This week's Times Week in Review section sports a lead article by an ex-physicist, James Glanz, whose thesis is that the failure of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is reminiscent of the giant abandoned pyramids of the Mayans: a symbol of our hubris in trying to understand too much.
Glanz doesn't use the word "hubris," with all the Greek mythological implications it entails, but substitutes the "your business model was bad" term "overreach." Nonetheless, his point is clear: we were trying to probe too far into the limits of the cosmos, and so naturally we were doomed for failure.
Well excuuuuuuse us for trying.
Glanz doesn't seem to have a problem with the experimental question itself: whether the Higgs boson (a) exists, and (b) underlies the concept of mass. (I'm no physicist, but I think finding out whether a particle is responsible for one of the most salient characteristics of our physical world is yeah, pretty important.) Instead his beef is that the electrical and magnetic problems with the LHC are a sign of our unwonted temerity in probing such questions.
I call serious bullshit. As the saying goes: If I knew what I were doing, it wouldn't be called an experiment. Yes, it's a vicious disappointment that there's no data out of the LHC yet, leaving hundreds of physics grad students with theory-only theses.
But if an experiment beset with unexpected problems is a sign that we are overreaching, then I guess I'm pretty much all washed up as a scientist, because most of my experiments are overrun with unexpected problems. I call myself a scientist because these problems don't make me don't throw up my hands and head for the bar (ok, sometimes) but instead cause me to find solutions, to troubleshoot, to analyze whether the problems are inherent to the experimental question or simply to the method in use.
Glanz's article reflects (embarrassingly, for an ex-scientist) the basic fear with which many Americans view science. If it doesn't work out right the first time, it's because we wanted too much! We tried to learn Something We Shouldn't Have. We angered the gods.
Just last night Dr Hyde and I were talking about our collective failure to teach the right lessons about science in school--that science is not so much a collection of facts as a form of rigorous critical thinking. I think Glanz's article is an extension of that problem: he equates a failure to obtain facts on schedule with a failure of science.
If more Americans understood that this idea was perniciously wrong, we might not be in the era of creationism - global warming denalism - disrespect for reality that we are. Thanks for helping, "Dr" Glanz.
15 years ago
14 comments:
If more Americans used critical thinking, we'd have to entirely remake schools as we know them.
Excellent commentary. In both Canada and the states we teach science (in high school and undergrad) as a collection of know facts, obtained from problem free experimentation. The hardest part of my MSc was the realization that there are not "right answers" or right way of doing something, it all trial and testing.
Yeesh. It's like he missed the "search" in "research".
Good point "he equates a failure to obtain facts on schedule with a failure of science."
Well written post. I saved it for future reference.
Good post.
Though, don't we (scientists) want laymen to ask questions about our work? I don't have an opinion on the LHC specifically, but shouldn't we encourage criticism of publicly funded science?
Yes, I also believe we should be encouraging questions/skepticism of evolution or climate change too. I have no dilusions of converting anyone, but why discourage that type of critical thinking (yes, I use the term loosely)?
Yes, I think it's fine to encourage laypeople to ask about, even criticize, a given scientific direction. The problem is the vocal groups not interested in hearing or thinking about the responses they get (eg creationists) end up ruining the discussion for everyone else. By the time the scientists have put up with nonsensical queries from people with preset agendas, it's well-nigh impossible to hear any similar questions as not agenda-driven, but simply curiosity-driven.
This is why, although obviously creationism/ID should not be taught in any capacity in school, I think that high school biology teachers should be prepared, even excited and happy, to talk about these questions as they come up--because though some kids may be unable to hear the answers due to conditioning from home, the rest will take their cues from whether the teacher gets all defensive and tries to shut down debate by saying, "That's absurd," or simply answers questions about what the gaps in the fossil record mean, or don't mean.
It seems like his premise is "If at first you don't succeed, give up."
Which is not so much useful in experimental science.
Outstanding post Dr.J.
Good post, and I agree... but I also think the attitude of "let's all do our thesis projects on X" is part of the problem in many cases.
Hundreds of graduate students are stuck now because they all jumped on the same bandwagon.
I don't really get that. Is there really no other frontier of research that needs work besides this thing?
I think there are probably (?) plenty of other things to do, so part of the problem is, as usual, the lack of creativity and lack of planning.
One of the biggest problems right now with the lack of progress in science is this logical flaw: we have too many PhDs working on the same things, and not enough PhDs working where we need them. Then we have jobs and nobody qualified to fill them, and lots of PhDs who can't get jobs.
Choosing/assigning thesis projects all dependent on one thing working is just one tiny step on the road to future unemployment and public distrust.
I'm not sure centralized oversight is the solution, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't help to organize our efforts a little better. I just don't understand who thought it was a good idea for everyone's house of cards to be built on this one thing working. Seems risky to the point of stupidity to set it up that way. The more practical plan would have been to say to these students "Look, you'll do a theoretical thesis, and if you're all really lucky and everything is working, you might get some actual data too, but don't count it."
Fantastic post. As a chemist, I have been astounded at how many people in my field can not critically think through an experiment. When speaking of lay people and science, the numbers explode exponentially.
Maybe it stems from the Garden of Eden. American know-nothings are frequently Christians who take the Bible literally. The forbidden fruit was knowledge (of good and evil), so from the "start" there are things we are not "supposed" to know.
Um. Isn't there a Little J due right around now? You haven't posted in a while, and I was just wondering...
Hmm. I had a very different take on Glanz's article, especially considering that the Mayans were not all about superstition and the gods, but were actually quite sophisticated scientific observers for their time. Xunantunich was a hugely ambitious undertaking that required a major investment of time and resources over generations by an entire culture - not dissimilar to the LHC, though Xunantunich was built over a far longer time scale. To the extent that Glanz is drawing parallels between them, I saw him comparing the overarching scientific ambitions of the two cultures, past and modern. He puts forth the suggestion that Xunantunich was abandoned because a lack of resources interfered with finishing the project - the culture's reach exceeded its grasp. And, I think, he is saying the same may be true for us with the LHC. Not that to desire to know the answers the LHC is posed to ask is a bad thing, or that that desire is hubris itself - but that acquiring that knowledge may simply be so costly (in terms of money, time, and cost to the culture of physics) that no present societal culture can reasonably afford to entertain the question.
I don't think that drawing the analogy and making that point is the same thing as being anti-science or distrusting science or putting forth some notion that the gods don't want us to probe too deeply into the dark mysteries of the cosmos. I don't think he's talking about the failure of science. I think he's talking about the difficulty of any culture to sustain hugely complex and costly scientific projects that threaten to drain an inordinate amount of resources from that culture. At some point, the people may ultimately conclude "it would be great to have this information, but we simply can't afford it. There is no more food." So to speak.
In a world of infinite resources, I'd love to know what the LHC could tell us. We don't live in that world, though, do we? Is it completely unreasonable to speculate, just a little, as to whether or not the LHC is in some sense our own modern Xunantunich?
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