I have just been watching the grand switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider.For the uninitiated, this is a rather large particle accelerator situated 100m underground on the Swiss-French border. For the even less initiated - it's a physics thing.
Particle accelerators whizz microscopic streams of particles around and around a big loop getting faster and faster until they are going as fast as you can make them go and then force the two streams to collide. Why? Well, because when all that energy comes together, interesting things happen.
I must admit, it does sound a little like schoolboy physics - "Lets bash these things together really hard and see what happens" - but, then, that's what physics is all about anyway.
Anyway, the reason I'm posting this is because of the preoccupation of the media on the story that this accelerator is going to form a giant black hole and destroy the Earth. I don't mind opinions being voiced, but every time you hear them mention it they have to say about it destroying the World. Talk about journalistic integrity, it's more like the medieval chruch shouting "Heresy" whenever anyone came up with a slightly new idea.
Science is all about trying new things, pushing frontiers, doing things when you're not quite sure what the results will be. I find it worrying that those who preport to disseminate information throughout our society adopt such a negative attitude with little or no basis in fact when faced with something that cannot, or do not want to, understand.
Sensasionalism in journalism may sell more papers, but it also affects pubic opinion and even possibly the future direction of society and culture. Once again, the popular media show themselves ill-equipped to simply report the news - which, after all, is their function. Yes, we have ourselves to blame - for buying the papers with the sensational headlines - but the media also have a responsibility to report the truth and the facts, not some distorted or misrepresented version which better fits their idea of a good story.
Having said all that, I do have to say that the actual activation of the LHC was possibly the most disappointing media event. Ever.
2 comments:
I totally agree. It's scary how the media feed crap to the masses and they believe it. For instance I hear from friend that the “Credit Crunch” is to blame for the financial problems, they don’t see that the “Credit Crunch” is a symptom of the financial problems.
The cause is the education system that is developed to stop people thinking. Watch what will happen to Universalities with the Government wanting +50% people studying in higher education. This will have the effect of “dumb-ing down” the higher education system. As we have seen in years gone the first people to stand up and be counted are from the colleges and universities. The media, corporations and government all want you to be good little consumers.
My advise is next time you are reading a news paper or watch the news, ask yourself “what are they trying selling me”, “who will profit by me have an opinion inline with what they are trying to feed me”. And always remember the bigger the story you see look for other event as these can be much more important.
Wow, where did that come from? I was originally going to say this all started when they took the “Open University”, “Tomorrow World” and “The Krypton Factor” off the TV.
It's true that there are a very small number of companies / oragnisations which control a surprisingly large amount of the media we see/read on a day-to-day basis. Historical research always tells us to look for multiple sources of information and in some ways that is becoming more difficult in contemporary society.
There is, of course, the web, but we still haven't worked out how to pick the gems from the dross and how to filter through the massive amount of information/opinion/rubbish which it contains.
The lack of Tomorrow's World of TV must be a conspiracy. You don't even get old episodes on Dave, and that'll show any old trash.
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