[X] My Assistant

[JRehling]

Here's an interesting companion to the worries of back-contamination with MSR: The worries that a particle physics experiment will destroy the Earth:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200...20/1043826.aspx

While the particulars are very different, the legal/PR issues are likely to be similar, since the opponents are equally unable to craft a real estimate of any of this. It's more of a Reverse Pascal's Wager argument, in that the potential negative outcome is Negative Infinity (all life on Earth destroyed), so however tiny the risk, the argument goes, the expected outcome is negative.

This may also be compared to the anti-plutonium picketing we saw with Cassini, although to the rational mind the cases are extraordinarily different. No one ever expected Cassini to have the potential to eradicate ALL life (or even 0.1% of it), though the worrisome prospect had SOME non-almost-zero probability of occurring. (Launch failure, nonzero radiation leak.)

Another similarity between the hadron case and that of MSR is that the best counter-argument is that if it were apt to happen, it already would have, thanks to nature.