I was struck today by New York Times' reporter Dennis Overbye's use of metaphor to report scientists' pursuit on other planets for the origin of life on Earth. His piece evokes Eden as a metaphor for the hot primordial gunk where the first particles meshed to create living organisms. The metaphor instantly calls to mind the dawn of existence, a bountiful variety that subsequently sprung from its many mutations and a specific location outside of the Earth we know today.
In fact, most of our scientific understanding is neatly described through common or allegorical metaphors.
Metaphor is a cognitive coping mechanism that helps us contemplate and understand phenomena that we can't see. Taken too literally, scientific metaphors can prevent us from truly observing all of the important details or attributes of a phenomenon and prevent further scientific discovery. What metaphors do you rely on to talk about science?
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Metaphor: Is there any other way to talk science?
Monday, January 26, 2009
Can we get a little objectivity, please?
Is economic analysis driven by science or by ideology? That seems to be a hot topic this week.
In the New York Times today, Paul Krugman claims that many anti-stimulus arguments are not made in "good faith":
How pervasive is the issue of bias within economics? Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has some evidence on the subject. Looking at the Wall Street Journal's monthly economic forecasting survey, Silver produces the following chart of growth forcasts by economists in different sectors, including finance, consulting and academia:
It's a small sample (55 economists), but it illustrates the point. The most optimistic growth forecasts come from economists in the financial sector, who perhaps have institutional incentives pushing them toward optimism, while the most pessimistic forecasts come from academia. Typical liberal academics, some might say!
This is not entirely new. In 2006, David Lereah, former Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, wrote "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Go Bust - And How You Can Profit From It". This was hardly an unbiased work. An economist representing the interests of realtors has a strong incentive to promote the real estate industry. Of course, less then a year after the book was published, the market started to go south and... well, you know the rest.
It's entirely likely that ideology clouds the minds of even the best economists. But is it just economists who suffer from a lack of objectivity? A recent survey of scientists' views on global warming suggests not:
That being said, it's wise to listen to more than one expert and more than one perspective.
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*It should be noted that Martin Feldstein, a prominent center-right economist at Harvard, has come out in favor of fiscal stimulus.
In the New York Times today, Paul Krugman claims that many anti-stimulus arguments are not made in "good faith":
"Some of these arguments are obvious cheap shots. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already made headlines with one such shot: looking at an $825 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure, sustain essential services and more, he derided a minor provision that would expand Medicaid family-planning services — and called it a plan to 'spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives.'"On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, Russ Roberts argues that economists' positions on the stimulus have less to do with their reading of the empirical data than their feelings about markets in general:
"As far as I know, no prominent market-oriented economist has come out in favor of a trillion dollar increase in government spending as a way to improve the economy. Every market-skeptical economist that I have heard is in favor of it on the grounds that it will improve the economy. Each side claims to have empirical support for its position."*Additionally, the focus of this week's episode of EconTalk, Robert's weekly economics podcast, is the role of empirical evidence in economics.
How pervasive is the issue of bias within economics? Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has some evidence on the subject. Looking at the Wall Street Journal's monthly economic forecasting survey, Silver produces the following chart of growth forcasts by economists in different sectors, including finance, consulting and academia:
It's a small sample (55 economists), but it illustrates the point. The most optimistic growth forecasts come from economists in the financial sector, who perhaps have institutional incentives pushing them toward optimism, while the most pessimistic forecasts come from academia. Typical liberal academics, some might say!
This is not entirely new. In 2006, David Lereah, former Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, wrote "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Go Bust - And How You Can Profit From It". This was hardly an unbiased work. An economist representing the interests of realtors has a strong incentive to promote the real estate industry. Of course, less then a year after the book was published, the market started to go south and... well, you know the rest.
It's entirely likely that ideology clouds the minds of even the best economists. But is it just economists who suffer from a lack of objectivity? A recent survey of scientists' views on global warming suggests not:
"In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement." (emphasis added)Scientists and economists are people too. People are affected by biases in subtle and unconscious ways. This, however, does not mean that there is no objectivity out there. The peer review process, for example, is designed for just this purpose: to reanalyze and replicate results and to ferret out unsubstantiated claims. As long as everyone gets to look at the same data, we should be able to find some areas of common understanding.
