Letters: Boson has nothing to do with God

The July 17 letter from Chaplain Chris Roussell illustrates the total disconnect between science and the religious-minded. Chaplain Rousell seems to think that the search for the Higgs particle is part of some conspiracy to disprove the existence of God. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is not a single physicist on the planet that is worried about proving God’s existence or the lack thereof. There is no branch of science that focuses on why the universe was created, only how. “Why” — in the sense of the conscious creative force ­— is the business of theologians and philosophers.

Science, in general, is the study of observable physical phenomena through reproducible experimentation with the goal of discovering objective facts. Religion, on the other hand, revolves around faith, and faith is not subject to the microscope or chemical analysis.

The phrase “God Particle” was coined by the media to describe something very complex and hard to find. Every time I see a physicist being interviewed and that phrase is used, they noticeably wince. It is the Higgs boson — another member of the Standard Model of the sub-atomic world. British physicist Peter Higgs mathematically predicted its existence a long time ago, and it helps to explain the physical quality that all matter has that we refer to as mass.

It has no religious significance whatsoever.

Michael Hale

IT consultant

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by InPVille - 26/07/2012

@warreni: Nice twist on the credential fallacy form of the ad hominem argument.

2) Comment by chem - 26/07/2012

The instant someone equates evolution with the "creation" of life, it is immediately clear that the person knows little about biology/evolution or is simply a religious apologist. There is nothing wrong with not knowing about something, but the apologists refuse to ackowledge anything contrary to their own delusional dogma, despite overwhelming evidence in favor of science.

3) Comment by potkcalb - 26/07/2012

Phil your comment about "particles in the universe randomly uniting to form a human being" is abject nonsense--as is everything that Raylan wrote. I repeat if you want to believe in miracles that's legitimate but don't invoke pseudo science in support of the.

4) Comment by nimby? - 26/07/2012

by the way I thought trolls lived under bridges and ate goats ...

5) Comment by nimby? - 26/07/2012

fantasy becomes reality , perceived reality becomes a farce . facts are replaced with with facts , over and over . there is no answer to the question , so the journey continues , such is the Great Mystery ...

6) Comment by warreni - 26/07/2012

@InPVille: Despite the numerous and absurd non-sequiturs in this comments section, the article is specifically about whether the name is some reference to a deity and whether the intent of the physicists hunting this subatomic particle had any roots in proving or disproving the existence of such a deity. So if your comment really had nothing to do with the topic at hand, and you just felt like pointing out a minor inconsistency in the original letter, congratulations, you succeeded. But you're just being an internet troll.

7) Comment by phil - 26/07/2012

Raylan: I enjoyed reading your comment. I have read quite a few books on microbiology etc. Not only are the odds of the very small particles in the universe randomly uniting to form a human being impossible to calculate, the odds of the very large (the universe, planets etc) being created by chance are also impossible to calculate. I think some people call such odds a miracle.

8) Comment by nimby? - 26/07/2012

miracles happen everyday ...

9) Comment by potkcalb - 26/07/2012

Raylan repeats that old canard of the creationists that life could not have begun by "chance." As a biochemist the first two things that he should have learned about the Theory of Evolution is that (1) it explains how life changes (evolves), not how life began, and (2) that natural selection, the central explanation of how life evolves, is the antithesis of chance (dictionaries are available to understand the difference between "selection" and "chance"). "Intelligent design" is a belief, the same belief that prevailed before the Age of Enlightenment, that everything not understood must be attributable to a miracle. It is Raylan's prerogative if he wants to believe in miracles.

10) Comment by Raylan - 26/07/2012

@elderly man: I see you've bought into the media's portrayal of the Faithful as delusional fanatics! I am a biochemist by education. At one point in my early college life, I bought into the notion that there is no God. However, the more complex my biology and biochemistry courses became, the more convinced I became that life is far too complicated to have happened by chance. It takes more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in Intelligent Design! Humans (or any life) evolving from a primordial soup is a mathematical impossibility. To believe that we did is delusional! And by the way, you are a bigot for implying that all people of faith are fanatics.

11) Comment by chem - 25/07/2012

Not hubris. Just confidence in science.

12) Comment by InPVille - 25/07/2012

@chem: Yes. Honest errors. To err is human. To say "Science is correct. And soon science will be able to say "why." End of discussion." is hubris.

