Sometime today (Wednesday, Australian time) scientists will turn on the biggest atom smasher ever built. For those unschooled in the wonderful world of physics, atom smashers are very big rings (this new one is 27 km round) that are designed to throw very, very small pieces of stuff (so small, in fact, that you can’t see them) into each other at close to the speed of light. According to all reports, the results are pretty amazing. (So amazing, in fact, that at least one group of people are worried that the new particle smasher in Switzerland will actually end up destroying the world). It’s almost possible to hear the scientists salivating from my desk.
According to the report in The Sydney Morning Herald, “The impacts could produce man-made mini black holes, reveal that the universe has extra dimensions that are normally curled up, and throw light on the nature of the mysterious dark matter which makes up most of the cosmos”. The possibilities are breathtaking.
In the midst of the excitement, one of the things that they will be using the machine to search for is a subatomic particle, dubbed the ‘God particle’. Apparently it’s the thing that gives us mass (not the Mass, as in priestly mumbo jumbo that falsely claims to bring us access to Jesus, but mass as in weight, substance, and the ability of football players to maim one another when they collide). When you stop and think about it, it really is quite astounding. I am reminded (albeit briefly) of the wondrous fact that humanity has been installed as the rulers over all creation à la Psalm 8.
But no sooner have I paused to admire the ingenuity of humanity than I am struck by the hubris of it all. Indeed, it might as well be the particle that brings us the Mass because the scientists are asking us to believe that, yet again, they are the ‘priests’ of the new millenium. Take the language that is used: why, you must ask, is it called the ‘God particle’? I guess you could lend them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they mean a very special particle that God made. (They just missed out the possessive apostrophe and the ‘s’!) But somehow I don’t think so. No, it is actually part of the ongoing claim by much of the scientific community that they are the ones who are equipped to tell us about what ‘is’. Of course, once you discover what ‘is’, you become the one equipped to explain what ‘should be’!
In the article in the Herald, Kevin Varvell, a physicist at Sydney University, is quoted as saying, “At last we can test some of our ideas about what we are made of. It will help answer some big and deep questions”. Now I don’t know anything about Dr Varvell, and I am not sure exactly what he went on to say the big questions are, but the language itself tells the story. It is only now, ‘at last’, that we will be able to know about what we are really made of. And the logical conclusion is that knowing what we are made of will allow us to answer some “big and deep questions”. The claim is actually twofold: it is the claim that they know what the big questions really are, and the claim that they have the knowledge to answer them. It is the claim of the new Atheism of Richard Dawkins and his pals: all the religions of the world have led us up the garden path and destroyed the world. Let us tell you what the world is really like, and what right and wrong ought to be.
It strikes me as somewhat ironic that people with such big brains feel like they have actually made sense of human existence by working out what we are made of. Will understanding the particles at the basis of matter allow us to better grapple with the real questions of human existence, like what it means to live lovingly and justly with our neighbours? Can we actually ever move from an understanding of ‘what is’ to an understanding of ‘what ought to be’?
Oh, how much do we human beings want to find God in a particle! If only we could find God in a particle, we would actually become God; we could define the questions and then find our own answers! And what great answers they could be:
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. (Richard Dawkins, source.)
Isn’t it wonderful to be able to make ourselves God, and reduce ourselves to meaningless matter in the same breath? How much do we need to be freed from the sin of Adam? How much do we need to acknowledge that the rejection of God is the rejection of our humanity? May Jesus save us from ourselves.
It is indeed amazing how God gave us creativity and ingenuity. And it is indeed unfortunate how we have often used that ingeuity to rebel against Him. I appreciate your article and have written a brief theological statement about this experiment myself at http://paulandtimothy.wordpress.com . Thank you for being faithful to comment on current world happenings from a Biblical Worldview.
Is it all hubris? I suspect a touch of Christian over-sensitivity, Paul!
This from last night on TV (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2360024.htm). An interview theoretical physicist Paul Davies.
“TONY JONES: Well, this brings us to the so-called God particle, which is a great sounding name because you assume it’s somehow theological, that it’s to do with creation and possibly even the creator, depending on how you look at it. But in fact, there’s a far more prosaic reason it’s called the God particle, isn’t that so?
PAUL DAVIES: The story I heard was it was that it used to be referred to as “that God damn particle”, because it was predicted by a man called Peter Hicks from Edinburgh University in I think the mid-1960s as a sort of hypothetical entity, and it’s been used as part of the so-called standard model of particle physics, our best understanding of sub-atomical particles at this time. Yet nobody has seen this particle, and so, it’s a sort of illusive thing that people have been searching for for years and years: “Where is that God damned particle!” But it did become known as the God particle after a famous book that was written with that title by Leon Letterman”
Hi Chris, your point is fairly taken and I repent of not checking the facts carefully enough. Although I think that the point of the article still stands. While the ‘God particle’ is not an example of scientific hubris, I do believe that the main quote about finding out what we are made of leading us answering some big questions describes where the scientific endeavor is at. I retract my comment about the ‘God particle’ but humbly suggest that the main point of the article stands. Am happy to hear your comments.
Ooops, sorry about that – Chris’ comment isn’t up yet. I am still learning to drive this thing. When Chris’ comment is posted then you will all know what I am talking about. Until then, the mystery deepens!
On Richard Dawkins comment – at least he seems honest in this regard – there is no purpose, good or evil etc with out God.
I think some people have gone mad when they have really seriously contemplated this, and tried to apply it.
Only people try to ignore this or think that there can still be some sort of good, or purpose you can create. Or people take “‘what is’ to an understanding of ‘what ought to be’” – maybe “this is what I feel like doing so I should do it”.
Hi again Paul
Sorry to have had a go! I guess I’m more reacting to how we Christians speak of science. It’s most commonly a mirror of the view outside churches – that science & the Bible are irreconcilable enemies. And it’s most commonly biology/Darwin rather than physics.
I’ve heard scientists speaking of the atom smasher with humility & of its limitations. But if we were to listen to 100 sermons that mention this machine, how many would go for hubris? I’d suggest the vast majority.
(The hubris I really don’t like is when sports-people behave as if hand-eye coordination makes them better humans! Don’t let me start …)
Cheers,
Little Chris
Hi Chris, no problems at all. It was a fair enough go, I deserved it. I realized in hind sight that it was a function of reading the article in the Herald, which I think was using the language ‘theologically’ even if that wasn’t how it originated. I agree that we often have too much of a knee jerk reaction to ‘scientific’ things. But I do think that there is a brand of ‘scientism’ that is making claims about the meaning of life and it does affect the language of scientific reporting.
Thanks for taking the time to write again.
I just thought the whole thing was rather ironic – in trying to find out how the world came about there was the potential to bring about the end of the world, thus placing us in front of the Creator, where we could just ask Him!