That being said, it's wise to listen to more than one expert and more than one perspective.
____________________________________________________________
*It should be noted that Martin Feldstein, a prominent center-right economist at Harvard, has come out in favor of fiscal stimulus.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Turning a blind eye to science
Andrew Revkin writes about the decline in science coverage by major news outlets:
We cannot forget that science is more than simply a collection of facts and figures. Science is a framework for understanding our world, for expanding knowledge and understanding. Science is what allows us to move forward. As Olivia Judson notes, science also provides a level-playing field for sharing ideas:
"Newspaper coverage of science outside of health and wellness is steadily eroding. Even here at The Times, where the Science Times section celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2003 and management has always supported strong science coverage, we (like everyone in print media) are doing ever more with less. At CNN, among those leaving will be Peter Dykstra, a seasoned producer focused on science and the environment, and Miles O’Brien, a longtime CNN reporter and former morning news anchor, who I got to know when he turned to climate coverage in a big way several years ago. (See his spicy interview with Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who challenges dire climate projections.)"This is an important time for science in America. More and more we are facing an ideological struggle over the role of science and rationalism in society. In this clip from the "Big Think", Princeton geneticist Bonnie Bassler laments the fact that our culture has become weary, or even fearful of science:
We cannot forget that science is more than simply a collection of facts and figures. Science is a framework for understanding our world, for expanding knowledge and understanding. Science is what allows us to move forward. As Olivia Judson notes, science also provides a level-playing field for sharing ideas:
"...the beauty of the scientific approach is that even when individuals do succumb to bias or partiality, others can correct them using a framework of evidence that everyone broadly agrees on. (Admittedly, this can sometimes be a slow process.) But arguing over data is different from suppressing it. Or changing it. Or ignoring it. For these activities debase the whole enterprise and threaten its credibility. When data can’t be accessed or trusted, when “facts” are actually illusions — well, this threatens the nature of knowledge itself. And a society without knowledge is steering blind. The rubbishing of science is far more serious than any particular decision over whether to fund research into stem cells, the sexual behavior of fruit flies or the quarks and quirks of particle physics. Undoing the damage of the past eight years may take another eight. But it must be done. We are probably one of the last generations that will be able to use our knowledge and methods to guide human civilization to a sustainable future. This is our time."
Monday, November 24, 2008
This just in... supply adjusts to changes in demand!
Last month, I wrote (along with many others) that one of the silver linings of the financial crisis would be that our nation's sharp mathematical minds will go into engineering and science rather than investment banking. According to Business Week, we're already seeing the effect:
"Engineering: Suddenly Sexy for College Grads"The article ends on a high note:
"...we need our best and brightest engineers developing new types of medical devices, renewable energy sources, solutions for global warming, and ways for sustaining the environment and purifying water. And we need them to start companies that help America keep its innovative edge. So maybe the dark cloud over finance has a silver lining, and investment banking's loss will be engineering's gain."
Friday, October 24, 2008
Identity and Science
This is the third part on a series about Objectivity and Truth in Political Science.
The issue of identity and power permeates science today: there is a questioning of who is doing science, what is deemed appropriate method for conducting science, and what topics are opening up to be studied. Political scientists must keep these issues in their minds at every step of the research process, from question forming to interviewing to the writing of findings as a way of buffering past legacies of injustice and prejudice to infiltrate today’s questions. Gender, class, and race have all recently been questioned not only in how they relate to the way in which science is conducted, but also at the very core of how we understand the world and each other.
One issue in science today is how to de-centralize traditional white male dominated scientific tradition with one that not only incorporates individuals of all races and genders into the field of science, but also shifts the institutional values to validate knowledge generated by critical processes of exploration and experimentation. Feminist scientists, like Ruth Hubbard and Evelyn Fox Keller, make the point that what is considered knowledge is determined by people in positions of power, historically, by men. They push for the incorporation of more feminine perspectives on and within science because not only can women do science as well as men, but also as outsiders they are able to cast a critical eye upon the institution of science in a way that men cannot. This incorporation of the outsider perspective cast upon the dominate group of power is echoed by hooks. bell hooks points out in her essay "Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination" that people in positions of power have the ability to change shift their paradigm to one that includes a more critical perspective of one’s self. She explains that once a white male in a position of power “shifts locations” he is able to “see the way in which whiteness acts to terrorize without seeing himself as bad”. Change is possible if people in positions of power are able to take a critical view of themselves through criticism cast from the outside.
