This is a tale
of black holes, CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the Daily Express and a delicious
Pope Francis parody.
The Daily Express, the paper beloved by patriotic Englishmen, last week published a story under the headline:
 |
| Large Hadron Collider given power boost which could open up devastating BLACK HOLE |
This story has
been written by Sean Martin, who, according to his
Twitter profile, is a "science journalist".
There are so many problems with this story I am going to have to
break it down into a list. So in true clickbait fashion; number 3 will change your
mother-friggin life.
1) "The
large machine in Geneva
'Some success'
when they 'possibly discovered a new particle' in 'December'. All complete shit
from science hack Sean. In 2013 the Higgs Boson, a predicted particle, was to
all intents and purposes proven to exist after an early result in 2012 had
tentatively confirmed it. It was totally on the news and
everything and was not in December. To deal
with a side note; the collider is indeed set for a big year, with CERN hoping
to run at a higher beam intensity than ever before.
2) "However,
more power in the machine has left some fearing the worst, with theories of
black holes opening up, while others believe it could open a portal to another,
more sinister, dimension."
We come to the crux of the story, the lines behind the big shouty
headline; "BLACK HOLES". The idea that the collider could create a
world ending black hole is bollocks. Why on earth, off the back of a blog by CERN a week before, science
hack Sean felt the need to go over this old tale of shit and woe I have no idea. The
black hole thing has of course been around several times before and every time
it has been debunked.
In the next few paragraphs we learn that the 'theories of black holes' come from Twitter. Because news has somehow become just reporting publicly what some people said publicly.
In the next few paragraphs we learn that the 'theories of black holes' come from Twitter. Because news has somehow become just reporting publicly what some people said publicly.
In this case the tweets are not even new, happening several days ago. Sean does not bother to name the Twots. One seems to come from this guy (March 30) who is either a bot or just
joking. And the other simply states, "Could The Large Hadron Collider Make An Earth-Killing Black
Hole?" to which there
are hundreds of Tweets all with a link to an article whose first word after
that clickbait headline is "no".
I am aware there are actually some
fucking 'real' scientists, with PHDs and stuff, who will spout this shit about
blackholes, but Sean clearly can't be arsed to find them.
3) "Even Pope Francis previously
got in on the act, telling the masses at St Peter’s Square in May 2015: “My
fellow Christians, we are living in desperate times."
Yep, the motherfucking Pope. No Sean, the Pope did not 'get in on
the act'. And it gets much worse:
“Are these scientists about to unleash
upon us the Gates of Hell? Are these the days of darkness spoken of in the
Bible? Are the hordes of demons lurking in the fiery pits of Hell about to be
thrust upon the world?" - The Pope according to Sean the science
hack
No, no and no. So
did the Pope ever say this fire-and-brimstone bullshit? If not, where the hell
did it come from? A quick Google reveals the very same quotes can be found at World News Daily Report, a site which also holds stories
such as "Man claiming to be 'the real Prince Harry' found dead in Irish
hotel" and "Syrian Refugee Renounces Islam After Tasting Bacon for
First Time". It is a fake-news site... if you are not quite keeping up. Yes
Sean, a fucking site so full of made up shit it screams parody from the top of Mount Internet.
4) "Nonetheless,
CERN has moved to ease people’s fears, with its spokesman Arnaud Marsollier saying
that conspiracy theorists and followers of religion would “probably … be
disappointed” with the impact the experiment will have on humanity."
Seany-boy the
science guy ends with this parting gift. The contracted quote from Arnaud
appears to come from this admittedly very interesting Wall Street Journal article which
talks about debunking the bollocks the Express seems to like spouting. In full
it reads: "Probably, they would be disappointed".
It is the context
that makes the difference though - Arnaud is not actually referring to the
impact CERN's experiments will have on humanity (which I am sure many
would agree are not 'disappointing'). He is actually talking about the
physical buildings at the collider, which conspiracy theorists might find a bit
underwhelming - more USA-high-school than world-ending Death Star.
NB: Not an
exhaustive list of errors
Comment Watch
If you look
underneath the black hole story, you might be impressed at how quickly leaving
the EU was shoe-horned into it.
Kennybee: "There is only one black
hole which will swallow everything in its path.....The EUSSR"
Thanks Kennybee.