Anonymous Donor Saves Last U.S. Particle Physics Lab From Going Under

daily tech ^ | 6/2/2008 | Jason Mick

[jmc813]

Coyoteman has earned a reputation of denigrating Christians whenever he can. "Anti-science" is his codeword for "Christian" (i.e., those who trust in Christ and believe Scripture to be true).

I've never dealt with the dude, but he's managed to completely hijack this thread. When I saw the title, I figured that freepers would be thrilled at the prospect of private funding replacing government funding. That's kinda what this whole conservatism thing is about last time I checked. But, alas, it's turned into another gay FR religion fight.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I take issue with your graph.

It was well known to the writers at the time that science in the Roman Empire was in decline, along with the rest of the empire, by the mid-3rd century at least. This was a century and a half before Chritianity had any effect beyond bringing hope to slaves.

The source of your graph, nobeliefs.com, is an atheist site that doesn’t even recognize Lenin or Stalin as atheists. I would characterize this site as right up there with Wikipedia as an objective source.

It’s another group in the long tradition of utopians who believe that man is the ultimate source of all good with no need of God.

However, I agree with you that there is a well-established anti-science element on FR. I just don’t agree with your graph.

[jmc813]

However, I agree with you that there is a well-established anti-science element on FR. I just don’t agree with your graph.

You must not have gotten the memo. Critical thinking is not allowed on these threads. Only "people who believe in evolution are godless liberal heathens who will burn in hell" and "people who believe in religion are stupid and FR discriminates against poor little us" positions are allowed.

[PeterPrinciple]

due to the growing economic crisis and various items such as war funding taking precedence in government budgets,

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war funding was not the problem, it was all the social and political funding for global warming..............

[<1/1,000,000th%]

LOL!

I’m a mutation.

[Sam's Army]

"I've never dealt with the dude, but he's managed to completely hijack this thread."

It's also known as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

[PeterPrinciple]

The Dark Ages were called just that because CHristianity sought to destroy human knowledge

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I expect more from a conservative than the above. A conservative understands there is NO PERFECTY SYSTEM. Heck, even capitalism isn't perfect and I would not want to live under pure capitalism. There were many factors that brought about the dark ages. That was not a goal of Christianity.

[ctdonath2]

The graph seems to be missing a Y-axis scale.
As such, it is meaningless.

[Lurker]

The Dark Ages were called just that because CHristianity sought to destroy human knowledge if it in any way countered what the church wanted people to believe

What a load of crap....

L

[AndrewC]

You should be aware of the anti-science attitude here.

The "anti-science" attitude here is your mistaken interpretation of a questioning of "scientific" just-so stories. This is exemplified by your bogus chart. It is unfortunate that we do not adequately fund scientific endeavors such as the particle physics lab, but it is the attitude of many vocal "scientists" that foment the indifference displayed by the general populace. It is a stupid act to denigrate the beliefs of those whose support you seek.

[AndrewC]

The Dark Ages were called just that because CHristianity sought to destroy human knowledge if it in any way countered what the church wanted people to believe. The Renniasance and the Enlightenment changed all that. The Dark Ages, when everyone in the West was Christian and theocratic Church rule was absolute was a black hole of knowledge and literacy. It was a great leap backwards from the days of the Romans and Greeks.

You must have slept through all of your history classes(that is, if you took any).

[Coyoteman]

I just don’t agree with your graph.

I don't entirely agree with the graph either.

It seems to reflect the conclusions of the article more than any actual data.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I would be interested to see how they created the graph, but I couldn’t find it at the website in the time I had.

[AndrewC]

I would be interested to see how they created the graph,

That is easy to determine. They started out with an opinion, then they drew some lines to "support" their opinion. The producers of the chart for whatever reason chose lines that are patently unbelievable. The "scientific advancement"(whatever that means) fell by about 75% in ~30 years, then remained in absolute stasis for nearly 1000 years.

[El Gato]

But, come on when was the last time you went to the corner market looking for a Higgs Boson or a odd charmed quark? Not lately I'll wager.

No one was looking for RADAR then either, not specifically. Anyway, their work was really applied research, the basic stuff had been done decades and even centuries earlier. Maxwell's Equations, only one of which could be really attributed to Maxwell, were put together in the mid 1800s. They consist of Ampere's Law (early 1800s), Faraday's Law (1831) , Gauss'law (1835 published 30 years later) and that fourth equation. The probability theory that underlies radar signal processing was even older. The four men consisted of A Frenchman, two Englishman and a German.

[Kozak]

US Military Spending as a Percentage of Gdp



Entitlement spending

[doc30]

It is unfortunate that we do not adequately fund scientific endeavors such as the particle physics lab, but it is the attitude of many vocal "scientists" that foment the indifference displayed by the general populace. It is a stupid act to denigrate the beliefs of those whose support you seek.

Scientists do not seek the support of the minority of Americans who are anti-science luddites like you.

[Wonder Warthog]

"This should make the anti-science crowd here very happy."

I'm as pro science as it gets, but these days, there are better science games to play than particle physics. I'd rather see those dollars go into the space program (as inefficient as NASA is). SOMEDAY, we're going to need to head off some big piece of space junk--or face extinction.

If the Europeans want to waste their money on particle physics, fine.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The Dark Ages, when everyone in the West was Christian and theocratic Church rule was absolute was a black hole of knowledge and literacy"

Simply not true. Read up on the iron foundries of the monks in Britain (which were confiscated and destroyed by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I). Those monks were on the very verge of kicking off the "Iron Age" TWO CENTURIES before it eventually happened. Can you imagine were science and technology would be today, if Henry could have managed "to keep it in his pants".

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Hi AndrewC!

Long time, no see.