Scientist worries about failure to find Higgs Boson Particle
- Thread starter Peairtach
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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?
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?
Skyler
Puritan Board Graduate
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.
TheDow
Puritan Board Freshman
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.
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.
Webservant
Puritan Board Sophomore
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.
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...
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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