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Freeman Dyson Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#181

Post by DoreenMichele »

kissickas wrote: post #177
DoreenMichele wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plant species that are dependent upon fire for reproduction. Such species begin to die if all fire is suppressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte https://www.gardenguides.com/97493-eucalyptus-trees-australi... https://www.bushheritage.org.au/species/grass-trees https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national-fo... https://www.quora.com/What-seeds-need-fire-to-germinate-like... https://thek…

I didn't realize that about the original predictions for the Kuwaiti oil well fires, that's interesting. They are still cleaning up the oil from the sands on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia 30 years later though.

It was predicted that the fires would burn from two to five years before losing pressure and going out on their own, optimists estimating two years and pessimists estimating five while the majority estimated three years until this occurred.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#182

Post by InitialLastName »

m0zg wrote: post #144
speedgeek wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prize winning physicist in my area who was arrested for starting a major brush fire. He plugged multiple extension cords together to power an electric fence and the overheating of the cords started the fire. Intelligence does not apply to every possible topic. Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better than discounting that consensus because someone with little to no expertise on…

> Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better That's what they said when Galileo Galilei was on trial for not trusting the "consensus" about geocentric view of the world. To use a more recent example, that's what they said of Dr. Barry Marshall who discovered that it was Heliobacter Pylori, and not "stress" that's causing ulcers in the stomach. Dude was very nearly laughed out of his field, t…

Galileo didn't get into trouble because of a general consensus, he got into trouble because he made fun of the Pope. It was straight up authoritarianism that put him on trial, not his scientific position.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#183

Post by AQuantized »

m0zg wrote: post #144
speedgeek wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prize winning physicist in my area who was arrested for starting a major brush fire. He plugged multiple extension cords together to power an electric fence and the overheating of the cords started the fire. Intelligence does not apply to every possible topic. Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better than discounting that consensus because someone with little to no expertise on…

> Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better That's what they said when Galileo Galilei was on trial for not trusting the "consensus" about geocentric view of the world. To use a more recent example, that's what they said of Dr. Barry Marshall who discovered that it was Heliobacter Pylori, and not "stress" that's causing ulcers in the stomach. Dude was very nearly laughed out of his field, t…

I think you'll find those people were actually trained in their respective fields and not fielding essentially uneducated opinions, however.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#184

Post by oska »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #134
djsumdog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's gone, so this isn't really the place for this discussion at all. However, I'm glad this is mentioned and how it shows that there are a lot of intelligent people who have concerns with the current science debate. Consensus isn't science, it's politics, and challenging ones ideas is how we both reinforce the truth as well as dispel myths.

Why isn't this an appropriate venue for this discussion? It seems perfectly germane.

Agree. Can't imagine Freeman himself having any problems with his stance on the issue being discussed now (or at any other time).

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#185

Post by amha »

I heard him speak in 2004, when I was 17. Here's what I wrote in my LiveJournal at the time:

On Thursday, I saw Freeman Dyson speak at Cornell. He was so amazing I can't even describe it. I didn’t look at my watch once during the speech. Not long into the talk, the elderly gentleman next to me pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and began scribbling notes. He kept writing until the end of the speech. I glanced behind me during the question-and-answer period, and noticed that Schwartz Auditorium was so full that people were standing in the balcony and sitting on the railings just to hear Dyson.

The text of Dyson’s speech would have impressed any English teacher. He structured it as seven short stories, with each one slowly building on each other. The style of his writing––the way he chose his words and structured his sentences––would have been impressive if he had been giving a lecture in the humanities, much less a field stereotyped for less-able communicators. The way Dyson was able to convey the sheer wonder of science was an orgasmic experience equivalent to reading my first Carl Sagan book.

An 80-year-old physicist who had the energy of a young assistant professor, who delivered his speech fluidly and responded deftly to the audience’s questions––a scientist proficient in more than one science, and fluent enough in biology to give an entire lecture on biotechnology!!!! Oh wow...

