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Comment by Greg2 on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? · 2008-09-20T22:49:22.000Z · LW · GW

Another thought. Suppose a functioning LHC does in fact produce world-destroying scenarios. Would we see: A) an LHC with mechanical failures? or B) an LHC where all collisions happen except world-destroying ones? If B, would the LHC be giving us biased experimental results?

Comment by Greg2 on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? · 2008-09-20T22:39:25.000Z · LW · GW

Perhaps the question could also be asked this way: How many times does the LHC have to inexplicably fail before we take it as scientific confirmation that world-destroying black holes and/or strange particles are indeed produced by LHC-level collisions? Would we treat such a scenario as a successful experimental result for the LHC?

Comment by Greg2 on Fake Reductionism · 2008-03-18T06:21:54.000Z · LW · GW

"The man should have investigated the rainbow scientifically and then feel wonder when he understood the physics behind it."

But surely a sense of wonder doesn't necessarily have to come from scientific understanding? But I'd agree that if a scientific understanding destroyed Keats's sense of wonder, then that was a bug in Keats, not a bug in scientific understanding.