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The criticisms in this thread of Dyson’s wrongthink on climate science show us a lot about the current moment and how hard it is to have an opinion outside of t

The criticisms in this thread of Dyson’s wrongthink on climate science show us a lot about the current moment and how hard it is to have an opinion outside of the mainstream. Sure, he appears to be quite incorrect now, but dismissing a mind of the caliber of Dyson’s because he got this one thing wrong is pedantic. And yes, he did appear to get this one extremely wrong, but that should not overshadow his amazing ideas and all of the things he got right. Ideas like Dyson Spheres, nuclear explosion based space travel, and many other Dyson ideas were just as outside of the standard deviations of thought as climate change denial at the time he came up with them. It appears extremely popular right now to disregard an entire human’s work over an apparently incorrect opinion. Freeman Dyson is a great example of why this is probably a bad idea.

kthxbye123 6y ago
There are no Dyson spheres or nuclear powered spaceships, but there are a hell of a lot of climate deniers. If we’re weighing what part of his legacy, the part that had a negative effect on a very real crisis of human suffering is going to weigh heavier than some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi
- wbronitsky 6y ago
  I would argue that it is inaccurate to summarize Freeman Dyson’s work as “some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
  - ultramundane8 6y ago
    I don't know a lot about Freeman Dyson so I read that article, but don't quite get it yet. So he was a very outspoken mathematician and physicist, and people like his sci-fi ideas? Regardless, blaming all critique on a "current moment" is utterly nonsensical. Edit: op said "current moment," I incorrectly recalled it as "cultural moment."
epistasis 6y ago
It's not "one thing wrong" it's just a dude not even bothering to learn research before dismissing it all as wrong. And then being proven wrong because he was being anti-scientific. It just happens to be the most critical challenge to humanity of this century, and he stupidly used his social power to undermine the science. Call "wrong think" as if it wasn't actually a terrible disservice to humanity and just being political. But it was actually wrong, both scientifically, morally, ethically, and gives future contrarians more difficulty. This worship of personalities is very bad for science. We should prioritize data and ways to understand the data. Paying attention to misplaced authority is how we get lysenkoism.
- roenxi 6y ago
  The most critical challenge humans are facing this century is the quite reasonable scenario where we start to run out of fossil fuels. We're consuming them at a faster rate than we are discovering them and literally all our systems currently depend on fossil fuel consumption.
  - spikels 6y ago
    This theory is commonly called “Peak Oil” and has been repeatedly been debunked in practice since it was first proposed in the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Predictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Predictions While certainly the quantity of fossil fuels is finite. It is unlikely we will ever “run out of fossil fuels” because the price will simply increase as supplies begin to run low. Then two things will happen: we will consume less and expand the scope of production to more expensive source. This has already happened repeatedly over the history of the fossil fuel industry.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > has been repeatedly been debunked in practice... You say debunked, then link to a table with a near total consensus that we'll have hit peak oil by 2060. The exception being the EIA putting out 2067 as a stretch goal. That is not a table of crackpots, that is groups like the World Bank, IEA, Shell, etc. Debunked usually means 'disproven', not 'consensus position'. > Then two things will happen: we will consume less and expand the scope of production to more expensive source. Either of those outcomes are a bigger threat than climate change. > This has already happened repeatedly over the history of the fossil fuel industry. We haven't ever hit peak oil before.
jolux 6y ago
I’ll listen to him about physics but that doesn’t mean I have to give him any credit for what he thinks about climate. Incredibly smart people are still wrong about stuff all the time, being smart does not mean everything you have to say is worth listening to.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  On the other hand, I'm right about everything.
  - jolux 6y ago
    You’re right enough, certainly :)
- jacobedawson 6y ago
  Well said, the halo effect is real.
chrisco255 6y ago
Dyson's arguments on climate are still quite valid. Climate has always been variable, never static, and CO2 is incredibly beneficial for plant growth. Climate models are inherently flawed. They do not model clouds or biological systems well at all. They are forecasts of nonlinear, dynamic systems for which uncertainty is an exponential function of time. Listen to his arguments: https://youtu.be/Pou3sGedeK4 https://youtu.be/Pou3sGedeK4
- titzer 6y ago
  First three minutes of his talk: the real world is messy and muddy and you can't use models to make predictions. Minute five: if we convert all of the excess CO2 in the air into soil, we'll need to add 1/10th of an inch of topsoil per year. "Therefore I conclude that the CO2 problem is one primarily of land management." After berating climate scientists for using mathematical models for using fluid dynamics (driven by huge supercomputers), he turns around and does a back-of-the-envelope calculation like this. It was so disappointing to listen to a brilliant person utterly fail at self-reflection. As for the rest of your argument, there are books and books and books that address all of it point by point. As for nonlinear systems, your trillion-cell body is beyond my comprehension to understand or predict a day or two in advance. However, I predict you will be dead in 90 years. I also predict it will be cold in winter and warm in summer. Do you understand that models are layered and not all inputs are the same?
  - dlo 6y ago
    > As for the rest of your argument, there are books and books and books that address all of it point by point. Can you name a few?
    - titzer 6y ago
      Ok to be fair searching for a good reference specifically in book form isn't as efficient as turning up articles and websites. For the "models are inherently reliable" schtick (holy heck, where would be if every field of science had motivated trolls jumping out of the woodwork to decry "models"--ffs the dynamics of a single atom--let alone molecule--are still based on models that need to be calibrated and make predictions)...please have a gander at how climate models are constructed and cross-validated. A good reference is https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm. It'd be great if we could instead take a look at how much computational power and painstaking care has gone into tuning and analyzing models. One important technique is that a model must be able to reconstruct the past based on limited data. That's one useful check that they aren't just generating complete garbage, but actually model some important underlying system dynamics. I do not work on climate models but I do work on performance of computer systems and after having a look at the math and modeling that goes into climate I can confidently say that we understand climate better than we understand the performance of computer systems which we designed and built ourselves. As for the "CO2 is incredibly beneficial to plants"...people also test this and it turns out not as much as claimed, there are other limiting factors, like Nitrogen, and oh by the way, that all assumes that they are not significantly negatively affected by climate change as well. A good reference, from actual experts, here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-d.... The truth is that nobody is seriously jazzed about more CO2 somehow increasing crop production. Which really shows how outdated and simplistic Dyson's thinking was.
paganel 6y ago
> how hard it is to have an opinion outside of the mainstream. You can very easily have an opinion outside of the mainstream, but when that opinion turns out to be wrong then don't expect people to treat you as a smart person anymore or even as a "genius" (to quote the BBC).
- jariel 6y ago
  ? Geniuses are wrong all the time. In fact, anyone taking a speculative line of inquiry, with any vigour, will by definition, 'be wrong' probably quite a lot. Especially if they have to pursue the subject alone, it with a million 'opponents' who are such due as much to ideology than anything else. Every 'genius' you care to mention will have been 'very wrong' about many things, but because they were 'wrong' about issues that weren't politicized, we don't care. Dyson is the opposite of a hack, and probably not ideological about whatever it is he wants to talk about ... ... these are exactly the kinds of geniuses we shouldn't mind 'being wrong'. We need more Dysons, not fewer.
agumonkey 6y ago
is the evolution of humanity an oscillation around 1-2 std dev ?

