God particle discovery is a win for science over superstition

by Rick Wingrove

A lot of people don’t know that many of the great discoveries in particle physics are largely exercises in statistical analysis. Flipping a coin a dozen times will provide a very limited understanding of probability. A run of a million tosses will sharply define the limits of probability. Getting seven heads in ten tosses is not especially noteworthy. Getting seven hundred thousand heads out of a million tosses would reveal something real at work on the coin.

So it goes in particle physics. Small things need lots of samples to paint a complete picture. Instead of flipping coins in the air, the physicists working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, use two beams of protons traveling in a vacuum at 99.9999% of the speed of light around a 17-mile-long magnetic ring. The two beams are traveling in opposite directions and are magnetically maneuvered to collide within a detector the size of a house. Each experimental run produces hundreds of quadrillions of collisions. Those collisions are individual data points that, cumulatively show the presence of… something, right where the Higgs boson, and nothing else, ought to be. To paraphrase Joe Biden, it’s really kind of a big deal.

The 40-year-long search for the Higgs boson is a fascinating and inspiring story of really smart people doing really smart things. The technology manifest in the Large Hadron Collider is dazzling in scale, complexity and vision. It is the largest most complex machine ever devised by humans, and is being used to slowly, meticulously peel back the layers to get a glimpse of the of the inner workings of the Universe. The very asking of the question, what causes stuff to have mass, has more profound implications for understanding reality than when Isaac Newton first noticed that gravity was a thing. The discovery of the Higgs boson has already shown us something about the universe – something deep and fundamental – that we did not know a week ago. And it’s only running at half power. As a species, we are all richer for the discovery of the Higgs boson in ways that may take decades, or centuries, to understand.

Those with less propensity for fascination want to know what are the practical applications for such a discovery? Ask a person in 1957 what the laser could be used for. I hope it means that anti-gravity belts will be available by my next birthday.

But there is another aspect of this discovery that has other, equally profound implications. This discovery is not merely the validation of an important theory about the fabric of the universe. In a very big way, the discovery of the Higgs boson further anchors us to a material universe that works on principles and parameters dictated by the very nature of its component parts.

The discovery is yet another demonstration of Scientific methodology as the scrupulous process by which humankind acquires and authenticates all knowledge. The importance of this becomes more obvious when contrasted against the current resurgence of rabid religionism, especially the unabashed and exuberant anti-intellectualism of those who assert that they hold special knowledge, supplied by talkative deities, and who strive to supplant Science with bronze age origin fables.

The illiterate sheepherders of the Middle East, upon whose wisdom many people base their worldview, were wrong about the size, shape, structure, location, formation, behavior, age, and relative importance of the Earth. They were wrong about astronomy, biology, chemistry, cosmology, history, geography, geology, medicine, zoology, the treatment of women and personal grooming. And pretty much everything else. In the absence of science, they operated on superstition. It’s not that they didn’t know the right answers, they didn’t even know the questions. Rather than real knowledge, they produced urban legends and destructive cultural behaviors that plague mankind to this day. The ancient religions possess no methodology for the validation of knowledge, but are quite good at the denial and destruction of knowledge. You can look it up on their Web sites.

The discovery of the Higgs boson is new high ground in that struggle and pushes our understanding of the universe out to a new horizon. Higgs is a big win for science and for the smart people who know more than just answers, they know the right questions to ask.

The Atheists are coming! The Atheists are coming!

On Saturday, March 24, 2012, the National Mall in Washington will be host to the largest gathering of atheists in history. Dubbed Reason Rally, it will be attended by thousands of atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and non-believers of every stripe. It’s being called Secular Woodstock. Music will be provided by Bad Religion.

But, the rally will be more than a soggy mosh for the religiously unpersuaded. Reason Rally will show that all the cool people are atheists now and that the days of consent by silence are over. It’s an appeal to millions of hidden atheists to come out of their closets and join the fun.

Not to overstate the case, but Reason Rally has been 2000 years in the making. For most of the last twenty centuries, atheism was highly lethal. There were always plenty of non-believers, but Darwinism actively selected against the outspoken. Religious dissent was brutally discouraged and driven underground. The scope of non-belief is only now becoming apparent.

A large public gathering of atheists is a relatively new thing in the world, enabled by two pivotal events in Human history: the U.S. Constitution and the invention of the internet. The Constitution guarantees that the rights of the irreligious are exactly equal to the rights of the aggressively pious. The internet had Christians and Atheists arguing over evolution in ALL CAPS by the end of the first day

The Constitution gave us the rights but the Internet gave us the voice. After two milennia, atheists had a way to find each other and to demonstrate that we are not the hell-bound, baby-eating monsters that the preachers warned you about. It turns out that we are everywhere and we are here to stay. We are your friends, family, neighbors, plumbers, politicians, and your IT guy. We are patriotic Americans who love our country and do not, as is often suggested, have to move to Russia.

Instead, we are just going to have a big party on the National Mall.

To put it in perspective, the rally is not likely to rival the sea of people at Obama’s inauguration. But, it’s not the numbers that make Reason Rally kinduva BFD. It is the spectacle of thousands of deity-free Americans, on the Mall, carrying smart, funny signs and listening to the notorious evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, explain why reality is important.

Over 75 million Americans are not Christians. Over fifty million of those have no religious affiliation and profess little or no belief in a supreme deity. These are the “Nones” and their numbers have doubled since 1991. The few thousand godless Americans you will see on the Mall are just the tip of a large iceberg – with a Darwin fish on the side.

Reason Rally will give a heads up to those who have been reluctant to recognize the mushrooming numbers and the growing political presence of secular Americans. There are millions of us, with legitimate concerns about government endorsement of religiosity. Like women and contraception, we deserve a seat at the table when a bunch of angry white christian men are deciding our fate.

Reason Rally is happening because it’s time for Secular Americans to be seen and heard, to defend science, and separation of church and state. We’ll be on the Mall because it’s time to push back against the creeping theocratization of America.