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James Blodgett, who holds a Master's degree in statistics and leads the Mensa Special Interest Group, Global Risk Reduction, posted an entry on the blog "LHC Concerns" that fairly summarizes the state of the argument and sets forth his independent research into the safety issues. He says that in the planning stages (over 20 years ago), physicists had no reason to fear the creation of MBHs. In 1999, Walter Wagner (who filed the current lawsuit to halt the LHC) suggested that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider could create black holes. Brookhaven published a paper discussing the RHIC's safety, and today that publication is cited to support the LHC's safety.
However, since that time, string theorists have suggested that colliders can create black holes. Also, the Hawking radiation that is said to dissipate the black holes is unproven, and disputed by many. Blodgett goes on to say, "Part of the problem is that physicists are not risk analysts. They feel, correctly, that the theories that permit trouble are a small subset of all theories, so that trouble is not likely. As one physicist said to me, 'You do not understand probability. A probability of 0.001 means it is not going to happen.' Well, I have a master's degree in statistics. I do understand probability. What the physicist did not understand is that 0.001 times the value of Earth gives a tremendous negative expected value. We should NOT be taking chances like that."
Blodgett makes the analogy of an astronaut who faces risks with each shuttle launch. But, he says, "...a shuttle astronaut is a volunteer. A commercial airplane with a 0.001 risk would not be allowed to fly. A commercial airplane carries many passengers who did not volunteer for a risky mission. The Earth has 6.5 billion passengers, so we should hope for a risk to Earth that is less than that of a commercial airplane."
In areas of scientific risk, risk specialists use the precautionary principle, which reverses the burden of proof to the experimenters to show the safety of the experiment. According to Blodgett, however, many scientists are unaware of this principle and reluctant to use it even though the European Union has adopted it formally.
Finally, Blodgett says that estimates of the risks are subjective and widely variable. In 2004, he interviewed various physicists and asked for estimates of different components of collider risk. "As an example of the variability, estimates that Hawking radiation would fail ranged from 0% to 50%. The data are as follows: 0, 0, 1E-10, 0.001, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, 0.02, 0.02, 0.07, 0.1, 0.1, 0.3, 0.35, 0.5. This was at the time that CERN was relying on Hawking radiation, before we were aware of the papers questioning its theoretical background. I guess that estimates would be higher now."
Perhaps Blodgett, the plaintiffs in the Hawaii lawsuit and others are making a mountain of a molehill. However, much lies in the balance. The LHC has already been delayed once after a mishap. Why not wait until we can be more secure in knowing what will happen to the black holes that even CERN scientists admit will be created when the LHC beams are fully operational?
References
http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html www.lhcfacts.org
Elizabeth Kolbert, "Crash Course: Can a seventeen-mile-long collider unlock the universe?" New Yorker, May 14, 2007.
"The Potential for Danger in Particle Collider Experiments" published at www.risk-evaluation-forum.org
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Large_Hadron_Collider
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