Good news, everyone! The antiscience cranks who filed an injunction to stop the Large Hadron Collider from being turned on have had their case dismissed. The ruling?
The United States Defendants move for dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or for summary judgment on other grounds. Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 14) is GRANTED.
In other words, amazingly enough, a U.S. District Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over a machine that is in Europe.
Let’s all give that one a big mental duh.
The other problem was that the two guys filing the suit were totally and grossly wrong. You might assume that their grasp of reality was tenuous anyway, since they were filing a suit without any jurisdiction. And you’d be right. But long after all their claims were shown to be wrong by scientists, they still clung tenaciously to them. That’s not the sign of critical thinking, that’s the sign of fanaticism.
I’m glad the judge made the right decision, even if it was only a technicality. Maybe the antiscience litigators will take this to Europe, and file suit there. I hate to think we’re sending our cranks to infect other places in the world, but I also can’t help thinking of saying one thing to our European colleagues:
You can keep ‘em. We have plenty more here.
