Science News Review

24 Responses for "Accidental Intelligent Design"

1. Jack

   September 24th, 2008 at 8:53 am

   1

   LOL hilarious!

2. word

   September 24th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

   2

   Funny - I wonder what worlds we re going to accidentally bring into being …

3. dax

   September 24th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

   3

   …cute, but sadly, it’s a really bad comic because of the content.

   I get the joke, and yeah, it’s cute and a little funny, but it’s adding to this massive misunderstanding of what the LHC is going to do.

   Absolutely nothing can or will go wrong with the LHC. The scientists there have confirmed this time and time again, and they have motivated it with scientific data. Sadly, the media never seems to listen when there’s sensational apocalyptic news to be written.

   I read some woman actually killed herself because she was convinced the LHC was going to destroy the world. She KILLED HERSELF. If an imaginary threat can become so real and threatening to people that it will make them commit suicide, comics such as these should not be created so lightly.

4. Jake

   September 27th, 2008 at 3:26 am

   4

   If you’re going to take a guy’s work, at least give him a credit.

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/0a17217.html

5. Moses

   September 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

   5

   What’s a large hadron particle collider?

6. Colleen

   September 28th, 2008 at 9:55 pm

   6

   lmao, thats hiarious. X]

7. Aileen

   September 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm

   7

   Thanks for that link, Jake. Attribution added!

8. Aileen

   September 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

   8

   dax, killing yourself because you think the world is about to end is pretty silly, don’t you think? A specialist in human psychology might likely consider it a mere excuse someone uses to do what they intended to do all along. Sad, but hardly science’s fault, or the fault of the press that reports these sort of controversies.

9. moo

   September 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

   9

   Lol.. anybody like that deserevs to be put out of the reproductive system.

   darwinian evolution at its finest

10. n0s

    October 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 am

    10

    dax wrote: …”Absolutely nothing can or will go wrong with the LHC.”

    While i agree that the LHC isnt going to be the end of the world, that has to be one of the most arrogant statements i’ve ever seen.

    The fact is that nothing is certain in this reality of ours. Absolutely nothing. With no exceptions. Everything around us is at some level a matter of probability. Every time you move a part of your body, or an electrochemical impulse goes from one neuron to another, the outcome is not known until it is complete. Our reality is nothing more than a probability simulator, and that goes for EVERYTHING, every conceivable event or non-event in ou reality.

    There is actually a tiny grain of truth to the paranoia surrounding the LHC. It will actually create miniscule black holes, if the scientific theory is right.

    But that does not mean the world is ending. Nature is itself creating these “black holes” all around us all the time. Current physics models does not allow for these “holes” to exist for very long, they actually zoom out of existence faster than we have units of time to measure in. As a matter of fact, in quantum physics, these phenomena actually cease to exist even before they are created…

    But to say that absolutely nothing can or will go wrong with anything, is the best way possible to allow murphys law to fuck it all up for us. There is an inherent danger to absolutely every activity a human or group of humans take part of, and the same danger applies to every conceivable activity we choose NOT to take part of.. And when we are “playing” with the very building blocks of our physical reality, the attitude that “nothing can go wrong” is a definite recipe for disaster.

    Chaos theory tells us that absolutely nothing is for sure, not even the fact that nothing is for sure, is for sure…

11. G-Man

    October 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    11

    The comic is really funny.

    Many people have read and heard about this and did not kill themselves. This lady used this as an excuse, as Aileen said.

    People killed themselves when the years 1,000 and 2,000 came along for the same reason. We also hear that the world will end in the year 2012. Again, people will kill themselves over this. This is not a reason to hold back people’s right to speech and press.

    Now sit back and enjoy the comic. : )

12. reality

    October 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    12

    Dax.. I believe you are a pathetic liar who adds drama to your comments to invoke emotions in people. Hoping they will more likely take your view on things. Yea,, nice one. So many people do that now, especially online. You’d think they get a clue. Wait, no “you” wouldn’t”

13. proffffessssor of sssscienssssse

    October 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    13

    dax you moron… if someone kills themselves its because they are screwed up, not because of some stupid experiment…. and there is a percentage, however small, that it could DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!

14. tunguska

    October 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 am

    14

    I don’t know what it is Moses. Too bad there wasn’t a way for us to find this stuff out. All we have is this computer to send stuff to us against our will. I wish there was a way to use it to find stuff out.

    If your joking disregard all above.

15. Anonymous

    October 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am

    15

    Yeah Dax, it’s sad when people kill themselves over things like that (Except that story is false). People just seem to take things too seriously. Like comics for instance.
    I mean seriously. Besides, the picture is shooped anyways.

