The Heretical Freeman Dyson

dublin writes "Big-thinker Freeman Dyson has written a new essay in which he points out the need for heretics in science, and goes on to gore some sacred cows, including global climate change: 'My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated ... There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global ... When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories ... All our fashionable worries and all our prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in fifty years. My heresies will probably also be obsolete. It is up to [the people of 2070] to find new heresies to guide our way to a more hopeful future.'"

Comments

He's right.

[WK2]

He is correct. It is important that people speak against the common wisdom, otherwise we would never learn anything. That being said, 99% of the time when people claim stuff against common sense, they are talking bullshit.

His conclusion says it all

[vlad_petric]

"The moral of this story is clear. Even a smart twenty-two-year-old is not a reliable guide to the future of science. And the twenty-two-year-old has become even less reliable now that he is eighty-two."

Ultimately what he attacks is being stuck in an ideology, and that heresies are essential for science. He isn't claiming that his heresies are true - just that scientists are too stuck in an ideology to even give them proper attention.

Re:On heresy.

[ppanon]

Well, I like Freeman Dyson's attitude and analysis better than any I've seen from the GW-skeptic camp.
He's not trying to dispute what's going on with Climate Change, or even that we're partially responsible. Instead he's saying there may be much better ways to deal with it than the current proposed economic approaches. I'll take his input over a hundred McIntyres' worth, for as long as we can still get it, given that he's 80. I'm not convinced about his finding an upside in the possible wetting of the Sahara, but any single one of his points is better argued than all the GW-skeptic points I've yet read on the subject in slashdot.

In the past Dyson's proven to be a lot closer to Einstein than Bozo the Clown and I think he deserves some slack on this one. For the role of genius moonlighting as clown, I think Roger Penrose has my vote for 'Emperor's New Mind', where he let his personal desires and beliefs overcome the pointers and evidence of evolutionary biology, chaos theory, and complexity theory. But I don't think Dyson's fallen off his pedestal yet, even if his balance looks shaky at times.

Re:Heretic!

[kir]

Wait a minute. Did you just say that Freemon Dyson is ignorant ". . .of both the scientific method and the subject at hand?"

No really. Did you?

Re:Heretics?

[TheNetAvenger]

So you two will sit here and argue over whether the CO2 is mankind's fault or not, and yet both acknowledge that CO2 will increase global temperatures.

Bottom line, if this is the end of an ice age, or mankind screwing up the earth it doesn't matter. Scientists need to find a way to MAINTAIN the 'sweet' spot that humans need for survival.

This is no longer about who's fault it is, nor saving the earth, this is about saving a large population of people.

1) If mankind is 'adding' to the problem, we need to stop accelerating it.
2) If mankind has nothing to do with it, we need to find a way to artificially slow it down.

Here are the ramifications of either scenario, the caps are melting. Yes, this is FACT, no matter how much people want to bitch about whose fault it is.

The shelf that dropped off a couple of years ago at the South Pole was a dramatic indicator.
The fact that Greenland is 'becoming' green again is another major problem.

The fact that US subs at the north pole have measured the ice thickness go from 10s of meters, where they couldn't surface, to under 1 meter where they can surface should be enough evidence to scare the hell out of people.

So after you two and people like you get worrying about who's fault all of this is, it is time to get together and work on a solution. An asteroid collision would not be manmade, but if one comes hurling at the earth, we would need to take action to deflect it. And this is the same freaking thing. PERIOD.

All this recent bitching about whether the temperatures are going up 5 degrees or only 2 degrees DOESN'T MAKE A FREAKING DIFFERENCE, they are going up, or the caps would not be melting.

What happens when the caps melt? Well first the ocean streams are messed up as fresh water is added in large amounts to crucial areas that salinization are needed to return heavy water back to the equator. In effect Europe and parts of North America freeze over.

The second problem is even if the streams in the ocean somehow keep working as needed to keep mankind alive, sea levels WILL continue to RAISE. This means bye, bye Miami, most of New York City, the Netherlands, and a large portion of Asia areas and islands.

And we are only talking a meter or two difference to affect 100s of millions of people on the coastlines everywhere.

So go back to your bitching about who is at fault, while the rest of the scientific community tries to find solutions to save your ass.