Friday, March 27, 2009
Freeman Dyson speaks his mind
Fellow Princetonian Freeman Dyson has, apparently, angered all the right people.
FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Princeton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.
Yeah, well, they also got mad at Galileo.
28 Comments:
By 
Kinuachdrach, at
Fri Mar 27, 07:50:00 PM:
This is the politicization of government-dependent science that Pres. Eisenhower warned about over 40 years ago, right after he got through warning about the military-industrial complex.
Still, it makes it very clear who is interested in science and who is not. Prof. Dyson can hold his head high.
By 
Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Mar 27, 08:14:00 PM:
The classic climate-skeptic syllogism is "They laughed at Galileo. They're laughing at me. Therefore, I'm the next Galileo."
The problem with contrarians is even in their own field, they're often wrong (note this isn't Dyson's field). Being wrong is fine within science (let a thousand experiments bloom), but not so great in science policy, where you basically can choose only one science framework at a time to guide your policy decision. Do you choose Dyson, brilliant but often wrong even in the fields where he's an expert, or do you choose the mainstream consensus?
There are a very small number of left-wing climate skeptics like Dyson. I'm no more impressed with them than I am with the right wing ones.
And btw, Dyson's wrong on climate:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/03/26/new-york-times-magazine-on-freeman-dyson-climate-change-skeptic/
By Automatic_Wing , at
Fri Mar 27, 09:38:00 PM:
Brian Schmidt - The blog entry you posted doesn't prove that Dyson is "wrong on climate" - or anything else. The blogger merely rolls his eyes and points out that Dyson is not a climate scientist, a form of the ancient "argument from authority" logical fallacy. Very lame.
By , at
Fri Mar 27, 10:18:00 PM:
Considering what the left is doing to our grandchildren's future financially it isn't logical that they are worried about the climate they may live in. Actually they should worry about the financial mess and leave the climate issues to God.
By Ray, at
Fri Mar 27, 11:40:00 PM:
Dyson's not saying climate change is wrong. He's saying something far worse, from the standpoint of a physics student: he's saying it's not even wrong.
By Kinuachdrach, at
Fri Mar 27, 11:41:00 PM:
"There are a very small number of left-wing climate skeptics like Dyson. I'm no more impressed with them than I am with the right wing ones."
What does left wing or right wing have to do with science?
Science is observation & analysis -- about recognizing that the climate of Planet Earth has been highly variable for as many millions of years that we can assess; that there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature, not over modern times, historic times, or geological time.
The fact that someone defending the scientifically rather tenuous hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming immediately starts talking politics is very, very revealing.
By , at
Fri Mar 27, 11:55:00 PM:
Brian, you say Dyson's wrong on climate. Really? This is what he believes according to the NY Times article:
there are rapidly rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere caused by human activity.
No, what you really think is wrong is Dyson's view on appropriate government policy. And what constitutes the best policy, my friend, is a matter of opinion, and scientists are no more honest brokers than anyone else.
I envy Dyson's age, then I could speak up too, write editorials and whatnot, without the fear of retribution directed at my kids.
By , at
Sat Mar 28, 11:15:00 AM:
Brian's (barely) dilettante-level grasp of logic and science are typical of your average global warming hysteric.
By Elise, at
Sat Mar 28, 12:09:00 PM:
Ray, I don't really know what you mean - could you explain a little?
As for Dyson, he sounds very Lomborgian to me: CO2 is rising and there are climate effects but without more compelling evidence of catastrophe - not manageable change but actual catastrophe - it is immoral to keep poor nations from becoming better off and it is immoral for rich nations to spend vast sums of money on limiting CO2 emissions when that money could better be spent on fighting poverty, hunger, and disease.
I simply do not understand how anyone can read Bjorn Lomborg's 2007 testimony before The House Committee on Energy and Science and still contend that addressing global warming is the best use of our money:
This should make us stop and pause. None of these forums have said that climate change is not real or not important. But they ask us to consider, whether we would do better by addressing the real and pressing needs of current generations that we can solve so easily and cheaply, before we try to tackle the long-term problem of climate change where we can do so little for so much.
To put it very bluntly, the Kyoto Protocol would likely cost at least $180 billion a year and do little good. UNICEF estimates that just $70-80 billion a year could give all Third World inhabitants access to the basics like health, education, water and sanitation.
All I can say is, "Oh, yeah, tough choice."
