Reply #21: Because they aren't really "experts"

[sudopod]

NG's fact checkers let everyone down on this one. It aggravates me that a publication as prestegious as National Geographic didn't do a simple google search to make sure the people they were interviewing were the least bit credible. The original article is here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080909-black-hole_2.html . I mean, "dark matter factory?" Srsly? They betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the terms they are throwing around. My guess is that this is at some sort of desperate cry for attention that the media picked up on account of its sensation value.

The two people mentioned in the article are:

Walter L. Wagner - http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guests/1515.html

A lawyer who claims to be a physicst, but whose only professional training is a physics minor to go along with his biology BS.

Luis Sancho is apparently a random internet kook. His website is here: http://www.unificationtheory.com/astrophysics/starandgalaxy.htm

The Bad Astronomer (Dr. Phil Plait) has a great synopsis of what went wrong here:

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:3frbsSFdHBEJ:blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/29/no-the-lhc-wont-destroy-the-earth/+http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/29/no-the-lhc-wont-destroy-the-earth/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Sorry for the long link, the blog entry seems to be returning a 500 error, but the article is still in the google cache.

I hope this has been helpful!