Freeman Dyson's secular faith
When I was a student in the United States, I was privileged to attend a few lectures by . Dyson can be a controversial thinker, but what's not controversial is that he possesses one of the most brilliant minds on the planet. Which, in itself, is something of a conundrum for some experts in climate change: how could a scientist of such brilliance become such an outspoken sceptic about the causes and effects of global warming? Few people know Dyson and his work as well as , whose book oe tells the story of Dyson's troubled relationship with his son.
Brower describes Dyson as "one of those force-of-nature intellects whose brilliance can be fully grasped by only a tiny subset of humanity, that handful of thinkers capable of following his equations. His principal contribution has been to the theory of quantum electrodynamics, but he has done stellar work, too, in pure mathematics, particle physics, statistical mechanics, and matter in the solid state. He writes with a grace and clarity that is rare, even freakish, in a scientist, and his books, including Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, Infinite in All Directions, and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet, have made a mark. Dyson has won the Lorentz Medal (the Netherlands) and the Max Planck Medal (Germany) for his work in theoretical physics. In 1996, he was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize, which honors the scientist as poet. In 2000, he scored the --worth more, in a monetary way, than the Nobel."
Read Brower's article:
Comment number 1.
At 13th Nov 2010, BluesBerry wrote:Freeman Dyson has only recently expressed his thoughts on the hot topic of global warming.
Dyson proposes that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. He added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, we earthlings could be comforted by the mass cultivation of specially bred 鈥渃arbon-eating trees鈥.
He calculated how many trees it would take to remove all carbon from the atmosphere: The number, he says, was a trillion.
Dyson has his name-callers, but in my opinion, he is brilliant.
Dyson sees the world as a set of problems, each thing impacting on the other. He is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.
Dyson is well aware that 鈥渕ost consider me wrong about global warming.鈥
The conclusion about global warming reached at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (鈥渋naction is inexcusable鈥) only increases Dyson鈥檚 resistence, even though he doesn鈥檛 want his legacy to be defined by climate change. Hisdissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only things we can really be sure about is that much of what we expect to happen, just won't happen.
Dyson believes that 鈥渁ll the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.鈥 Since this declaration, his misgivings have only grown: 鈥淭he fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn鈥檛 scare me at all; climate change has become an obsession 鈥 the primary article of faith for a worldwide secular religion known as environmentalism."
Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly critical of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change鈥檚 鈥渃hief propagandist,鈥 and James Hansen, an adviser to Gore鈥檚 film, 鈥淎n Inconvenient Truth.鈥
Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair鈥檚 鈥渓ousy science鈥 for 鈥渄istracting public attention鈥 from 鈥渕ore serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.鈥
Climate models, Dyson says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. 鈥淭he biologists have essentially been pushed aside鈥.
The warming, he says, is not global but local, making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.鈥 Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, Dyon expects the carbon may well be beneficial 鈥 a sign that 鈥渢he climate is actually improving rather than getting worse,鈥 because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. 鈥淢ost of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now,鈥 he contends, 鈥渁nd substantially richer in carbon dioxide.鈥
One of Dyson鈥檚 more significant surmises is that a warming climate could be forestalling a new ice age. Is he wrong? No one can say for sure. Dyson boils it down to this: 鈥渁 deeper disagreement about values鈥 between
1. those who think 鈥渘ature knows best鈥 and that 鈥渁ny gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil,鈥 and
2. 鈥渉umanists,鈥 like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.
Dyson has great affection for coal and for one big reason: It is so inexpensive that most of the world can afford it. To Dyson, 鈥渢he move of the populations of China and India from poverty to middle-class prosperity should be the great historic achievement of the century. Without coal it could not happen.鈥 That said, Dyson sees coal as the interim kindling of progress, and concludes in 鈥渞oughly 50 years,鈥 he predicts, solar energy will become cheap
The costs of what Gore tells us to do would be extremely large,鈥 Dyson says. 鈥淏y restricting CO2 you make life more expensive and hurt the poor. I鈥檓 concerned about the Chinese.鈥 They鈥檙e also changing their standard of living the most, going from poor to middle class. To me that鈥檚 very precious.鈥
As for Katrina, Dyson says: The damage was due to the fact that nobody had taken the trouble to build adequate dikes. To point to Katrina and make any clear connection to global warming is very misleading.鈥
Prof. Freeman Dyson, one of the world's most eminent physicists says the models used to justify global warming alarmism are "full of fudge factors" and "do not begin to describe the real world."
Yes, Freeman Dyson's is another beautiful mind that seems to tap into cosmic intelligence.
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Comment number 2.
At 13th Nov 2010, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 3.
At 13th Nov 2010, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:Oh dear, too long a quote.
Action, take two...
There's an interesting quote from Freeman Dyson about the respective value of science and religion, and he makes a pertinent comment about the 'arrogance' of both 'religious creationists' and 'scientific materialists'. It can be found in his lecture .
Well worth a read.
(By the way, William, is there a rule as to how much we can quote before being moderated? It would be useful to know).
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Comment number 4.
At 14th Nov 2010, PeterKlaver wrote:Has Dyson published his climate science skepticism in science journals (brace yourself for the Great Conspiracy thinkers to come out of the woodwork if the answer is no) or is it stuff for TV interviews, opinion pieces in newspapers etc?
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Comment number 5.
At 14th Nov 2010, Will_Crawley wrote:Peter, to the best of my knowledge Dyson's commentary is just that. He is not a climate science expert and has not contributed any peer-reviewed published research on the subject.
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