Lisa Randall and how science is on the defensive in America
I just heard a great presentation by American theoretical physicist Lisa Randall at DLD 2012 in Munich. It was a fantastic talk on the challenges that physics faces and how instruments like the Large Hadron Collider helps solve them. In this talk I learned more about the inner workings of the collider and what a feat of engineering it is. There is enough material on the internet that explains this so I won’t go into detail.
But during that talk I also learned that in USA projects similar to this supercollider have been abandoned and that in general it is very hard to fund large science projects in that country. It makes me sad to see science on the defensive, especially in the USA, home of the most Nobel prizes and discoveries in the world. At one of point in the presentation Lisa Randall compared science and religion and tried to explain without saying so, how science was superior. To me this was unnecessary, it was as if somebody felt that it was important to argue that medicine is superior to witchcraft. It was self evident. My view is that if religion does not need to explain why god exists nobody else needs to explain why it does not.
In Europe most people agree with me, most want science to advance and religion remains more a tradition than a belief. But in USA the competitor of science does seem to be religion, intelligent design vs evolution and debates like that are a good example where science competes head on with beliefs that do not lead to progress in society. But this is not the case in all the countries that compete with USA in science. From Japan to Russia to China to Europe religious beliefs either stand alone ore are on the decline and do not compete with science. America and the Muslim world stand at the other end of the spectrum. American presidents mention god, mention religion and religion is part of many American lives. This hurts science in a unique way and that is sad. In the ideal world those who practice religion would do just that, and let the world move on with science as the way for increasing our understanding of us and the world around us.
