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Stop The God Talk
By Bente Lilja Bye | September 14th 2008 06:42 AM | 5 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Bente Lilja Bye

Earth science expert and astrophysicist writes about Earth observation, geodesy, climate change, geohazards, water cycle and other science related topics.

I've worked as Research Director... Full Bio



War on Science



STOP calling it the God's particle, already. I suffocate in all this God damn religious propaganda these days and have developed a severe allergy against all "God Bless" and "Thank you God"s. Leave at least God out of the Lovely Hadron Collider. For Christ sake! Feel free to believe what ever you want, but leave it out of science. Jesus! May Allah be with you - and me. :-)

Oh yeah. I just watched the great but depressing BBC documentary The War on Science.

I think reading what physicists really want from LHC might cheer you up. It did me. :-)




Comments

Hank's picture
I certainly agree that calling it the 'God' particle, because no one knows what it is or what it does but it will maybe be a link to solving things that make no sense (today) is unfortunate, because journalists and the public latch onto it colloquially.

Physics isn't the only science that has to endure this sort of thing. Biologists have to suffer the same issue with 'junk DNA.'

Hank Campbell | 09/14/08 | 10:20 AM
It's even worse -- Leon Lederman allegedly called it the "God particle" in his book of the same title simply because he was told that books having the word "God" in the title sell more copies.

Anonymous (not verified) | 09/14/08 | 11:01 AM
Hank's picture
Well, no, it's because they didn't want to sell no books at all using Lederman's term. According to Higgs, Lederman "wanted to refer to it as that 'goddamn particle' and his editor wouldn't let him" - which contextually tells you a lot more about what it is or may be than what the public thinks by using the much more incorrect term 'God particle.'

So it wasn't because 'God' sells more books but rather because 'goddamn' would sell a lot less.

I think the theistic nomenclature hurt sales either way. It may make atheists happier, but they are never really happy, and it made religious people think there is a war on religion by scientists, which is never going to be a good thing since politicans determine much of the funding for science and there are a lot more religious people than scientists.

Hank Campbell | 09/14/08 | 11:10 AM
Stellare's picture
Using God instead of goddamn in order to sell more books! That is a good one. :-)

When we write scientific articles it isn't hard NOT to include neither God nor swearing words. It is not a natural part of the scientific language. When we want to sell ideas to the general public it is immediately more clever to use a language that most people identify with and recognize. I guess it'll always be a dilemma how much of the juicier expressions that most of us, more or less of course, use in our everyday lives. The word goddamn is, after all, a pretty normal word and I believe the general public don't even reflect on the link to religion.

It is my impression that we in Europe are less sensitive to these things than you are in America. I'm referring to the political link and funding possibilities.

Bente Lilja Bye is the author of Lilja - A bouquet of stories about the Earth

Bente Lilja Bye | 09/14/08 | 12:02 PM
Stellare's picture
It took several centuries before the Catholic Church officially accepted the heliocentric theory postulated by Galileo (1992). And it took another few years before they granted Galileo with an apology (2000).

This little summary of events brutally illustrates what a bad idea it is to mix science and religion.

I think one of the reasons we still are faced with these kind of issues today is that in the Western culture at least, it is considered almost a virtue to be ignorant of the exact sciences.

Scientists and science journalist should be very careful playing with the fire however tempting it might be. The carpet of ignorance is very fertile and receptive of speculative ideas such as the completely non-scientific intelligent design.

I suggest we leave God out of the equation all together.

Bente Lilja Bye is the author of Lilja - A bouquet of stories about the Earth

Bente Lilja Bye | 09/14/08 | 11:43 AM

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