However, the universe we live in also happens to be one of limited resources and unlimited problems. Within this universe, when we sensationalize the value or importance of one kind of knowledge, we necessarily do so at the expense of other kinds. In other words, in terms of the cultural capital we accord certain types of knowledge production and discovery, sensationalism and inflation of value lead not to discovery and better knowledge, but to ideology.
What is ideology?
First, what isn't ideology--at least in no feasible sense--is something that can be objectively demonstrated or satisfactorily addressed as a falsifiable question. For example, one could argue plausibly that gravity is a form of ideology, but to do so would be ridiculous, as there are properties of the natural world (like gravity) that we experience as a constant. You can't undo the 'ideology' of gravity by launching yourself off a 30-story building (or maybe you can; but I suspect you'll never get around to publishing that paper in the event).
Apart from constants of the natural world that we rightly and heuristically exempt from the category of ideology, how do we know that something has become an ideology?
Quite simply, something has become an ideology when it becomes a dominant social tenet, such that questioning that tenet is a minority act, an act of subversion.
For example, American exceptionalism--the belief that the US is qualitatively different from and special in relation to every other country in the world, and ought to act and be treated as such--is an ideology. If you question it publicly, or even hint at the possibility that it's not absolutely true, you'll be ostracized (ask Barack Obama about this one).
Returning to the discovery of the Higgs, when we sensationalize the discovery, we move away from the true value and credibility of the science, and into the ideology of scientism. Here is an example, from the Economist, of that rhetorical movement from science (a statement of knowledge) to scientism (the ideology that denies all importance of any form of knowledge not derived by the scientific method):
Its significance is massive. Literally. Without the Higgs there would be no mass. And without mass, there would be no stars, no planets and no atoms. And certainly no human beings. Indeed, there would be no history.
Above, we can see a fallacy at work, the wild conflation of the importance of the Higgs boson itself with the importance of the discovery of the Higgs. Implied in this passage is the idea that discovering the Higgs somehow accounts for all of humanity and human history, when in fact the Higgs (or whatever it is) has obviously preexisted its human discovery, and humanity has obviously produced something infinitely larger and more significant than the sum of its particles.
I do understand about as well as anyone that a discovery can smack you upside the head and cause an emotional, even irrational exuberance for what has been discovered and accomplished; and I do think people should celebrate such great discoveries and accomplishments. The problem is that we don't need to sour them by inflating them, sensationalizing them, and, ultimately, overstepping the bounds of our own knowledge and understanding such that we're speaking as scientists for all of human flourishing, for everything reduced to a particle that, after all, we never even created.
It would be ridiculous to think that the whole, or even the whole English-speaking world--would gather for a press conference on the discovery that Thomas Middleton collaborated with Shakespeare in the writing of All's Well that Ends Well. Yet this isn't the case because the discovery of the Higgs is necessarily--that is, without QUESTION or DEBATE--more important to human life and flourishing than a factoid about a Shakespeare play. Indeed, a discovery that would enable us to more readily provide food and water to impoverished, starving, dying people throughout the world would be more important in someone's universe than a fascinating determination about THE UNIVERSE. But if we take these discoveries for themselves, on their own merits: on one hand is the fundamental enabler of the physical universe, with which our interactions are always mediated by human experience and perception. On the other is the creation of one of the greatest works of artistic achievement in human history. Is the physical universe more universal than human creation and cooperation? Is a particle larger than a factoid? At least ask the question, right?
The biggest reason among many that a Shakespeare press conference would seem ridiculous is that the primacy of scientific discovery is ideological. By definition, you don't question whether the significance and interest of Shakespeare's authorship of a play are even comparable to those of the Higgs discovery. You wouldn't dare think to ask the question. You'd have to be insane, maybe superstitious, anti-science. You would be labeled an ideologue.
