[LINK] The Problem with Higgs Boson - Was Balance the enemy of facts

Tom Koltai tomk at unwired.com.au
Fri Oct 21 13:57:26 AEDT 2011


> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Richard Chirgwin
> Sent: Friday, 21 October 2011 9:27 AM
> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Balance the enemy of facts (was Re: Jobs 
> not all bad)
> 
> 
> Actually, I can offer an answer to this: just write the 
> science straight.
> 
> I can't say too much about the business secrets of The 
> Register, but a 
> story about the Higgs Boson experiments at CERN went well into 
> six-figures for hits in about two days. No fake controversy required.
> 

That could be because for the last 10,000 years, mankind has gone to war
in defence of their chosen deity.

For the Deity to turn into a member of the Periodic table is unthinkable
for well over 5/6's of the worlds population. (I'm estimating 1 billion
informed educated people that understand the psychological nature of the
need for sentient beings to have an ever after belief system. - But I'm
including China in those stats.)

Therefore the basis of interest in the CERN experiments is undoubtedly
the most fundamental controversy of all time.

It is therefore natural for a large amount of neck craning when the
validity of various belief systems several millennia old are about to be
possibly disproved.

TomK














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