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The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

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Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#31

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Tichy wrote: post #26
Rod wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?" No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation,…

Experts can go wrong, too - and who defines who is an expert and who isn't? Some amateurs might have read more about the issue than the self-proclaimed experts. And if non-experts are not qualified to speak, how do you justify letting them vote? Not saying democracy is perfect, but apparently there was a thought that even if people are not experts, they might be able to inform themselves sufficiently to be able to de…

Great point Tichy.

The entire democratic system is built on the ability for the common man to make decisions about matters in which he is not an expert.

This is my problem with the global warming discussion, no matter what the outcome -- no matter who is right or wrong on it. At the heart of it, it's a threat to the core principles underlying the vote.

That's why it's near the top of my list of political things to care about.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#32

Post by Rod »

Tichy wrote: post #26
Rod wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?" No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation,…

Experts can go wrong, too - and who defines who is an expert and who isn't? Some amateurs might have read more about the issue than the self-proclaimed experts. And if non-experts are not qualified to speak, how do you justify letting them vote? Not saying democracy is perfect, but apparently there was a thought that even if people are not experts, they might be able to inform themselves sufficiently to be able to de…

Science is not programming. You can't learn Climate Modeling in your spare time, without checking experimental data and interacting with other people.

Scientists should investigate and report their findings. Politicians should decide what to do. People elect politicians, not scientists. That's the way it should work. Democracy is not in danger.

However, we now see politicians doing (pseudo-)science (Al Gore is a prime example) and reporting it to the ignorant masses. And we have scientists claiming that they should decide what to do. The world is upside down.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#33

Post by robotrout »

DaniFong wrote: post #18
Rod wrote: post #3

Quoting the great Bertrand Russell: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Interesting how so many people who know NOTHING about Science are SO sure that global warming is caused by man. Such dogma reminds me of the times of the 16th century Inquisition: no amount of evidence will ever convince the nutcase warmists that th…

In business, war, governance, love, and the climate, people are forced to make decisions based on sorely incomplete data because time is of the essence, and it is all they're ever going to get. If likely exaggeration is to be called out, so too are those who assert that doubt should necessarily imply inaction.

Why is "time of the essence"? Who told you so? Al "Save the Polar Bears" Gore? I promise you, those polar bears were in no danger.

Do you know what a stampede is? It's a frightening thing, where a large herd of animals is frightened and begin to run. They run and run, trampeling anything in their path, killing anything that gets in front of them, and each other, as they run from the danger on their heals. Never would the danger they flee cause nearly the harm that the stampede itself causes.

There are groups in the world that can stampede the human herd as well. The amount of stampeding that's been happening in the last 10 years is amazing. We stampede through this Patriot Act, and that Stimulus Plan, and the global warming stampede has been worse than both of them.

Take a breath. Time is not of the essence. When somebody tell you that, they're trying to make you rush to judgment and make a poor decision. Timeshare salesman do it, politicians do it, and I'm sorry to tell you, Al Gore does it.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#34

Post by shrughes »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #28
byrneseyeview wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people investigate stuff like that, and hold on to the answer for a long time. For this one, I guess you'd start by narrowing it down. The number must have the start-end pair of 1,2; 2,4; 3,6; or 4,8. That narrows it down to 4E16. Then you can narrow it down further by looking at what other digit-pairs are possible. You might assume it has a palindrome in the middle, but that digits near the end are not palindro…

Maybe you'd lop off the last few digits to make it easier: Let A be the highest digit, B be the lowest, and X be the ones in the middle. Find X, A, and B, where 2(X-A*E16+A+BE16-B)=X That way, you can at least get each digit on one side, which might make it a more tractable problem. This is very frustrating! It's easy to narrow it down a whole lot, but it's still going to be intractable.

Spoiler Alert!

The number in general (I said, Spoiler Alert!) can be written as _y_ _x_ where 0 y + x. Then it must satisfy for some k

2(10y+x) = (10^k)x + y

Simplify that and you can show that 10^k - 2 must be divisible by 19, which means k=17 (or 35, or 53, ...). Once you have that, pick x = 2, 3, or 4 and solve for y, and you have your 18-digit number. (Letting x = 1 gives you an 18-digit numbers whose first digit is 0, which doesn't count.)

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#35

Post by dejb »

Quick summary

Dyson isn't so sure that global warming is cause by rising levels of CO2. Either way he doesn't see this as being a big problem as global warming would be a good thing for the world.

