The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson • Hacker News Board

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#61

Post by FictiveEvan » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:43 AM UTC

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.

AKA the virtue of phronesis, as described by Aristotle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#62

Post by FictiveEvan » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:53 AM UTC

ruby_roo wrote: post #12

I personally feel that it is better to err on the side of caution in regards to global warming. I say "feel" because I'm just not smart enough to navigate fact from fiction on this issue anymore. There's going to be extremes on both sides, but I don't see what we have to gain by not taking better care of our planet. Even if global warming is only partially manmade, shouldn't we do what we can to minimize the effect?…

I read of an interesting thought experiment once - a way to take the moral judgment out of the anthropogenic global warming debate. Imagine that there were never fossil fuels or elevated CO2 levels. Now imagine that scientists have (somehow) determined that the sun has suddenly increased its energy output in such a way that would exactly mimic on this imaginary planet, the proposed effect of elevated CO2 on our planet (this turns out to be about a 0.3% increase in output).

Would this discovery warrant massively restructuring the world economy by central decree in an attempt to counteract the sun? The spending of billions (trillions?) of dollars? These are the decisions you are making when you err on the side of caution.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#63

Post by joeyo » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:58 AM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #57

cgranade wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not science? Better tell the computer scientists and the computational physicists... Science is, at its most basic, our attempt to understand the world. As such, science employs many different tools and approaches, including numerical modeling. In particular. numerical analysis is a very well understood field of mathematics that allows us to rigorously analyze complicated problems by using one of the most innovative…

I'm not saying models aren't tools of science. They are very important. However, the most important part of science is the part about independently recreating and verifying results. You simply cannot do that with long range climate models without waiting for that time to elapse and seeing if the model predicted what it was supposed to predict. I'm not saying the models are wrong, or that climate change doesn't exist.…

It sounds like you are arguing that science needs to be observational to be "real." I'd argue that science needs both observations and theory and that either half alone is incomplete. Think of the models as a manifestation of the theory. It would be nice if you could solve a set of equations for the atmosphere in closed form, wouldn't it? But you can't so you run a numerical simulation.

Anyway, it's hardly surprising that so much effort has gone into theoretical climate science, since, as you observed, it's difficult running a controlled experiment with the atmosphere.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#64

Post by raintrees » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 4:14 AM UTC

robotrout wrote: post #40

radu_floricica wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Aren't many lobbyists resembling the "might makes right" practices? From what little I understand so far, there is quite a bit of money involved, and decisions do not always seem to be as honest and altruistic when the amounts get large enough.

And aren't the politicians replacing responding to populism and mob voice with the loudest voices nearest them? Especially those that may finance the politicians' agendas?

I am frequently bewildered by some of the decisions made and enacted/codified into law, and must conclude that I obviously do not understand all of the agendas being served in those instances.

It is beginning to seem to me that the current lobbying system is akin to the current union system in that it may no longer be as beneficial as it once was in its current form.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#65

Post by dangoldin » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:01 AM UTC

raintrees wrote: post #64

robotrout wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Aren't many lobbyists resembling the "might makes right" practices? From what little I understand so far, there is quite a bit of money involved, and decisions do not always seem to be as honest and altruistic when the amounts get large enough. And aren't the politicians replacing responding to populism and mob voice with the loudest voices nearest them? Especially those that may finance the politicians' agendas? I a…

I agree with you. It seems in this day and age if you wanted to find some information about a topic you cared about you could gather enough information online or by asking some experts. Lobbyists tend to have a biased opinion.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#66

Post by dangoldin » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:03 AM UTC

anamax wrote: post #44

cgranade wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how much we spend on entertainment and other luxuries, is it really fair to say call spending money on what is likely essential to the preservation of our species "literally stealing food and medicine from people's mouths?" Hell, given what we spend on killing each other over oil and religion, how is it that spending money on understanding and dealing with climate change is stealing? In the United States alone,…

> even a few of those billions could make the difference between action and inaction on climate change. Really? If we spent $20B on global warming you'd go away happy? > is it really fair to say call spending money on what is likely essential to the preservation of our species Interestingly enough, if you read the cost estimates from the advocates, it's reasonably cheap to deal with the problem after it occurs, at le…

With deflation it just might happen.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#67

Post by endtime » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:13 AM UTC

logjam wrote: post #9

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…

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.

Rod's comment didn't seem biased, but yours sure does.

Not intended as a flame, of course - just trying to point out that you are kind of proving his point.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#68

Post by nkurz » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:17 AM UTC

shrughes wrote: post #27

hhm wrote: post #6

"A group of scientists will be sitting around the cafeteria, and one will idly wonder if there is an integer where, if you take its last digit and move it to the front, turning, say, 112 to 211, it’s possible to exactly double the value. Dyson will immediately say, “Oh, that’s not difficult,” allow two short beats to pass and then add, “but of course the smallest such number is 18 digits long.”" So how did he know th…

Because the decimal expansion of 19 repeats after 18 digits. That means all the fractions 1/19 .. 18/19 are just rotations of each other. And 20/19 = 1 + 1/19, which means that 2/19 is a single rotation away. If you've ever noticed that 142857 * [1..6] produces different rotations of the same number and wondered why, you might have thought about this. Dyson had probably already done all the hard work on the problem a…

Thanks for the insight. I wouldn't have noticed any similarity to the multiples of 1/19. Accepting this, though, is there a reason it would have been obvious to him that there was no smaller number?

The first such number, by the way, does indeed have 18 digits. I got there by considering every final digit and figuring out how long the string needed to be before the final digit reoccurred with no carry.

(edit: oops, just read your explanation below which pretty much answers this)

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#69

Post by robotrout » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:31 AM UTC

samas wrote: post #56

Unless I am mistaken, acidification of the oceans has been demonstrated. So has the loss of large volumes of fresh water stored in glaciers, as well as the loss of coastal land as sea level rises. Natural systems are fragile, and we continue to poke and push them, with damages (for example, loss of biodiversity) that are not clearly obvious and that are in many cases simply irreparable. I won't belabor this point, al…

With all due respect, I could have cut and pasted your post from any global warming website. I note this is your first comment on this group. Did you come just for this topic?

In this utopia you describe, you neglect to explain what miraculous devices will produce this infinite energy supply. I think that's an important point that you left out. If you're wrong on that point, then we've hurt people for nothing, right?

Since we're cutting and pasting from web sites, let me just paste the following from http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html , Everything else is just philosophy.

________________

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

Re: The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

#70

Post by shrughes » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:36 AM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #68

shrughes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the decimal expansion of 19 repeats after 18 digits. That means all the fractions 1/19 .. 18/19 are just rotations of each other. And 20/19 = 1 + 1/19, which means that 2/19 is a single rotation away. If you've ever noticed that 142857 * [1..6] produces different rotations of the same number and wondered why, you might have thought about this. Dyson had probably already done all the hard work on the problem a…

Thanks for the insight. I wouldn't have noticed any similarity to the multiples of 1/19. Accepting this, though, is there a reason it would have been obvious to him that there was no smaller number? The first such number, by the way, does indeed have 18 digits. I got there by considering every final digit and figuring out how long the string needed to be before the final digit reoccurred with no carry. (edit: oops, j…

Well, since you asked for an obvious reason, and not a completely separate derivation, here it is.

The process of rotating a repeating decimal expansion x by 1 digit means adding some integer n and dividing by 10.

(n + x) / 10 = 2x

Simplifying, n = 19x, i.e. x = n/19. So you know the number has to correspond to a decimal expansion of n/19, which is 18 digits in length.