# Scientist worries about failure to find Higgs Boson Particle



## Peairtach (Dec 26, 2009)

Large Hadron Collider failure will leave science back in the 'wilderness' - Telegraph


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## LawrenceU (Dec 26, 2009)

That will be interesting.


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## lynnie (Dec 26, 2009)

_He said failure will undermine more than a hundred years of scientific theory and undermine some of the mainstays of sceintific thinking, the Standard Model, a general theory of how particles fit together to create matter_. 

So....our current understanding of physics and atomic structure and matter is enough to wire up 4 billion people to the grid, make all the teeny weenie circuits in my computer, make complex pharmaceuticals, make everything from plastics to paint with petroleum, and build thermonuclear bombs that can wipe out most of the world.

But if we don't find this elusive particle, it sets us back into the wilderness and undermines that last 100 years? I can't seem to muster up any angst about it, can you?


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## Wayne (Dec 26, 2009)

It sets them back because it exposes the fact that they still don't *really* know how it all works. 

God is so infinitely above us all.


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## Skyler (Dec 26, 2009)

We'll be back to alchemy and mysticism. 

This is where science leads people on its own. Despair.


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## Zenas (Dec 26, 2009)

Why would anyone panic or be upset? This guy places a large amount of self-importance on physics. I consider myself a moderately intelligent individual and I could really care less. I can't see how the average person will care-at all.


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## Skyler (Dec 26, 2009)

Zenas said:


> Why would anyone panic or be upset? This guy places a large amount of self-importance on physics. I consider myself a moderately intelligent individual and I could really care less. I can't see how the average person will care-at all.



Because humanism will have received a crushing blow--science can't explain everything after all. When you can't defend your belief system rationally, irrational responses are all that's left.


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## TheDow (Dec 26, 2009)

Of course, even if they find the Higgs-Boson particle, that doesn't explain away God.  Physicists are desperate to find this particle because they think it'll help them feel better about hating the God they know exists, but each advancement and discovery shows them that there is always more they can't explain.

Great stuff.


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## Webservant (Dec 26, 2009)

AHHHHH yes the Great "*?*". That point in physics where science discovers that nothing should work without a more fundamental particle or force, and yet, none can be found. May they look up from their cloud chambers and see Something far larger than the Higgs Boson.


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## Skyler (Dec 26, 2009)

I suspect they'd be feeling something like the Philistines felt when their god fell flat.


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## Nate (Dec 27, 2009)

While this guy is probably correct about the over-hyping of the LHC, it kind of sounds like he's just trying to fabricate a story to get some cheap publicity.


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## JoeRe4mer (Dec 27, 2009)

LoL, This reminds me of my college Biology professor who, when speaking about mankind's scientific knowledge said, "Ultimately we have more questions than answers and we _always_ will." I admired his honesty.


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## Contra_Mundum (Dec 28, 2009)

But isn't it instructive that someone feels the need to "pipe up" and encourage the "faithful" that even if this search is a failure at some level of expectation, that they should still "press on!"?

The fact is that history provides us MANY more examples of a retreat into superstition after "progress" peters out, than any long, unending string of advancements. Without a doubt, the success of "modern science" _as it arose in Western, Christian civilization_ is the Grand Exception. It almost seems as though its simple success, and the fact that it has not hit a "dead end" yet, is enough to guarantee its continued success.

The problem is not in the method, per se. The method, however, is a product of a world-view. It did not arise in a vacuum. And Naturalism as a competing religious-world-view has sought (with relative success) to shove Christianity-as-rival out of the position of contextual framework, or fundament, for the past two centuries. As if such an atheistic position could have led to the same progress... (why didn't it ever?)

We are all familiar by now with the presumptive assertions of Naturalist-Materialists that atheism is not only superior to theistic basis for understanding the universe, it makes religion superfluous, and (most recently) reveals its positively pernicious character.

But without any trancendence, Naturalism/Materialism cannot provide a basis for itself. ONLY neverending success supplies the "sufficient cause" for maintaining the system, and if that ever breaks down...


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