rest-assured we are in the best possible hands, It’s called being multi-talented. Maybe Brian May shouldn’t have been allowed in Queen because he could also understand astrophysics.
- A.Pamish, London, 8/9/2008 12:37
the same space..four things are wrong…there eagerness to throw the switch without thinking to much about the mechanical inspections..the amount of power it uses and where it is dilivered from?,,all of a sudden they have found anti matter and are firing it around on the second beam..and just by chance they are launching a very special sattalite 100 miles north of moscow the morning of the swith on, in stealth and disguise to monitor the effect this machine has on the gravitational and magnetic effects it has on this earth .if they do by chance find whatthere looking for we will be snuffed out in a nano second as the universe will cease to be…if they understood how god works they will realize that here is no begining or end to the universe.and no 2 universes can existin the same place…in a word itsall bad…as anything they do glean will not be for the good of man ,,not even god will be able to save us if we vanish without a trace .In a word its all bad and i,m petrified..
What?
- jeff, bournemouth, 8/9/2008 12:38
Update
Firstly, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the universe has not been destroyed and so we’re still here. Secondly, just found this wonderful comment over on the Times website:
This is an over expensive man made, man controlled experiment. It was made by men, who controlled what happened and how it happened. This proves to me that in order to create anything, you need a creator.
Paul Peters, Merritt Island, USA
Logical fallacy. Just because we, by which I mean the human race, used our intelligence (I use the term loosely as there may be, either in another part of the universe or at some point in the future, an organism with a far greater intellect) does not mean that in order to create anything you require a creator. Unless of course you define a creator (or god) in the manner that Carl Sagan has previously:
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by ‘God’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