By Escort81, at
Sat Mar 28, 12:22:00 PM:
Elise - I was trying to figure out Ray's comment as well, and I think what he means is that Dyson believes that AGW doesn't merit serious consideration because the data and analysis are so incomplete, and that the theory lacks any kind of robust testing protocol, so therefore it does not rise to the level of "wrongness" for a physics geek. As in, come back and see me when you have some real science, and then we can determine the extent to which it is correct.
Is that about right, Ray?
By , at
Sat Mar 28, 02:47:00 PM:
I think what Ray means (speak up Ray!) is that climate is what it is.
It is not right or wrong. It just is an observed phenomenon. It is not necessarily all "Anthropogenic", it might even be natural.
And Elise is correct and to the point. Is it wise to spend huge amounts of money and create a command economy to do so very little, when there are things that can be done with the same amount of "wealth" that would do so very much?
Freeman Dyson is a very intelligent man, an accomplished scientist, teacher and philosopher. I don't always agree with him, but, like Warren Buffet, you would be stupid not to consider his thoughts and what he has to say.
And consensus is not science.
-David
By Brian, at
Sat Mar 28, 05:59:00 PM:
Maguro - fair enough - the link was mainly about how screwed up the Times was to assign this to a baseball writer who had no idea how to distinguish the good and bad arguments.
Here's a good takedown of Dyson on climate (also checkout the links):
http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/15/freeman-dyson-climate-crackpot/
Something from the Times article in particular that's untrue was that warming is “making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Warming is affecting the minimums more than maximums but affects both, and both are harmful (ask Alaskans about that).
Kinuach - if you think proof of AGW is tenuous, I suggest that you bet me over it.
Squealer - you're focusing on the wrong issue.
First Anonymous - same response as Kinuach.
Elise - Lomborg is a Danish neocon. Truth is secondary to achieving his political goals.
By Elise, at
Sat Mar 28, 08:17:00 PM:
Brian,
1) What are Lomborg's political goals?
2) What part of what Lomborg says is not true? As far as I know he does not deny global warming is occurring and as far as I know IPCC is not predicting the type of cataclysm implied by "An Inconvenient Truth".
By Brian, at
Sun Mar 29, 10:05:00 AM:
Elise - Lomborg's main goal is more glory for himself, and secondarily to stop action fighting greenhouse gas emissions. More here:
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/lomborg-long-game/
Lomborg's work is full of errors. He practices the "Gish Gallop" routine of throwing out wrong statements at a tremendous pace, knowing it takes longer to correct his misstatements than it takes for him to make them. Anyway, he's refuted here:
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/of/
and here:
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
The last link also analyzes Inconvenient Truth and finds errors too, about 1/20th as many:
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/GoreversusLomborg.htm
By Elise, at
Sun Mar 29, 01:09:00 PM:
Brian - The really interesting thing about the hatred for Lomborg among AAGWs is that he’s spotting you guys 3 of the 4 letters: Global Warming and Anthropogenic. All he won’t give you is the Apocalyptic. If it were me, I’d take what I could get. Anyhow.
Two problems with Lomborg and The Long Game:
1) The article assumes Lomborg’s priorities could never be realized. Yet it seems to me that if the same amount of time, energy, money, and media had been focused on some of Lomborg’s priorities as has been on AAGW, we could just as easily have been poised on the verge of implementing them.
2) It reasons backwards. Since Lomborg does not agree with the view of the author, he must have some nefarious reason for disagreeing. (Parenthetically, this type of “logic” is the main reason I view AAGW with skepticism.)
The special edition of Grist: I read the entries on Health and on Statistics. On Health, the author is arguing we can’t be sure DDT didn’t cause breast cancer. Okay. Personally I blame heating plastic in the microwave but to each his own. The author’s conclusion is that since we don’t know for sure whether bad environmental stuff will kill us, we can’t afford to take chances. That is a policy position, not a scientific one and is, in fact, the very basis of Lomborg’s disagreement with AAGW: if we’re not sure, maybe we shouldn’t be spending money to make massive changes.
I was quite interested to read in the Statistics section about “the rapid shift from command-and-control regulation to transparency and reporting requirements” in environmental areas. Don’t really think that’s how I would describe Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal.
I skipped the other links. I didn’t see in the first two any refutation of what I take to be Lomborg’s main truths: the effects of global warming are gradual and long-term and given what the IPCC is saying about them they can be ameliorated as they occur. I also didn’t see anyone addressing Lomborg’s cost-benefit analysis: how many lives saved for how much money.