13) Comment by chem - 25/07/2012

Yes, I am familiar with scientific papers. I am a scientist. The number of articles that are retracted are miniscule compared to the total number published. And some are retracted because of honest errors. They are not all retracted because of fraud.

14) Comment by InPVille - 25/07/2012

@chem: "Science is correct. And soon science will be able to say "why." End of discussion. " -[**]- The history of science is one mistake after the other. This is why the scientific method requires being able to replicate results. Do you have any idea how many scientific papers are falsified in a few years? It would happen more often and sooner if there wasn't a bias against funding studies to replicate previous studies in favor of funding new research. -[**]- “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ” ― Max Planck

15) Comment by InPVille - 25/07/2012

@warreni: "@InPVille: You may be technically correct, but you're missing the point of the anecdote you yourself cite: the purpose of the author's use of that particular invective was to indicate (as Mr. Hale states, even if attributing the original use of the term to the media isn't strictly accurate) that it was a very elusive and frustrating object." -[**]- I am technically correct. I did not imply that it had anything to do with any god. You seem to have missed my point that Dr. Lederman's publisher is responsible for what has become a naming convention The "godda??" reference is an obvious reference(at least it was to me) to the difficulty and cost involved in trying to prove the existence of the particle predicted by Higgs. I just found it odd that the IT Professional had once again stated as a fact something he could so easily have researched and corrected. In my experience, working with computers tends to make people more careful than that.

16) Comment by chem - 25/07/2012

Religion has been, and is, wrong on everything. Science is correct. And soon science will be able to say "why." End of discussion.

17) Comment by potkcalb - 25/07/2012

Gentlemen we are slitting hairs debating the specific use or origin of the phrase "God Particle"(I admit to being guilty too).The salient thing about Mr. Hale's letter is that he has clearly and concisely described and delineated the domains of science and religion.

18) Comment by Being_Stupid - 25/07/2012

Misspelled Boston. It is is Boston, not Boson. And I have been to Boston, and their are many Irish Catholics that believe in God. Who says Boston has nothing to do with God?

19) Comment by warreni - 25/07/2012

@InPVille: You may be technically correct, but you're missing the point of the anecdote you yourself cite: the purpose of the author's use of that particular invective was to indicate (as Mr. Hale states, even if attributing the original use of the term to the media isn't strictly accurate) that it was a very elusive and frustrating object. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Judeo-Christian god or any other god.

20) Comment by potkcalb - 25/07/2012

Wrong about what Whatchange? What do you object to? Can you be specific? Everything that Mr. Hale stated is correct.Or are you one of those religious fundamentalists who is convinced that there is a dark cabal of scientists engaged in a conspiracy to undermine religion.

21) Comment by RationalOne - 25/07/2012

Excellent letter, Mr. Hale.

22) Comment by phil - 25/07/2012

Good point that science does not answer the question "why"? When science is all said and done we still have that big "why" question to get answered. I think maybe God can only answer that one.

23) Comment by Whatchange - 25/07/2012

As usual Mr. Hale is wrong.

24) Comment by DMJ - 25/07/2012

It's a good thing that forcing others to think the way they do never happens in relgion...

25) Comment by [e-mail] - 25/07/2012

A great letter; exactly right. Never the twain shall meet. The trouble is that some folks seem to be so intent on forcing others to think the way that they want them to think that things get a little cloudy.

26) Comment by nimby? - 25/07/2012

The Great Mystery will always be there ....

27) Comment by InPVille - 25/07/2012

@Michael Hale: "The phrase “God Particle” was coined by the media to describe something very complex and hard to find." -[**]- Mr. Hale research is lacking on this point. As can be quickly found from a number of different internet sources, the term comes from the book by Nobel Prize winning Physicist Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi's 1993 book "The God Particle, If The Universe Is The Answer, What Is The Question?" Doctor Lederman's wanted "The 'godda??' particle" in the title. But his publisher would not permit it. So one can say the term started out as a profanity but was cleaned up.

28) Comment by potkcalb - 25/07/2012

An excellent letter Mr. Hale. It is maddening that science is conflated with religion by those who are unable to understand the difference between science and religion.

29) Comment by Bighug - 25/07/2012

God forbade eating fruit from the tree of knowledge in Genesis, and religions have carried the tradition on to this day. God forbid that scientists increase our knowledge of the universe. Literally!

30) Comment by Elderly Man - 25/07/2012

The delusional nonsense of religious fanatics is not science.