Posts Tagged ‘rant’

Dude’s take on the LHC

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

This is from Dude, regarding the possibility of creating a black hole with with the LHC. I agree:

This supercollider is the one that **was** going to be built in Waxahachie, Texas before he Republican Congress dubbed the “Republican Revolution” came into power in 1994.  This work *could* have been done in the United States.  Instead, we have outsourced our place as the leader of innovation and cutting-edge science to other countries that do not spend over half of their annual budget on making military contractors rich.  Furthermore, Jesse’s knee-jerk reaction to condemn science is so typical among Americans these days that we now have a country in which the majority of people (a) think its a good idea to teach the Bible in public schools, (b) think that Creationism should be taught in science class, and (c) deny that Global Warming is even happening despite the mountains of evidence.  where did my country develop this irrational fear of science????  and what’s so crazy is that they are not scared of science that they *should* be scared of such as genetic modification of food and so-called “clean coal” power plants.

and the thing that really gets me is that the west has been in this position before:  a position in which people wanted to cling to religion for questions that religion is not suited to answer, where men of science were scorned and even jailed for the mere publication of their scientific findings, where other cultures embraced science while we shunned it and made quantum leaps over us, controlled the world, and subjugated westerners.  This period was called “the dark ages” for a reason, and coincidentally it was also the period of history in which the Muslims contrlled Europe for 700 years!!!  We shun science at our own peril.  Taking risks like the one being taken at CERN is what keeps the west on top.  If the U.S. is too scared to do it, we all should be grateful that Europe will take up the mantle.