This is not an issue we’re going to resolve here - or anywhere else. We’re now in a situation where the AAGW crowd has decreed that the science behind AAGW is so complex only a handful of scientists can understand it. Anyone insufficiently credentialed who disagrees can be ignored and those who are credentialed and disagree can be dismissed as tools of the oil companies. While this seems to strengthen the hand of the AAGW crowd, it also weakens it. An inevitable corollary of their decree is that no layman can hope to follow the issues. That means we can only go with our gut. Since there is no rational way to persuade us, public support for AAGW rests entirely on a belief that its supporters are correct - and objective and only concerned with our well-being and not suffering from any conflicts of interest and not invested in any left-wing agenda. Interesting situation but you know what they say: Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or perhaps, what goes around, comes around.
By , at
Mon Mar 30, 01:08:00 AM:
Brian,
In your own words, please describe how water vapor might mitigate against "global warming", whatever the driver. Also, please comment on the effect of variability in the sun's luminosity on climate. No links, please, and I'll be checking to see if you've cut and pasted from other sources. I'm very curious to know whether you understand the physics involved or are merely setting forth links to folks who support a conclusion you've arrived at a priori without a grasp of what's involved. That is, I want to know that you're something (anything!) more than a semi-dilettante.
Sincerely,
"First Anonymous"
By Brian Schmidt, at
Mon Mar 30, 01:38:00 PM:
Elise - the AGW position has a lot of experts trying to explain it to the lay public. Realclimate.org has a reading list. Nonexperts who want to refute it need to become experts and publish expert work before they deserve to be taken seriously.
First Anonymous - I'm not your pet monkey (and the Iris theory is a proven crock, btw). As before, if you don't believe in AGW then bet me.
By , at
Mon Mar 30, 04:10:00 PM:
"First Anonymous - I'm not your pet monkey (and the Iris theory is a proven crock, btw). As before, if you don't believe in AGW then bet me."
How can I bet you when you can't even understand the terms (couched in physics) of my bet?
As for your being someone's "pet monkey", well, if the shoe fits ...
By Brian, at
Tue Mar 31, 12:12:00 AM:
My standard bet offer is on a per-decade rate. Next decade will warm at least twice the rate of average 20th Century decade. I win if it exceeds the rate, you win if not.
I don't see a need for complicated physics.
To answer your question, FWIW, I have a reasonably sophisticated layman's understanding of climate science. Go far enough into the science and there will be significant gaps in my knowledge. But I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.
By , at
Tue Mar 31, 01:37:00 PM:
"My standard bet offer is on a per-decade rate. Next decade will warm at least twice the rate of average 20th Century decade. I win if it exceeds the rate, you win if not."
Your "standard bet offer" is one of the finest examples of circular reasoning I've ever seen as it has baked into it the unfounded assumption that any and all warming will be anthropegenically driven. The current dispute is in regards to the degree to which previously observed warming (and, now, cooling) is affected by the activities of human beings, the key to resolving this dispute being physics. But who needs physics when one has religion? Like I said, I'd make you a real bet, but you wouldn't understand the words.
By , at
Tue Mar 31, 01:39:00 PM:
anthropogenically!
You wouldn't be able to understand the words because I wouldn't be able to spell them! :)
By Brian Schmidt, at
Tue Mar 31, 01:58:00 PM:
The "natural warmers" maintain without any evidence that 20th Century warming is the continuation of a bounce-back from Little Ice Age period of 1400 to 1850.
We should have completely "bounced back" by now, so a natural warmer should expect warming to slow down. Instead of betting on that, I'm willing to let them win a bet that has warming accelerate to nearly twice the 20th Century rate. Only if warming accelerates more than twice that rate do I win the bet.
Natural warmers have no explanation for why warming would accelerate this long after the recovery from the LIA. That's why you won't bet. You either don't really believe or don't really understand what you're saying.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Tue Mar 31, 02:01:00 PM:
Might also be worth noting that our quite conservative host here, Tigherhawk, is on my side of this argument. It's only on the question of what to do about that we differ.
By Elise, at
Tue Mar 31, 03:25:00 PM:
Might also be worth noting that our quite conservative host here, Tigherhawk, is on my side of this argument. It's only on the question of what to do about that we differ.
I don't quite follow that, Brian. Could you explain? Thanks.
Elise - the AGW position has a lot of experts trying to explain it to the lay public. Realclimate.org has a reading list. Nonexperts who want to refute it need to become experts and publish expert work before they deserve to be taken seriously.
I know there are sites that try to explain to the lay public. My point - to circle back around to the original post - is that if Freeman Dyson isn’t a smart enough non-specialist to be considered worth listening to on AAGW, who possibly could be?
