What a laugh..
And to think, Humans thought we'd passed the dark ages where science was seen as heresy... Now, its not the church trying to stop science, nay, God himself is traversing time to impede scientific advancement...
I love what Bert quoted, and its so true, so many people dont want to see the LHC running... They fear it. As its been since the dawn of time, people fear what they dont understand. Yet clearly, these people do not fear the idea of eating, despite the fact they have no idea exactly how their body breaks food down, turns it to energy and consumes the energy that is created.
The LHC is not something to be feared.. Rather, something to be revered.. How is it bad for mankind to strive to understand the nature of our own existence, How everything came to be.. Its pure non-sense. Yes, the LHC could create a black hole... and that is not something to be afraid of... Its exciting. We're not talking a black hole of the magnitude of the ones we detect in space... we're talking about micro black holes.. teency weency little ones.. The LHC will re-define human understanding of the universe..
Hubble was no different... It was a machine built by humans to gain a better understanding of the universe. It took some time to get it operating exactly the way it was supposed to, and since then, we've learnt SO much about the universe.. The LHC will have teething problems as any large scale machine/experiment dedicated to understanding things humans can not yet fathom.. And when it is fully operational, and the bugs are ironed out, like hubble, it will teach us so much, and the doom sayers can be wrong once again...
If, by some ridiculous chance something goes catastrophically wrong, and we all get swallowed up by a black hole the size of a few atoms, I'll be the first to admit I was wrong, But I'll still say, Better to die having attempted to understand than live in ignorance.