kthxbye123 6y ago

There are no Dyson spheres or nuclear powered spaceships, but there are a hell of a lot of climate deniers. If we’re weighing what part of his legacy, the part that had a negative effect on a very real crisis of human suffering is going to weigh heavier than some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi

wbronitsky 6y ago
I would argue that it is inaccurate to summarize Freeman Dyson’s work as “some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
- ultramundane8 6y ago
  I don't know a lot about Freeman Dyson so I read that article, but don't quite get it yet. So he was a very outspoken mathematician and physicist, and people like his sci-fi ideas? Regardless, blaming all critique on a "current moment" is utterly nonsensical. Edit: op said "current moment," I incorrectly recalled it as "cultural moment."

epistasis 6y ago

It's not "one thing wrong" it's just a dude not even bothering to learn research before dismissing it all as wrong. And then being proven wrong because he was being anti-scientific. It just happens to be the most critical challenge to humanity of this century, and he stupidly used his social power to undermine the science. Call "wrong think" as if it wasn't actually a terrible disservice to humanity and just being political. But it was actually wrong, both scientifically, morally, ethically, and gives future contrarians more difficulty. This worship of personalities is very bad for science. We should prioritize data and ways to understand the data. Paying attention to misplaced authority is how we get lysenkoism.

roenxi 6y ago
The most critical challenge humans are facing this century is the quite reasonable scenario where we start to run out of fossil fuels. We're consuming them at a faster rate than we are discovering them and literally all our systems currently depend on fossil fuel consumption.
- spikels 6y ago
  This theory is commonly called “Peak Oil” and has been repeatedly been debunked in practice since it was first proposed in the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Predictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Predictions While certainly the quantity of fossil fuels is finite. It is unlikely we will ever “run out of fossil fuels” because the price will simply increase as supplies begin to run low. Then two things will happen: we will consume less and expand the scope of production to more expensive source. This has already happened repeatedly over the history of the fossil fuel industry.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > has been repeatedly been debunked in practice... You say debunked, then link to a table with a near total consensus that we'll have hit peak oil by 2060. The exception being the EIA putting out 2067 as a stretch goal. That is not a table of crackpots, that is groups like the World Bank, IEA, Shell, etc. Debunked usually means 'disproven', not 'consensus position'. > Then two things will happen: we will consume less and expand the scope of production to more expensive source. Either of those outcomes are a bigger threat than climate change. > This has already happened repeatedly over the history of the fossil fuel industry. We haven't ever hit peak oil before.

