Science. Pfft. 

Editor:

The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the construction of the Large Hadron Collider ("God Particle or Goddamn Particle," Nov. 7) is that scientists are very persuasive people. European scientists have convinced their struggling taxpayers to spend billions of euros on this massive project which will yield results only these scientists can understand because they are expressed in a language these scientists made up.

U.S. citizens were not so easily persuaded that a super collider is a "must have," as our own half-finished collider now lies baking in the Texas sun. We are not completely immune to their powers of persuasion, as scientists have convinced us to spend billions to find out if there is water on Mars or if the moon is too dusty.

Scientists can persuade in any culture. They have convinced the people of India, who might have better things to with their money, that it is a good idea to send a spaceship to Mars in search of natural gas.

So if the Large Hadron Collider can teach us anything, it is that becoming a scientist is a good career option. You can persuade just about any country or prestigious educational institution to pay you handsomely while you are making up words like boson and quark and cranking out wildly imaginative theories about dark matter and strings.

As an additional bonus, you get to celebrate joyously in front of TV cameras when one of your million-dollar robots takes a picture.

GT Buckley, Eureka