He is more a Global Warming Embracer rather than a Global Warming Denier.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#36

Post by robotrout »

Tichy wrote: post #26
Rod wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?" No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation,…

Experts can go wrong, too - and who defines who is an expert and who isn't? Some amateurs might have read more about the issue than the self-proclaimed experts. And if non-experts are not qualified to speak, how do you justify letting them vote? Not saying democracy is perfect, but apparently there was a thought that even if people are not experts, they might be able to inform themselves sufficiently to be able to de…

I assume it's the democracy bit that is your core premise.

I'm not certain which country you live in. If you're in the U.S., you're not living in a democracy, you're living in a republic. There is a strong agenda by many people to turn it into a democracy, merely by saying it is one, and that is working, but by law, it's a republic.

Democracies tend to disintegrate rapidly as the populace votes themselves beer and circuses. You see that beginning to happen now, don't you? The populace is not, and can not, be trusted to act in a fair, impartial, and informed manner. They're a mob. Look at the public lynching we almost had with the AIG folks? Even the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut got into the act.

When the populace proves themselves too lazy to carefully consider the repercussions of their decisions, and too proud to admit they do not know the repercussions of their decisions, then it can't end well.

This will not end well.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#37

Post by dejb »

Rod wrote: post #15
logjam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh? Certainly your own biases, politics, and ideology aren't apparent from your prose, right? Plenty of good scientists besides Freeman Dyson (one of my own personal heroes) have looked at the good science on the issue, and have concluded man's activities are causing harm.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?" No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation,…

How badly would the global warming deniers complain if everyone who was allowed to speak on the issue needed to be approved by the scientific establishment? That would be a great injustice and even I would agree with them on that one.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#38

Post by dejb »

Tichy wrote: post #24
eugenejen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jump to conclusion too fast before reading the article. If you read it, you will know Dyson doesn't deny that human being's activities create the current global warming. But he doubts the consequences are as dire as what activists describe in their propaganda.

So even Dyson says there is man-made warming, but still people who believe in man-made warming are ignorant, stubborn nutcases who have no understanding of science? This is getting a bit confusing...

Actually Dyson seems to be hedging his bets on whether it is caused by man. He seems less convinced than the conventional view but accepts it could be the case. His main point is that it won't be so bad or could even be good.

The confusing part is why the global warming deniers would so instantly rush to him as verification of their views.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#39

Post by cgranade »

DaniFong wrote: post #18
Rod wrote: post #3

Quoting the great Bertrand Russell: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Interesting how so many people who know NOTHING about Science are SO sure that global warming is caused by man. Such dogma reminds me of the times of the 16th century Inquisition: no amount of evidence will ever convince the nutcase warmists that th…

In business, war, governance, love, and the climate, people are forced to make decisions based on sorely incomplete data because time is of the essence, and it is all they're ever going to get. If likely exaggeration is to be called out, so too are those who assert that doubt should necessarily imply inaction.

Well put. Looking at it slightly differently, what are the potential consequences of inaction, and what are the costs of action? Besides global warming itself, there are other consequences of inaction with respect to energy production issues that must be considered: health effects of pollutants, scarcity of fossil fuels, environmental damage in resource development, etc.

Trying to frame issues of energy production as "skepticism" versus "alarmism" betrays the complexity of the problems that we face. We cannot allow reasonable doubt to be equated with inaction, but we must take what steps we can with what we do know.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#40

Post by robotrout »

radu_floricica wrote: post #25
Rod wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?" No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation,…

At times like this I really wish there was no downvote button on HN. I might try to guess what the guy who downmodded you thought (that even non-specialists have the right to express their opinions? that lobbying is a legitimate activity?) but after all I'm left to guessing. Because in a vast majority of cases, people who downmod don't explain why. It's like throwing a rock through the window and running.

Lobbying IS a legitimate activity! I hate all the crap that I hear about the "evil lobbyists in Washington". They fulfill an important role.

To make an informed decision, which is what our politicians in Washington are supposed to do, not just respond to populism and mob voice, you need somebody to inform you. Lobbyists do that. That's their job. To inform congressmen and senators. What that politician does with that information, and how he verifies it's truth is another matter.

I suppose I would support your right to try to convince others to a point of view that you know nothing about. But in a better world than we live in, people would seriously question the wisdom of doing this, and talk about baseball instead.

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