Re: Bravo
"Sometimes the cautionary principle needs to apply, not just charge ahead like lemmings over the cliff edge."
And sometimes it helps to look at the facts of the matter rather than tossing "begging the question" fallacies over the hedge and running for cover. You know, follow through with the questions you pose.
For example, before the LHC powered up someone asked, "Maybe the LHC will form black holes. What's the chance of us all dying?" The scientists didn't run like lemmings off a cliff and power up the LHC right away. No, they took the time to investigate, crunch the numbers, and answer the question**. And they answered many other questions of safety about the LHC: the effects of stray beams, high voltage, cryogenic materials, working underground, and so on.
**The answer was, "None, since Earth gets bombarded by higher energy cosmic rays every day and hasn't collapsed into a black hole after 4.5 billion years of that treatment."
But speaking of lemmings, Cavehomme2, are you aware you seem to be falling for your own logical fallacies? In your last post, you used an appeal to belief fallacy ("Some people believe the LHC might make a black hole, therefore we need to listen to them!") No, we don't need to listen to them because they believe it, we'd need to listen to them because they've raised a concern, and then you'd need to follow on to listen to the answer. In this latest post, you're dodging your own questions (the ignoratio elenchi fallacy) like I described above. You're not making a point just by posing questions - you need to pay attention to the answers, too.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
