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Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

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Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#421

Post by alach11 »

moonchrome wrote: post #203
musha68k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is so rich it can easily afford all of the great project ideas outlined in the article in addition to a new LHC (and then some). Let's think big indeed, the author unfortunately has a very reductive vision for the future. Instead how about: A renaissance of funding - BIG SCIENCE - education, jobs. That was basically the promise of the EU - peace through wealth - let's create some more. Let's bring back the exc…

Money is just one small aspect of it - getting into that kind of research probably requires >2σ IQ, then there's the affinity and motivation - you are left with a small pool of people who can do this work. By funding toy projects and pipe dreams you are crowding out useful research - and there's plenty of fundamental work in material sciences, superconductivity, etc. that could actually improve the lives of everyone

It sounds like you're worried that creating high-paying fundamental science jobs would pull smart people away from engineering. But it would be more likely to pull smart people from zero-sum (or at least low-sum) fields like advertising and finance.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#422

Post by matthewdgreen »

dylan604 wrote: post #403
notriddle wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "information is a measure of surprise", then you don't want every prediction to be wrong. You want every prediction to have a 50% chance of being wrong. Half of your experiments should be failures.

I don't understand this logic at all. At those odds, you're just guessing like flipping a coin. An inferred prediction should have a higher success rate. We look at the data we do know, we see what holes are there, and then make predictions based on all of our previous knowledge. The fact that the previous knowledge allows us to make more accurate predictions shows we have a better understanding of the subject than j…

The most apt phrase here is “building castles in the air.”

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#423

Post by stevenhuang »

dekhn wrote: post #250
dgb23 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a passive aggressive ad hominem without any substance whatsoever. These people are not some obscenely rich opportunists in power. They are working scientists, who draw public interest because they say interesting things and they are part of a larger discourse. Now Hossenfelder isn’t known for her fingerspitzengefühl when it comes to criticizing others, but I have yet to find an instance where she doesn’t treat…

I don't think her analysis of LIGO made any sense at all.

Elaborate?

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#424

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

This is why we can't get anything done. Everyone has a million other ideas on where this $100B should go and they would all be right.

That shouldn't ever be the argument because you can argue about the exact peice of fecundity that the dollar value can have until you are blue in the face on X, Y, Z projects.

When it comes to government spending, my reactions seems to be the opposite of most. I actually think that these big audacious projects is the only use for government. Fund big things that individually and within the private market would never be a thing. Do Hubble, Do LHC++, do scientific exploration missions because that is what makes you proud to be part of what is going on around you. That sense of inspiration in the air of progress is all that is required for a functioning society.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#425

Post by Georgelemental »

esarbe wrote: post #350
Alenycus wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loads of people disagree with you and believe it is murder and can quote science to back up their argument. You also don't have any definition with a clear line when this switch from non human to human happens. It almost always boils down to "when it's convenient for me"

> Loads of people [...] Quotation needed. Outside of religious circles there's very little debate about this. Scientific consensus is that fetal viability is considered to begin at 23 or 24 weeks gestational age. That's long after the embryo stage. Just to make communication easier; are you aware that there's a difference between embryo and fetus? > You also don't have any definition with a clear line when this switc…

Many (including myself) consider abortion to be murder even before fetal viability.

> Outside of religious circles there's very little debate about this

Do you live in the US or Canada? Almost every other country, including almost all of highly secular Western Europe, bans abortion before at no later than 17 weeks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law).

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#427

Post by dekhn »

stevenhuang wrote: post #423
dekhn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think her analysis of LIGO made any sense at all.

Elaborate?

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/whats-up-with-ligo....

Her claim is that there isn't enough secondary validation to truly conclude they detected gravity waves. the community disagrees and is building more detectors. The creators of the project were awarded Nobel prizes. At best, she raises some interesting questions but the narrative that the data isn't sufficient really doesn't work.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#428

Post by timeon »

telotortium wrote: post #267
martin_a wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about embryos here. I think you're well aware about the ongoing discussions on when those are to be considered humans and when not. That's not an easy topic, obviously, but I'm fairly confident that we won't throw babys in the garbage can if we don't like them but try to make those decisions as early as possible.

> I'm fairly confident that we won't throw babys in the garbage can if we don't like them Why not? What exactly is the limiting criterion? Sentience is the main criterion that people who want to argue for animal rights and yet support abortion use, and it's a pretty squishy criterion. Already Peter Singer supports veganism and effective altruism (i.e., rebranded utilitarianism), and yet is perfectly okay with both ab…

Pro-life people are vegans now? It is good that they are consistent.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#429

Post by webnrrd2k »

Beldin wrote: post #419
pessimizer wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of this subthread is that failing to fund another collider does not mean that those 1000 experiments will be funded. The person you're replying to is saying that even if money not thrown at a collider doesn't end up going to 1000 physics experiments, it will go to something. If that something is net-useful, it will be better than a new collider whose usefulness is questionable.

Physics is (or should be) regarded enviably by other disciplines. They keep managing to get these crazily expensive multinational projects funded: LHC, ITER, various space telescopes... multi-billion projects. I honestly cannot recall an official scientific experiment or tool in another discipline funded for even only 100 million. Just imagine that level of funding for your favourite discipline. The direct scientific…

California funded stem cell research with Proposition 71 at 3 billion, and the follow-up funding for Proposition 14 at an additional 5.5 billion.

This might not count as it's not a single 'official scientific experiment or tool', but I think that biosci is clearly getting heavily funded.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#430

Post by sanxiyn »

Beldin wrote: post #419
pessimizer wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of this subthread is that failing to fund another collider does not mean that those 1000 experiments will be funded. The person you're replying to is saying that even if money not thrown at a collider doesn't end up going to 1000 physics experiments, it will go to something. If that something is net-useful, it will be better than a new collider whose usefulness is questionable.

Physics is (or should be) regarded enviably by other disciplines. They keep managing to get these crazily expensive multinational projects funded: LHC, ITER, various space telescopes... multi-billion projects. I honestly cannot recall an official scientific experiment or tool in another discipline funded for even only 100 million. Just imagine that level of funding for your favourite discipline. The direct scientific…

Human Genome Project was $3B. It is especially salient because in a sense it was in competition with Superconducting Super Collider, which it won.

Big Science and Big Politics in the United States: Reflections on the Death of the SSC and the Life of the Human Genome Project (1997) is a classic in history of science analyzing this competition.

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