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#186

Post by mikedilger »

whack wrote: post #117
jes5199 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Dyson was misunderstood in his criticism of climate science - he admitted that he didn't study the science itself, but he was concerned about how the scientific culture in the field seemed to be working

From his quotes, it sounds like he had a pretty strong opinion on climate science, and wasn't commenting merely on "cultural" topics. > Indur Goklany has done a careful job, collecting and documenting the evidence that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does far more good than harm. To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustain…

What I appreciated about Dyson's view of climate change is that he doesn't jump to the conclusion that change is bad and should be feared. I'm not myself saying it is good, but it was the point I appreciated most in his view.

When I read articles about species dying, ice melting, etc, I think to myself "what would it be like to travel to and live on that strange new world, with less ice, different species, wild weather?"

At the same time I've converted pasture into hedgerow and I plan to bury the wood in trenches.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#187

Post by krapp »

Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #180
krapp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honorary doctorate doesn't mean anything. If it did, no one would bother trying to earn the real thing.

One could be officially called Dr. after getting honorary degree

Sure, but it still doesn't mean anything.

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#188

Post by pedrosorio »

EForEndeavour wrote: post #101
dr_dshiv wrote: post #85

A few years ago, I asked Freeman Dyson what we should teach our children so there would be more Freeman Dyson's. He gave a surprising answer. He said we should teach children to genetically "play" with plants. He thought we needed that kind of creativity as a human species if we would ever be able to populate the asteroid belt. He said that most of the surface area of the solar system is in the asteroid belt -- but t…

Isn't the large total surface area of the asteroid belt overwhelmed by drawbacks like unusability of most of it for most purposes (uneven, unstable, unshielded, etc.), and the fact that humans do really poorly in microgravity?

That sounds about right. You should check this out of haven’t yet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#189

Post by oska »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #89
b0sk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ridiculously hot summers in Australasia resulting in bushfires, famine and drought... seas taking over the cities are all demonstrable effects of climate change. Did he live in UK? Yea the winter was milder I guess.

There are plant species that are dependent upon fire for reproduction. Such species begin to die if all fire is suppressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte https://www.gardenguides.com/97493-eucalyptus-trees-australi... https://www.bushheritage.org.au/species/grass-trees https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national-fo... https://www.quora.com/What-seeds-need-fire-to-germinate-like... https://thek…

> When I was pursuing environmental studies, there was a cartoon in one of my textbooks depicting microbes giving off oxygen and some of the microbes protesting that they were destroying their environment and needed to stop. Microbes that off-gassed oxygen are how we got an oxygen atmosphere on earth.

Yes, that is called the Great Oxidation Event [1] and it was the Earth's first major extinction event.

The microbes were absolutely correct that their environment was being destroyed. The Earth then shifted to a new atmospheric makeup and new life blossomed but it was still a termination event for most life that existed prior to the event.

> The truth is we don't really know as much as some people like to pretend we do

Yes. Which means we shouldn't run a giant experiment with the atmosphere and the oceans. This is called the precautionary principle: if you're doing something that may result in systemic disaster then it's better to not do it. People who say that this giant global experiment won't do any harm (or go further and say it will be beneficial) are pretending knowledge that they don't actually have.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Re: Freeman Dyson Has Died

#190

Post by mannykannot »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #133
cowboysauce wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's akin to saying "Why is everyone concerned about this Volcano erupting? Plants will flourish in the resulting rich, volcanic soil" The statement is completely true, but it misses the point as to why people are concerned and glosses over a lot of negatives.

I interpret his point being less about denying that some people will be harmed by global warming but that most (or 'all') people will be. I agree with what I think Dyson believed: that it's NOT obvious that global warming is net-negative (long term). Another ice age would be pretty terrible too.

> Another ice age would be pretty terrible too.

OK, but the next rational step would be to ask which scenario is presenting the greater risk. Just raising an issue without following through is not helpful, and, I am sorry to say, that is what Dyson tended to do on this issue.

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