In 2008, Newsweek published a cover story entitled The Biggest Experiment Ever (the Large Hadron Collider). One of the contributors was Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. His article was entitled There Will Be Less Room For Religion.

Four years before the recent discovery of the Higgs particle, Prof. Weinberg wrote: “As science explains more and more, there is less and less need for religious explanations. Originally, in the history of human beings, everything was mysterious. As time has passed, we have explained more and more in a purely naturalistic way.

“The more we learn about the universe, the fewer signs we see of an intelligent designer. Isaac Newton thought that an explanation of how the sun shone would have to be made in terms of the action of God. Now we know that the sun shines because of the heat produced by the conversion of hydrogen into helium in its core.

“People who expect to find evidence of divine action in nature, in the origin of the universe or in the laws that govern matter, are probably going to be disappointed.”

Indeed, after the discovery of the Higgs particle, in The Biggest Experiment Ever, those who expected “to find evidence of divine action in the laws that govern matter” were deeply disappointed (although they would be reluctant to admit it)!