Navigating these issues of identity within and without science requires more than trying to be politically correct by using the racial descriptor du jour or “she/he” –which is both grammatically incorrect and awkward to type/pronounce/read/write. These critical scientists place a higher value in localized information analyzed with passionate rationality rather than the cold gaze of attempted objectivity as a way of generating knowledge that is not only more equitable, but possibly the only honest form of fact-finding. This shift places emphasis upon qualitative research rather than quantitative research; it also places emphasis on local, small-scale theory rather than the broader generalizations so attractive for scientists to come up with. One attempt to move the political science field in this direction was the Perestroika movement that successfully shifted the focus of the American Political Science Association more towards qualitative research in some fashion. It is unclear whether this was the start or a ‘crisis’ or simply a fad incorporated into the predominant scientific culture as a way of pacifying dissidents.
Scientists must review their positions of power and how they view the world around them, as well as work to change how the world understands. Researchers cannot continue to propagate notions and practices that subjugate anyone not in an academic position of expertise as a second-class thinker. Hubbard recommends that scientists must insist on a change in the way science is taught and communicated to the public. This means a fundamental change in the textbooks, lectures, and laboratory exercises through which the public learns about science through which scientists learn their trade as a way of expanding the process of science and who is invited to participate in the process of knowledge generation.
By educating people about the process of how science is done and the fallacy of objectivity, people would then see the ‘facts’ generated by science not as hard truth to be adhered to at all costs but with the healthy skepticism and curiosity that defines the scientists themselves. Currently experts have the “decisive word, or at least a great deal of say, with regard to asserting what people should eat, what sort of housing they inhabit, how their children should be educated, how the country should be defended, what Washington should do about waste and pollution,” etc. (Ricci, 5). This is a great deal of power held in the hands and minds of scientists. This leads to the disempowerment of the individuals with every decision they no longer feel qualified to make. While division of labor is an important method to achieve progress through specialization, thinking and decision-making are two skills individuals should not depend upon others to do for them and which science needs to work to give back to the public.
The issue of identity and power permeates science today: there is a questioning of who is doing science, what is deemed appropriate method for conducting science, and what topics are opening up to be studied. Political scientists must keep these issues in their minds at every step of the research process, from question forming to interviewing to the writing of findings as a way of buffering past legacies of injustice and prejudice to infiltrate today’s questions. Gender, class, and race have all recently been questioned not only in how they relate to the way in which science is conducted, but also at the very core of how we understand the world and each other.
One issue in science today is how to de-centralize traditional white male dominated scientific tradition with one that not only incorporates individuals of all races and genders into the field of science, but also shifts the institutional values to validate knowledge generated by critical processes of exploration and experimentation. Feminist scientists, like Ruth Hubbard and Evelyn Fox Keller, make the point that what is considered knowledge is determined by people in positions of power, historically, by men. They push for the incorporation of more feminine perspectives on and within science because not only can women do science as well as men, but also as outsiders they are able to cast a critical eye upon the institution of science in a way that men cannot. This incorporation of the outsider perspective cast upon the dominate group of power is echoed by hooks. bell hooks points out in her essay "Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination" that people in positions of power have the ability to change shift their paradigm to one that includes a more critical perspective of one’s self. She explains that once a white male in a position of power “shifts locations” he is able to “see the way in which whiteness acts to terrorize without seeing himself as bad”. Change is possible if people in positions of power are able to take a critical view of themselves through criticism cast from the outside.
