Could the Large Hadron Collider be our Biggest Mistake?
September 12, 2008
Can we trust scientists, given their track record - and what does scientific “progress” really mean?
On Sept 10, the large hadron collider (LHC), the most massive piece of machinery ever made, was switched on. The $8 billion machine, built by CERN marked a watershed. It is the first time in the history of mankind that a risk from an experiment has been mooted to be able to cause the end, not only of our planet, but of the universe itself (possibly recreating the big bang).
Now that the circulation beams have been established, the date for the particle collisions to start is some time around late October and, in 2009, the machine is set to reach its full speed “taking physics to a new frontier”.
The aims of the experiment do not include any practical advantages to us whatsoever as the experts fully admit. The scientists merely hope to find out if they can find the “Higgs boson” and add to their understanding of whether the universe is going to expand or contract and other matters of no consequence to anyone who isn’t desperately curious about such questions. There may be some useful spin-off benefits regarding cleaner nuclear energy, and other practical technological “advances”, but, if so they will be unintended.
The risk of any cataclysmic disaster is said to be as good as zero, if you take the word of the scientists of CERN, who are determined to proceed with the experiment. But what can the layman, with no great knowledge of physics or means to analyze what the risk may be, conclude? An intelligent layman always has the tool of logic at their disposal.
There are a number of scientists who feel that insufficient caution has been taken to eliminate a risk that the tiny black holes, that the LHC team would like to create, could grow and suck in the world, or there could be a replication of the explosion that spawned the universe. These scientists have been attempting to stop the experiment with legal challenges, which have failed mainly because of issues around the dates the challenges were issued, rather than a consideration of the argument. The main objector is Dr Otto Rössler.
It would take too much space to list the many qualifications of Professor Rössler, who currently lectures at the University of Tübingen on Theoretical Biochemistry, including Chaos Theory and Brain Theory. He was additionally made a Professor of Chemistry by Decree. He also travels to other universities worldwide lecturing in various disciplines: Mathematics; Nonlinear Studies; Chemical Engineering; Theoretical Physics and Complexity Research. He has had five books published. The latest in 1998 “The World as Interface”, is his introduction to a new field of physics that he founded.
I point out how distinguished Professor Rössler is, because CERN publicly dismisses its scientific critics as being “loonies” and as “the kind of people who report being kidnapped by aliens on a regular basis” - as I heard one spokesman scoff on a television news item. His ad hominem venom in misrepresenting scientists like Rössler, who he did not mention by name, was language that suggested this CERN representative was sufficiently biased to be considered untrustworthy.
It is unfortunate that the pleas for caution from Rössler and others are conflated in the minds of many with the rejoicing of Christians anticipating the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy as written in Revelations: God causing the world to be rolled up like a scroll. People are eager to dismiss all criticism of the LHC as being irrational raving of religious doom-mongers.
Science proceeds by a process of trial and error. It is part of discovering the new that the unknown is probed. Much of science has been a case of learning from errors and unexpected results. It is duplicitous of CERN to suggest that they are sure their experiments are risk free, since they simultaneously claim that they do not know what will happen.
CERN owns the “LHC safety group”, and what can one reasonably feel is the risk that CERN is not necessarily straight about the risk? Typically when an organization polices itself, it twists its findings to suit its own wishes. In deciding whether you personally consider it safe to allow scientists to conduct an experiment, you must bear in mind three factors:
a) the possibility of that there is an accidental or deliberate flaw in their risk assessment.
b) what the consequences may be of a worst case scenario.
c) what the benefits are of proceeding if all goes to plan.
In the case of the LHC, the risk mentioned in a) is higher by far than the risk that the scientists have declared, because it depends on entirely different criteria to the criteria you would consider if you could directly research the safety of the experiment: human folly and dishonesty.
The worst case scenario, (b) is as bad as it could possibly be, and the benefits (c) are highly questionable and have a high chance of even being threats at some point.
To simply claim that you have faith and trust in the scientists being correct shows an inability or unwillingness to consider factor a). We can’t be sure of the risk that the risk told to us by the scientist turns out to be wrong, and we should indeed consider that to be an order of risk far greater than zero. An unloaded gun has no chance of killing you, but you know to be careful just incase - and a cocky scientist holding it at your head is not going to put your mind at rest.
