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Critics Fear Collider Could Doom Earth - AOL News Canada

This is just an article about the CERN Hadron collider, and its implications on particle physics. There's also a poll on whether nature or humanity will be the downfall of the Earth that you can vote on. ( I said humans will destroy the Earth).

This all comes to whether or not science has ethical boundaries. Obviously, the hadron collider is not really a threat. I believe that it is a waste of money, eventually they will just have to build a new bigger and better one that will give the big but small picture to the quantum view of the cosmos, what are bosons made up? will be the next question.

It is interesting that people are willing to spend so much money on determining the actuality of the universe on such miniscule, trifling, quantum scales. It's implications to me seem, and this is ironic; seem very powerful, for example the use of antimatter, and perhaps fusion acessability. Yet moral is trifling. Eventually on the broader scale one might see the next big leap in science to be that of antimatter collisions, preceded by nuclear technology. Not to be rude but Hawking preceded by Einstein. Eventually science must halt and allow morality to gain ground just as wisdom must catch up with knowledge. Are we beyond that point?:confused:

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@Holiday20310401,

Quote:

Eventually science must halt and allow morality to gain ground just as wisdom must catch up with knowledge.

In what way is morality to 'gain ground'?

Morality is something individuals have to uphold themselves. The only way for morality to gain any ground is on an individual basis, with the individual paying attention to his actions and the way his actions affect others.

I do not see why scientific progress must halt, or even slow down. I do not see how ebbing scientific progress will benefit moral progress.

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@Didymos Thomas,

"Morality is something individuals have to uphold themselves".
Yes and that is exactly what I mean.
And in terms of scientific progress, I do not see how it is helping individuals with morality. Morality is not acting as a constant, it changes as science changes, but people are not rationalizing technology and science as it develops. The CERN hadron collider was just built and its moral implications questioned afterwards.
Is there not a need for discretion with science that you think may be lost as it begins to advance at a quick enough pace.
I should have worded it better from my other post, sorry.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Coooool. I read something about this last year me thinks, and as a bit of a fan of string theory- or at least the little of it I know, I was quite excited to see what would come of the smasher, I heard they would also be looking for, gravitons (particles of gravity) which potentially could be the key to parallel-dimensional communication! Sounds sweet to me and worth the risk, whatever the outcome.

Thanks for read,
Dan.

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@de budding,

de_budding wrote:

gravitons (particles of gravity) which potentially could be the key to parallel-dimensional communication!

Know if another term for parallel dimensional communication is quantum entanglement?:confused: Smile

(we really need more emoticons on the smilies board).
Also, the hadron collider is looking for the higgs boson which is supposedly the smallest particle that could potentially exist, and due to calculations scientists predicted the size to be 10-33 metres in diameter or something.

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@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

And in terms of scientific progress, I do not see how it is helping individuals with morality.

Except insofar as scientific advances have allowed people to live better lives and therefore enjoy a freedom of self-determination including moral responsibility that was theretofore not possible.

Even our whole conception of a family is different in an age when nearly all infants will survive childhood. Morality is severely taxed when one's basic needs aren't met.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Except insofar as scientific advances have allowed people to live better lives and therefore enjoy a freedom of self-determination including moral responsibility that was theretofore not possible.

Because I think it fits, but maybe it doesn't?:

http://www.businessballs.com/images/maslow's_hierarchy_businessballs.jpg

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@de Silentio,

That's exactly what I was referring to, actually, Maslow's basic needs versus the four metaneeds. All things moral are metaneeds. Science gives us the latitude to satisfy our metaneeds by amply satisfying our basic needs.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Except insofar as scientific advances have allowed people to live better lives and therefore enjoy a freedom of self-determination including moral responsibility that was theretofore not possible.

Yes innovation is moral and helps humanity but the ratio of how much immorality vs. morality it opens up never gets better to me.

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@Holiday20310401,

Quote:

In what way is morality to 'gain ground'?

Through educating the poor.
That money could have been used (for example) to put internet dial-ups in every home (or in the worst cases, classroom). Of course we would need people to teach them how to use the devices as well. (And maintain them) The west is looking more and more top heavy every time I read the newspapers.

That monstrosity of a white elephant serves no great purpose. The courts are corrupt, yet there is no effort to fix them. From the ivory tower view point it all looks quite nice and rosy tinted. History is full of events where the 'barbarians' destroy the highest civilisation.

It doesn't take much to destroy something at all. Its a lot of hard work to take people out of endemic poverty. I'm not suggesting 'throw money at poverty' at all. That causes a population boom which has the opposite effect. I'm saying : 'Throw internet cafes which just charge a small token fee'.

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@Poseidon,

Holiday, I think you have your assumptions of morality all confused to begin with. Do you blame the Wright brothers for the flight over Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. Creativity has its down side in most if not all case scenarios, though you sit in your room on the net while some individuals using the same tool flaunt child pornograpy. Do hackers run through the www, finding corrupt individuals like those, that are out there or do they just go after fame of stricking the heart of he business world. You want people to find moral ground in science, then get them to avoid or disolve the immoral high ground of commercialism, that is on line , on the TV and in magazines.

People have no longer an understanding of hypocrasy or blasphemy.

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@urangutan,

I can't wait to hear frustration of not finding the gravitons. Laughing

To see what I mean, here's some useful info I found compacted into 3 short clips (well you'll need an hour to spare)
NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Watch the Program | PBS

Now is the hadron collider worth it? Large Hadron Collider nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com I mean, it uses up more energy during one simulation than it does to power Toronto in a day. And it has to be kept at a very low temperature, making it the largest cyrogenic facility in the world, or whatever its called. Not very environmentally friendly, and for the value of finding a couple particles... seems pointless.

But I believe there will be practical uses for the discoveries that the scientists are bound to make in the future with this. We harnessed the power of the electromagnetic force quite nicely with particle physics, and literally for use in making this collider. And the electroweak force was harnessed, requiring insights to the intermolecular world.

The whole purpose of this is to see if physicists are on the right track with their equations, because string theory has absolutely no evidence to support it, other than mathematical interpretations.

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