16. clint

    October 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    16

    First of all posting someone else’s work into your blog for stumble and digg hits without even bothering to write a half assed article to justify it is not cool.

    Second Dax, lighten up. How many kids have killed themselves over alcohol? By your logic can I not make fun of my friends when they get drunk? Can I not make fun of my co worker’s World of Warcraft obsessions? Someone tried to kill the President to impress Jodi Foster. Does this mean I should be outraged every time I see a parody of silence of the lambs? Where does it begin and where does it end? Why don’t you give me a list of things that are acceptable to make cartoons about

17. Guy

    October 8th, 2008 at 4:28 am

    17

    Moses, and anybody else that may not understand;

    The Large Hadron Particle Collider is a massive circular tube built under the borders of France and Switzerland. It’s either 17 miles long or 17 kilometers long. (Of course the Europeans would measure it in Km, but I read about it in an American magazine, so it was probably reported in miles. For the record, I wish we could dump this stupid system and get on the Systeme Internacionale with the rest of the world.) Anyways, in the LHC what they are going to do, is send tiny, tiny particles around the circle and bash them into each other at amazing speeds to see what happens. Now, these particles are smaller than electrons. If I read this correctly, these particles, Hadrons, though they are the large Hadrons, are the particles that make up Neutrons, Protons and Electrons, so they are TINY!!! But when they hit each other at 3×10^8 m/s we might be able to observe what happened 13.8 B years ago at the start of our universe, AKA the Big Bang.

18. Ryan G

    October 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    18

    Funny…cheers.

19. Aileen

    October 13th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

    19

    nOs said:
    “There is actually a tiny grain of truth to the paranoia surrounding the LHC. It will actually create miniscule black holes, if the scientific theory is right.

    Well, Hawking/Penrose developed the theory of black holes to begin with, and then Hawking theorized how they’d radiate away. Nifty how things work out to confirm such things, n’est ce pas?

    The participation of micro-holes in reality as-we-know-it could prove to be quite fascinating if they ever get their theoretical act together, and hopefully data from the LHC will allow them to do so. I personally just saw the cartoon on another site (unattributed), and just had to include it here because it had me laughing out loud all day long. This Moreu fellow is smack-on in his sense of humor!

20. Aileen

    October 13th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    20

    Thanks, G-Man, for the support. Psychology is not as ‘hard’ a science as physics - and definitely doesn’t command the kind of Big Bucks HEP does - but it is about human nature, after all. People who kill themselves will use whatever handy excuse is available at the time. CERN’s device is a dumb excuse, but people have chosen dumber ones, I’d guess.

    clint (love that name, it’s so… manly!) - I posted the cartoon because it was so darned funny. If it doesn’t strike you funny, you are hereby released from all obligation to see or read it. If it’s got stumbles and diggs, cool. I surely don’t mind. Why should you? §;o)

21. Dan

    October 21st, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    21

    1) if someone decides to kill themselves its probably for more than one reason.

    2) the machine was turned off before anyone even commented on the page.

    3) dax anything can go wrong with anything, there could be a faulty weld/faulty instruments/faulty joints (and i’m only pointing out human errors). The whole collider is trying to prove a theory… that theory could be wrong and have a different result.

    4) how many times should the world have ended so far according to predictions… as far as i’m concerned i’m still alive with the world.

    5) if you do think the world is going to end… go out and enjoy yourself, make the most of life.

22. Voice of Reason

    November 3rd, 2008 at 3:21 am

    22

    honestly, its a comic, enjoy it or don’t why take things so seriously?

23. Better Voice of Reason

    November 13th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    23

    Voice of Reason, it’s a political cartoon they’re meant to invoke discussion.
    Anyone who’s said that they’re is any chance that the LHC is going to destroy the universe, “however small”, you are a moron. The LHC is harmless, it can only provide good outcomes. There is no way that a collider can create miniature black holes that suck up the universe. Black holes are something you don’t need to fear. In order to make a black hole a super massive star has to supernova, in fact we are currently spinning around one in the center of our galaxy. They are sending tiny atoms and molecules through the LHC there just isn’t enough mass involved to create a black hole.

24. JDawkins

    November 27th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    24

    n0s wrote: “The fact is that nothing is certain in this reality of ours. Absolutely nothing. With no exceptions.”

    This is just as bad as the comment which you were criticizing. While you did display a fair knowledge of the LHC, you managed to completely contradict yourself.

    You say that nothing is certain… With absolute certainty. You cannot say that nothing is certain, it is like saying there are no absolutes in science.

    What, perhaps, you should have said is that generally we cannot be sure of much at all.