Navigating these issues of identity within and without science requires more than trying to be politically correct by using the racial descriptor du jour or “she/he” –which is both grammatically incorrect and awkward to type/pronounce/read/write. These critical scientists place a higher value in localized information analyzed with passionate rationality rather than the cold gaze of attempted objectivity as a way of generating knowledge that is not only more equitable, but possibly the only honest form of fact-finding. This shift places emphasis upon qualitative research rather than quantitative research; it also places emphasis on local, small-scale theory rather than the broader generalizations so attractive for scientists to come up with. One attempt to move the political science field in this direction was the Perestroika movement that successfully shifted the focus of the American Political Science Association more towards qualitative research in some fashion. It is unclear whether this was the start or a ‘crisis’ or simply a fad incorporated into the predominant scientific culture as a way of pacifying dissidents.
Scientists must review their positions of power and how they view the world around them, as well as work to change how the world understands. Researchers cannot continue to propagate notions and practices that subjugate anyone not in an academic position of expertise as a second-class thinker. Hubbard recommends that scientists must insist on a change in the way science is taught and communicated to the public. This means a fundamental change in the textbooks, lectures, and laboratory exercises through which the public learns about science through which scientists learn their trade as a way of expanding the process of science and who is invited to participate in the process of knowledge generation.
By educating people about the process of how science is done and the fallacy of objectivity, people would then see the ‘facts’ generated by science not as hard truth to be adhered to at all costs but with the healthy skepticism and curiosity that defines the scientists themselves. Currently experts have the “decisive word, or at least a great deal of say, with regard to asserting what people should eat, what sort of housing they inhabit, how their children should be educated, how the country should be defended, what Washington should do about waste and pollution,” etc. (Ricci, 5). This is a great deal of power held in the hands and minds of scientists. This leads to the disempowerment of the individuals with every decision they no longer feel qualified to make. While division of labor is an important method to achieve progress through specialization, thinking and decision-making are two skills individuals should not depend upon others to do for them and which science needs to work to give back to the public.
Objectivity: The Impossible Goal
This is the second part of a series on Objectivity and Truth in Political Science
While individual scientists may strive for objectivity in order to remove as much bias from the experimental process as possible, the social and subjective system of academia through which this information is supported, filtered, and disseminated is a way that it uses yesterday’s mistakes, injects today’s prejudices, and generates tomorrow’s “facts”(Feyerabend, Against Method, 1979). For the hard sciences, there are a set of facts that remain constant and are considered knowledge by the science community because they are testable and replicable in any high school science classroom: sodium and chloride will bond to make salt, a dropped object will move downwards at a predictable rate. There is a strong understanding of certain phenomenon and the natural world through the current paradigm (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 1996). The more concrete the subject matter, the more ‘objective’ individual experimenters can be and the more reliable and replicable their findings are. For these concrete types of problems and experiments, objectivity is believed to be obtainable by individual scientists.
When culture becomes the subject onto which the scientist applies his analytic eye, the ability to take an objective position becomes more difficult for the researcher. Kuhn argues that “no natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief” (Kuhn, 16-17). These beliefs Kuhn is talking about stem from cultures and society both within and without of the scientific realm. “Our place in society causes us to believe certain things, and even convinces us that those things are objectively true“ (Ricci, The Tragedy of Political Science, 1984). We cannot explain phenomenon without previous knowledge and beliefs which can often be implicit or impossible to address from the prospective of someone inside the culture. This inability of separate ingrained beliefs about society leaves individuals in the soft sciences particularly impotent to make claims objectively.
Not only is the individual less able to view a subject matter objectively, due to a blindness of many of his own preconceptions and assumptions, but the system and society within which he operates is unable to perform the check it is expected and required to do.
Given the grave responsibility of providing a “scientific” construction and understanding of reality which is then used as a way to justify certain policies, programs, and behaviors, scientists who study cultural phenomenon must be humble in what they can or cannot claim, lest their claims be used to justify and perpetuate common social transgressions of the time.