By Brian, at
Tue Mar 31, 11:34:00 PM:
Elise- TH says humans are causing and will continue to cause warming, but that its effects won't be so bad, at least not as bad as the cure.
I don't think there's much point in listening to any non-expert attempting to debunk a broad scientific consensus. Dyson's a brilliant guy, and the fact that he was thinking about geoengineering 30 years ago is amazing, but that's the extent of his contribution to the field. If the non-expert really wants to overturn the consensus, then he or she needs to get in there and acquire the expertise. Dyson has done nothing to advance the scientific field in the peer-reviewed journals where the science happens, he's just pontificating from the sidelines.
Finally, I'm not sure who fits your category of "Apocalyptic" AGW. James Lovelock, yes. Joe Romm and James Hansen, maybe and with better science than Lovelock. The vast majority of the rest accept the consensus position reflected in the IPCC.
By Elise, at
Wed Apr 01, 01:33:00 PM:
TH says humans are causing and will continue to cause warming, but that its effects won't be so bad, at least not as bad as the cure.
I fail to perceive any difference between your statement of TH's position and what I understand to be Lomborg's position.
If the non-expert really wants to overturn the consensus, then he or she needs to get in there and acquire the expertise.
I fail to perceive any difference between your statement and my statement that:
no layman can hope to follow the issues. That means we can only go with our gut. Since there is no rational way to persuade us, public support for AAGW rests entirely on a belief that its supporters are correct
With regard to the apocalyptic nature of AGW, you say:
The vast majority of the rest accept the consensus position reflected in the IPCC.
If there is no apocalypse lurking around the corner then the issue of what to do about GW is a policy one not a scientific one. An argument that ameliorating and adjusting to the effects of a warming planet is more financially sound, more humane, and more sensible is as valid a policy position as an argument that we must bend all efforts toward staving off that warming whatever the cost in money and lives. Holding the former position would hardly seem to merit demonization by those holding the latter.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Wed Apr 01, 07:03:00 PM:
Elise- I'm distinguishing between TH and Anonymous.
I think it's extremely foolhardy for a layman to reject the scientific mainstream. Note that Lomborg however misrepresents that mainstream. Sea level rise is a great example.
Re apocalypse, note that most IPCC emission scenarios assume decreasing emissions at some point in this century. If we continue increasing at the present rate without a change, then we will hit an apocalypse. Only to the extent that the world doesn't listen to Lomborg do we have a chance to limit impacts to the level that Lomborg describes as acceptable.
By Elise, at
Fri Apr 03, 02:36:00 PM:
Actually IPCC scenarios include a "business as usual" one that assumes we just keep doing what we're doing. It's my understanding that the top end of the 18-59cm sea level rise is a result of the business as usual scenario.
As for Lomborg misrepresenting sea level rise, this seems to boil down to two claims. (I've taken only the briefest look at this so it's possible I've missed something.)
First, Lomborg points to sea level declines over two years and AAGWers do not consider a two year decline indicative of anything. I agree in general but it does make me twitchy about the models used. Clearly there are factors the models don't know about. Which leads nicely into my second point.
Second, Lomborg relies on the IPCC numbers to support his claims. Silly, silly man. This RealClimate post points out the problems with the IPCC numbers. But claims like this make discussion of AAGW completely unproductive - and push what one thinks about it back into the realm of faith.
If I say I don't buy global warming, I'm directed to the IPCC reports and told to accept them because they represent an international consensus of the best scientific minds.
If I look at the IPCC numbers and say I think we can live with their sea level rise numbers by adjusting rather than fending off, I'm told their numbers don't tell the whole story. Why? Because there are elements the models either do not or can not include.
If AAGW critics claim climate is too complex to be modeled, they're brushed aside because the models include everything important and nothing that's left out would make a real difference in what the models tell us.
And all of this is perfectly reasonable because the experts tell us so and - to go back to the original point - there's no way a layman can possibly grasp what's going on well enough to understand why his uneasiness about this logic is just silly.
The bottom line is that the reason to do something drastic that may wreck the world's developed economies and doom poor countries to even more poverty is because the AAGWers are afraid things might be worse than the IPCC models predict. The ice sheets might melt; the methane in the ocean might rise up and kill us; the Gulf Stream might stop. That's an awful lot of "might" to back up the draconian measures being urged on us.
PS:
I think it's extremely foolhardy for a layman to reject the scientific mainstream.
Did you know that G.K. Chesterton was an early opponent of eugenics?
