A couple of weeks ago I blogged about why I’m a Liberal Personal Atheist and why it’s bizarre to pretend that someone can’t both be scientific and personally religious.
It was with this in mind that I enjoyed the following passage in the Guardian’s Notes & Theories science blog, written about the search for the Higgs Boson (the full article is here):
I groan at the name ‘God particle’ (so why use it?), but it is hard to ignore the loose parallels that occasionally exist with religious endeavour. Physicists, like believers, build impressive structures to help them find meaning in the world. Among Higgs hunters, there are the faithful who assume the particle is real, though most are surely agnostic. There are those who disbelieve too. When one researcher suggested – he claims unintentionally – that the Higgs boson might not exist, he drew angry fire from a good number of fellow workers.
arbitrary constant 