Did you know that if passenger airplanes had a 0.001 percent chance of crashing, they would not be allowed to fly? And yet all a plane crash risks is a few hundred lives at maximum. We are not all kidnapped and forced to fly on that plane.
An article in the New York Times gives warning about the lack of security regarding risk assessment in science. “Francesco Calogero, a nuclear physicist at the University of Rome and co-winner of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Pugwash conferences on arms control , deplored a tendency among his colleagues to promulgate a “leave it to the experts” attitude.”
“One problem is that society has never agreed on a standard of what is safe in these surreal realms when the odds of disaster might be tiny but the stakes are cosmically high. In such situations, probability estimates are often no more than “informed betting odds,” said Martin Rees, a Cambridge University cosmologist, the astronomer royal and the author of ‘Our Final Hour.’ “
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15risk.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Mr Rees remains content for the LHC to be considered safe enough however.
We must recall that when the atom bomb was first tested there were fears that it could set alight the atmosphere. This proved a prospect too dire for Adolph Hitler to agree to. Speer wrote in his memoirs: “Hitler was plainly not delighted with the possibility that the earth under his rule might be transformed into a glowing star”, yet the Americans went ahead with it. And it worked fine, and we have benefited so greatly haven’t we? Perhaps a spin-off bonus of the LHC could be finding a way to save the billions of poor people in the third world! That is the kind of “progress” that mankind longs for.
So many advances of technology and scientific knowledge have claimed to benefit mankind - and yet in reality they are killing us while making us dependent upon them like a junkie depends on his dealer. A very accurate metaphor. Advances in medicine have allowed the weakest to survive and gradually spread weakness and medical dependence throughout the population. Various forms of machinery have take men away from the graft of hard physical labor, and turned them into overweight consumers of mindless garbage objects and entertainment. Genetically modified food was also supposed to help us but it is likely to kill us, while making farmers dependent upon companies for their seeds. Pesticides were supposed to help us, but they poison us, and so on. And all the while we grow further away from our natural state.
Physicists are infamous for having a cavalier disregard for risk in their single-minded obsession with their projects and ambitions. They absorb themselves in their subject and have a tunnel vision, holding onto their project like a dog with a bone. To such a man, his focus is that his own life is short and that he wants to see the result of his research. He may well not care what he is jeopardizing in his determination to seize his chance. We know very well that corruption is not something to which scientists are immune, and that falsification of data, dog-eat-dog competition and other unscrupulous activities happen as much in science as elsewhere. People often tell lies that put us in danger to get us to trust them and accept what they say, from the second-hand car salesman, selling death-traps if he can get away with it, to politicians who send millions to war on lies, and who have been bought by corporations who gain permission to poison the land and population. And these companies also bribe scientists who assure us of the safety of drugs, GM food, chemicals in cosmetics and so on. We can expect there is a commercial interest in the outcome of the experiments at CERN.
Cynical manipulators have turned our natural curiosity and optimism about “progress” into a source of gold for themselves and, at the same time, a source of danger to the Earth and a weapon to weaken the human bond with nature. As we become more dependent upon technology and the artifices of modern life, our bond with nature is severed and we are easily made into slaves serving corporate powers.
The acquiescence of the public towards the LHC can only be seen as a green light for further experiments to go ahead, with who knows what consequences. This will not be the last time great risks are taken, maybe next time in order to right a previous mess that short-sighted “progress” has caused to the environment. Repeated meddling to try to cancel out the grave consequences of previous meddling, all the time with an increased sense of urgency and recklessness. What right has man to risk the diversity and beauty of life, so cut off from all of it that he would rather seek an elusive science-fiction fantasy than stop and appreciate what we have: flowers, trees, birds, love and family?
They search for “the meaning of life” and hope to find “why we are here” by conducting experiments that may doom the Earth, and cannot make humanity any happier. And yet the answers to these fundamental questions have always been in front of our noses. $8billion invested in sociobiology would enhance knowledge in these areas - and yet the answers scare many. They don’t want to know these truths and so they turn away and, with a mad sparkle in their eyes, tell us they believe the LHC will provide great answers, and maybe discoveries that even lead to time travel, etc. Ask the scientists what the statistical chance of any of THAT is! Why should improbable “nice” results be so much more credible than the idea that the outcome could be dismal in the extreme?
Earth is our one and only home and it’s time we appreciated it, instead of gambling all, no matter what the odds are either way, for pie in the sky.
