There is a difference between a causal 'why'---which is really an 'how'---and the sort of 'why' to which jgarbuz was referring, which is more of moral 'why', one that speaks to purpose and from which one can draw lessons about proper conduct.

jgarbuz, I can speak as a particle physicist on this matter: what you say is wrong. We do actually tackle the why of things. The Higgs mechanism is a good example of this. It addresses WHY the vector bosons have the masses they do---i.e. why the W and Z boson are massive (predicting their masses even) and why the photon is massless. However, it only describes HOW the leptons get masses, but not WHY their masses have the spectrum they do. To address this, people come up with other theories beyond the Higgs mechanism.

Your skepticism is healthy and admirable, but should drive you to read up on the subject _before_ drawing conclusions. Unfortunately pop physics books aren't the greatest at giving you a sound footing to understand the standard model. Though it will take a little work (wikipedia can actually help in understanding it), I'd recommend Cahn & Goldhaber's book _Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics._

to hjs

There are a LOT of things that still have to be scientifically proven BEFORE we get to the question of "Why?" We still have a lot of HOWs to work out.

jgarbuz
untill we can prove there is a primary mover it is just a fairy story. something primitive people came up with so they can sleep at night.

Science tries to answer HOW things work. Science does not deal with WHY things work. That is outside of the realm of science. That presumes that there has to be a "why." And if there has to be a "why," it then presumes someone or something who cares. It presumes an "intelligent" designer, a "primary mover" or something like that.

anonyme
"science" is full of dogma "
like what?
science is full of fact

Hmm, Dr. Randall doesn't want it called the "God particle," but she used "Heaven" in her book title? I'm kidding--I enjoyed the segment.

hjs - "science" is full of dogma - who are you kidding?

At one time, understanding of the universe meant understanding what we now call METAPhysics, that is understanding gods, spirits, and demons. Those were the basic theory of how the universe was created and what made things happen. Now we deal with subatomic particles, trying to understand how the basic parts of the atom were created.

Wow, crazy caller! CERN WILL NOT create an Earth swallowing black hole.

Is it fair to say the Higgs boson gives particles mass, considering the lepton couplings are still fine tuned in the Higgs model?

Very few scientists are good at explaining things to laymen. The purpose of Physics is to explain HOW the physical world works. With Galileo and Newton we begin to explain things mathematically. But with increased understanding of the atom after Einstein, we learned that the world inside the atom was very different and more complex. The physical universe is made of energy, mass and time, all of which come suddenly into existence. The theory of this "boson" proposed by Higgs is a missing piece of the "standard model" of how the universe the basic particles came into existence.

Stop calling it the "god particle"...this is science not fairytale story time!

A bit silly to call some important scientific discovery the god particle. god is a fantasy, science is always based on facts. BL please don’t bring god, heaven or the easter bunny into the topic.