One of the most blatant examples of this failure to censor bad science and scholarship in the history of modern social science is Dr. Samuel George Morton who studied human skulls as a way to prove the superiority of Caucasians over blacks. Using a variety of measurements and methods, Morton "factually" proved that Caucasians were capable of a superior level of intelligence than blacks. His findings were peer reviewed and accepted by both the scientific community and society in general as truth. “Today, we recognize that Morton’s conclusions were totally false. Because of the influence of cultural bias, however, neither Morton, his fellow scientists, nor the general public at the time recognized that Morton’s work was badly flawed” (Brush, The Limitations of Scientific Truth, 2005). While one may argue that time is the great teacher that will illuminate these more difficult paths researchers attempt to traverse, John Stuart Mill argues that a commonly agreed upon mandate that is wrong “leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself” (Mill, On Liberty, 1869). To preserve not only the integrity of science as well as how these findings are used, the scientist must always ask how and why certain research is popular and accepted. Care must be taken not to repeat history extreme caution used as science progresses forward in the pursuit and distribution of knowledge.
While individual scientists may strive for objectivity in order to remove as much bias from the experimental process as possible, the social and subjective system of academia through which this information is supported, filtered, and disseminated is a way that it uses yesterday’s mistakes, injects today’s prejudices, and generates tomorrow’s “facts”(Feyerabend, Against Method, 1979). For the hard sciences, there are a set of facts that remain constant and are considered knowledge by the science community because they are testable and replicable in any high school science classroom: sodium and chloride will bond to make salt, a dropped object will move downwards at a predictable rate. There is a strong understanding of certain phenomenon and the natural world through the current paradigm (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 1996). The more concrete the subject matter, the more ‘objective’ individual experimenters can be and the more reliable and replicable their findings are. For these concrete types of problems and experiments, objectivity is believed to be obtainable by individual scientists.
When culture becomes the subject onto which the scientist applies his analytic eye, the ability to take an objective position becomes more difficult for the researcher. Kuhn argues that “no natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief” (Kuhn, 16-17). These beliefs Kuhn is talking about stem from cultures and society both within and without of the scientific realm. “Our place in society causes us to believe certain things, and even convinces us that those things are objectively true“ (Ricci, The Tragedy of Political Science, 1984). We cannot explain phenomenon without previous knowledge and beliefs which can often be implicit or impossible to address from the prospective of someone inside the culture. This inability of separate ingrained beliefs about society leaves individuals in the soft sciences particularly impotent to make claims objectively.
Not only is the individual less able to view a subject matter objectively, due to a blindness of many of his own preconceptions and assumptions, but the system and society within which he operates is unable to perform the check it is expected and required to do.
When political scholars work together, the facts they discover and the knowledge they transmit will almost inevitably, given the orthodoxies encouraged by organized endeavor, constitute a very special and perhaps dangerously incomplete version of the real world they are responsible for studying. (Ricci,10)
Given the grave responsibility of providing a “scientific” construction and understanding of reality which is then used as a way to justify certain policies, programs, and behaviors, scientists who study cultural phenomenon must be humble in what they can or cannot claim, lest their claims be used to justify and perpetuate common social transgressions of the time.
One of the most blatant examples of this failure to censor bad science and scholarship in the history of modern social science is Dr. Samuel George Morton who studied human skulls as a way to prove the superiority of Caucasians over blacks. Using a variety of measurements and methods, Morton "factually" proved that Caucasians were capable of a superior level of intelligence than blacks. His findings were peer reviewed and accepted by both the scientific community and society in general as truth. “Today, we recognize that Morton’s conclusions were totally false. Because of the influence of cultural bias, however, neither Morton, his fellow scientists, nor the general public at the time recognized that Morton’s work was badly flawed” (Brush, The Limitations of Scientific Truth, 2005). While one may argue that time is the great teacher that will illuminate these more difficult paths researchers attempt to traverse, John Stuart Mill argues that a commonly agreed upon mandate that is wrong “leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself” (Mill, On Liberty, 1869). To preserve not only the integrity of science as well as how these findings are used, the scientist must always ask how and why certain research is popular and accepted. Care must be taken not to repeat history extreme caution used as science progresses forward in the pursuit and distribution of knowledge.
Objectivity and Truth in Political Science
The is the first post in an Objectivity and Truth in Political Science series.
