Why science resists change
💥There's a reason extraordinary ideas face extraordinary resistance.
with Ethan Siegel • May 30, 2026
Greetings readers,
The fact that we had Memorial Day this past Monday means we had a “short” week, with only four new stories for you. However, I wanted to make sure you got a full week’s worth of quality, so I worked extra hard to make sure that all of this week’s articles were extra nutritious as far as sating your mind’s appetite for new knowledge goes. First off, we had a story about CERN’s bold and daring plan — despite the lukewarm enthusiasm from governments that typically fund civilization-enhancing science endeavors — to build the largest, most powerful, and most precise particle accelerator-collider ever on Earth: the Future Circular Collider. With thousands of scientists planning it and building upon the infrastructure and brainpower already in place, it’s guaranteed to teach us more about the Higgs boson and the earliest moments in the Universe than any other machine ever built.
There’s a big narrative that “scientists are close-minded,” “succumb to groupthink,” and are “unnecessarily hostile to new ideas,” but it turns out that’s not true: They’re the right amount of hostile to new ideas, and that, to be honest, is how you separate something that merits consideration from something that doesn’t. If you have substantial expertise in a niche field, you’ll be able to relate! There’s a big mystery in our Universe as to how there came to be more matter than antimatter in the Universe, and the underappreciated phenomenon of CP-violation is at the core of this puzzle. After this week’s Ask Ethan, you just might appreciate it a little bit more. And finally, although we have yet to find our first surefire signatures of life originating beyond Earth, there are three entirely different ways we can look for it. I wonder, which method will pay off first?
As always, I’m so pleased that there’s a place for accurate, human-written, expert-level science news in your world, and I’ll keep doing my best to bring it to you. With new discoveries happening all over the world to choose from, I’m sure that next week, as well as the coming months and years, will give me many opportunities to bring you some truly great ones.
All the best,
Ethan
EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS
Yes, scientists can be hostile to new ideas. So should you
Many people, both laypersons and scientists, come up with wild, revolutionary ideas that would overturn much of what science currently accepts. But these ideas rarely gain traction and are often quickly dismissed by experts in the field. While this can seem hostile to new thinking, it’s actually a hallmark of science at its best: skeptical, scrupulous, and evidence-driven.
THE NEXT ATOM SMASHER
CERN to lead particle physics throughout the 21st century
The Large Hadron Collider continues to propel particle physics forward, not just through the discovery of the Higgs boson, but by testing the Standard Model’s limits to unprecedented precision. However, even once its data runs are complete, major questions will remain, especially about the heaviest, shortest-lived particles and their decay products. To probe nature further, a new collider will be required. In a landmark decision, the ambitious Future Circular Collider was chosen as the official plan, setting the stage for European dominance in 21st-century particle physics.
ASK ETHAN
Ask Ethan: Why does our Universe require CP-violation?
In order for the Universe to contain more normal matter than antimatter, several key ingredients are required, including CP-violation. But it isn’t intuitively obvious why CP-violation should create more matter than antimatter in the early Universe, or why the amount found in the Standard Model falls so far short of what our existence requires. Somewhere, there must be an additional source of CP-violation hiding in nature. Here’s how particle physics is searching for it.
If you have a burning question about the Universe,
email startswithabang@gmail.com!
LOOKING FOR LIFE
Science’s three big hopes for finding alien life
Throughout the history of science, we’ve searched for signs of life beyond Earth. Despite many false alarms,we still have only one known example of life in the Universe. But with more than 6500 exoplanets now discovered and major advances in understanding the history and origin of life on Earth, scientists are closer than ever. Today, three main paths are being explored in the search for extraterrestrial life. With a little luck, one of them may soon succeed.
Ethan Siegel, Ph.D., is an award-winning theoretical astrophysicist who's been writing Starts With a Bang since 2008. You can follow him on Twitter @StartsWithABang.
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About :" scientists can be hostile to new ideas."
I have a new idea that solve "Dark energy".
Look for "Decreasing Universe Theory" .
Is not a good and revolutionary theory?
i’m more concerned about Substack’s AI audio feature mispronouncing “satiated” and “niche” 🤷🏽