Opinion: Atomic prose

Slate: Why can't science journalists just tell it like it is when it comes to particle physics?

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg once summed up his feeling about people who saw evidence of the divine in the laws of physics like so: "I don't know why they use words like 'designer' or 'God,' except perhaps as a form of protective coloration."

God was mostly off the table in recent weeks—except in His particle form—as the Large Hadron Collider revved up for a massive series of experiments in subatomic physics. But among science journalists, there was plenty of protective coloration of another variety. Much of the prose from the hundreds of stories heralding the event arced decidedly toward the purple.