Science is not only the process of how individual practitioners attempt to generate new knowledge, but also the process through which one version of Truth is selected as the prevailing paradigm by the scientific community. Thomas Kuhn,in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, defines ‘normal science’ as “research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice”. Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method, argues that success in Big Science ”depends not only on rational argument but on a mixture of subterfuge, rhetoric, and propaganda”. This process and institution is built upon the work of individual scientists wrestling with how to study and represent the real world in a way to generate objective facts devoid of bias and personal prejudices. The issue is neither the process of individual experimentation and representation nor the collective process of truth selection and knowledge propagation are objective.
The political scientist must be cognitive of the limited objectivity available to him to make factual claims about the world around him. He must recognize that as a member of a scientific field and a society outside of academia he is ingrained with certain prejudices that will be propagated through the practice of science as currently structured. Most importantly, given this knowledge, the political scientist must not continue bull-headed down the path carved out previously, but take careful measures to reevaluate his placement within not only the political science field, but also within the other communities within which he is a part. This requires a conscience individual to reposition himself within the discipline of political science and society at large.
The second part of this series will address the fallacy we know as objectivity.
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it, I'd be ashamed of myself. ~Noam Chomsky
Science is not only the process of how individual practitioners attempt to generate new knowledge, but also the process through which one version of Truth is selected as the prevailing paradigm by the scientific community. Thomas Kuhn,in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, defines ‘normal science’ as “research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice”. Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method, argues that success in Big Science ”depends not only on rational argument but on a mixture of subterfuge, rhetoric, and propaganda”. This process and institution is built upon the work of individual scientists wrestling with how to study and represent the real world in a way to generate objective facts devoid of bias and personal prejudices. The issue is neither the process of individual experimentation and representation nor the collective process of truth selection and knowledge propagation are objective.
The political scientist must be cognitive of the limited objectivity available to him to make factual claims about the world around him. He must recognize that as a member of a scientific field and a society outside of academia he is ingrained with certain prejudices that will be propagated through the practice of science as currently structured. Most importantly, given this knowledge, the political scientist must not continue bull-headed down the path carved out previously, but take careful measures to reevaluate his placement within not only the political science field, but also within the other communities within which he is a part. This requires a conscience individual to reposition himself within the discipline of political science and society at large.
The second part of this series will address the fallacy we know as objectivity.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Why we shouldn't worry about the Earth being swallowed up by a Black Hole created by the Large Hadron Collider
I don't know if you were worried about this possibility, but my Mom has been. Fortunately, according to Brian Greene (and the rest of the physics community), you shouldn't be:
"Now for the possibility that's generated the fuss.Recent work in string theory has suggested that the collider might produce black holes, providing physicists with a spectacular opportunity to study them in a laboratory.
The common conception is that black holes are fantastically massive astrophysical bodies with enormous gravitational fields. But in reality, a black hole can have any mass. Take an orange and squeeze it to a sufficiently small size (about a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a meter across) and you'd have a black hole — with the mass of an orange.
Physicists have realized that the collider's proton-proton collisions might momentarily pack so much energy into such a small volume that exceedingly tiny black holes may form — black holes even lighter than the one theoretically created by the orange, but black holes nevertheless.
Why might one worry that this would be a problem? Because black holes have a reputation for rapacity. If a black hole is produced under Geneva, might it swallow Switzerland and continue on a ravenous rampage until the earth is devoured?
It's a reasonable question with a definite answer: no.
Work that made Stephen Hawking famous establishes that tiny black holes would disintegrate in a minuscule fraction of a second, long enough for physicists to reap the benefits of having produced them, but short enough to avoid their wreacking any havoc.
Even so, some have worried further that maybe Dr. Hawking was wrong and such black holes don't disintegrate. Are we willing to bet the fate of the planet on an untested insight? And that question takes us to the crux of the matter: the collisions at the Large Hadron Collider have never before occurred under laboratory settings, but they've been taking place throughout the universe — even here on earth — for billions of years.
Cosmic rays — particles wafting through space — constantly rain down on the earth, the other planets and the wealth of stars scattered throughout the galaxy, with energies far in excess of those attainable by the Large Hadron Collider. And since these more powerful collisions haven't resulted in astrophysical calamities, the collider's comparatively tame collisions most assuredly won't either."
So if you weren't worried about this, don't start. If you were, consider this a gift: the world isn't going to be crushed into an infentessimly small point of mass!
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