Slashdot Mirror
Large Hadron Collider Sparks 'Doomsday' Lawsuit
smooth wombat writes "In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked."
My Christian faith makes me just shrug this off, and say "go ahead" to the scientists. As a Protestant, I believe that the fate of mankind and the Earth is in God's hands, not our own, and that God would never allow His plan to be stopped by human efforts, including scientific experiments.
Part of what enabled the explosion of science in Christian Europe was Reformed Protestant theology. Reformed Protestants reject concepts like luck, chance and superstition on the theological grounds that the represent restrictions on God's sovereignty.
I can't see any reason this same research can't be done through prayer.
Wow, just wow. Do you need to try to be that wrong?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The scientific method and the resulting scientific belief system is not the problem here. Its people that treat science like its a religion: like an absolute truth, that are the problem. In fact, nobody really know what will happen when the machine is switched on. If they did, why would they need to do the experiment in the first place? I have the greatest respect for science - I'm a PhD qualified particle physicst myself (although no longer practicing). I don't have a lot of respect for arrogant scientists blithely telling us everything is safe when history keeps proving them wrong over and over again, or for people that use science like a bible to bash people with.