Quote:
Originally Posted by Drunk Vegan
|
While you were on hiatus we already discussed that in the Wagner in Court thread:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Warren Platts
And once again, the case is dismissed on a technicality, and the actual scientific merits of the case are not heard in court.
At least the judge acknowledged that the scientific disagreements are legitimate:
"It is clear that Plaintiffs’ action reflects disagreement among scientists about the possible ramifications of the operation of the Large Hadron Collider. This extremely complex debate is of concern to more than just the physicists." (p. 25-26) |
In other words, the judge said that the lawsuit reflects disagreement among scientists about the possible ramifications of the operation of the LHC. She also said that the debate was extremely complex and that it was "of concern" to more than just physicists.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Phil Plait
The other problem was that the two guys filing the suit were totally and grossly wrong. You might assume that their grasp of reality was tenuous anyway, since they were filing a suit without any jurisdiction. And you’d be right. But long after all their claims were shown to be wrong by scientists, they still clung tenaciously to them. That’s not the sign of critical thinking, that’s the sign of fanaticism.
|
Quote:
|
Couldn't have said it better myself.
|
As the judge noted above, the lawsuit reflects disagreement among scientists. The actual arguments of scientists CERN or otherwise did not get a hearing in court.
And don't forget that Rossler's suit in the EU court of human rights is still very much alive. The fat lady hasn't sung quite yet.
Moreover, it's a mischaracterization to say that the doomsayer's "claims" are clung to tenaciously, if by "claims" we mean alternative, theoretical scenarios. It's not as if Wagner and Sancho and Rossler and Plaga have a rival, unorthodox, overarching theory in mind and that they believe quantum mechanics and relativity are all bunk. They instead point to the
uncertainty of the theories that supposedly guarantee the safety of the LHC. They point to the history of science: e.g., Kelvin's age of the Sun, how Project Shrimp was more powerful by a factor of 2.5, or how
everyone but crackpots used to believe that the universe was actually
decelerating. They point to retraction rates of scientific articles in scientific journals at rates from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 100.
The doomsayers wonder whether we are about to stumble into a perfect storm of wrong theory, a 100-year flood of misbegotten assumptions that will make Noah's flood look like a picnic.