jolux 6y ago

I’ll listen to him about physics but that doesn’t mean I have to give him any credit for what he thinks about climate. Incredibly smart people are still wrong about stuff all the time, being smart does not mean everything you have to say is worth listening to.

WalterBright 6y ago
On the other hand, I'm right about everything.
- jolux 6y ago
  You’re right enough, certainly :)
jacobedawson 6y ago
Well said, the halo effect is real.

chrisco255 6y ago

Dyson's arguments on climate are still quite valid. Climate has always been variable, never static, and CO2 is incredibly beneficial for plant growth. Climate models are inherently flawed. They do not model clouds or biological systems well at all. They are forecasts of nonlinear, dynamic systems for which uncertainty is an exponential function of time. Listen to his arguments: https://youtu.be/Pou3sGedeK4 https://youtu.be/Pou3sGedeK4

titzer 6y ago
First three minutes of his talk: the real world is messy and muddy and you can't use models to make predictions. Minute five: if we convert all of the excess CO2 in the air into soil, we'll need to add 1/10th of an inch of topsoil per year. "Therefore I conclude that the CO2 problem is one primarily of land management." After berating climate scientists for using mathematical models for using fluid dynamics (driven by huge supercomputers), he turns around and does a back-of-the-envelope calculation like this. It was so disappointing to listen to a brilliant person utterly fail at self-reflection. As for the rest of your argument, there are books and books and books that address all of it point by point. As for nonlinear systems, your trillion-cell body is beyond my comprehension to understand or predict a day or two in advance. However, I predict you will be dead in 90 years. I also predict it will be cold in winter and warm in summer. Do you understand that models are layered and not all inputs are the same?
- dlo 6y ago
  > As for the rest of your argument, there are books and books and books that address all of it point by point. Can you name a few?
  - titzer 6y ago
    Ok to be fair searching for a good reference specifically in book form isn't as efficient as turning up articles and websites. For the "models are inherently reliable" schtick (holy heck, where would be if every field of science had motivated trolls jumping out of the woodwork to decry "models"--ffs the dynamics of a single atom--let alone molecule--are still based on models that need to be calibrated and make predictions)...please have a gander at how climate models are constructed and cross-validated. A good reference is https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm. It'd be great if we could instead take a look at how much computational power and painstaking care has gone into tuning and analyzing models. One important technique is that a model must be able to reconstruct the past based on limited data. That's one useful check that they aren't just generating complete garbage, but actually model some important underlying system dynamics. I do not work on climate models but I do work on performance of computer systems and after having a look at the math and modeling that goes into climate I can confidently say that we understand climate better than we understand the performance of computer systems which we designed and built ourselves. As for the "CO2 is incredibly beneficial to plants"...people also test this and it turns out not as much as claimed, there are other limiting factors, like Nitrogen, and oh by the way, that all assumes that they are not significantly negatively affected by climate change as well. A good reference, from actual experts, here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-d.... The truth is that nobody is seriously jazzed about more CO2 somehow increasing crop production. Which really shows how outdated and simplistic Dyson's thinking was.

paganel 6y ago

> how hard it is to have an opinion outside of the mainstream. You can very easily have an opinion outside of the mainstream, but when that opinion turns out to be wrong then don't expect people to treat you as a smart person anymore or even as a "genius" (to quote the BBC).

jariel 6y ago
? Geniuses are wrong all the time. In fact, anyone taking a speculative line of inquiry, with any vigour, will by definition, 'be wrong' probably quite a lot. Especially if they have to pursue the subject alone, it with a million 'opponents' who are such due as much to ideology than anything else. Every 'genius' you care to mention will have been 'very wrong' about many things, but because they were 'wrong' about issues that weren't politicized, we don't care. Dyson is the opposite of a hack, and probably not ideological about whatever it is he wants to talk about ... ... these are exactly the kinds of geniuses we shouldn't mind 'being wrong'. We need more Dysons, not fewer.

agumonkey 6y ago

is the evolution of humanity an oscillation around 1-2 std dev ?