Tuesday, September 09, 2008

No conCERN over the Large Hadron Collider

Interesting note on the Large Hadron Collider. The consensus among physicists is that there is no danger of catastrophe tomorrow. There are a couple of maverick scientists who will be under their desks with their fingers in their ears when CERN presses the button because they think it could cause the LHC and/or Switzerland to implode into an anthropogenic black hole. However nobody takes any notice of them; the tabloid journalists are going with the scientific consensus.

This is a mirror image of the situation with man-made global warming (AGW), when the tabloids are giving disproportionate attention to a handful of maverick "scientists" (some of whom have no climate science credentials), and are using their outpourings to cast doubt on the consensus.

Why the difference? Simply because humans would prefer to believe the comfortable message (CERN will not explode) rather than the message that demands life-changing action (AGW is happening).

Hey ho.

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