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The Global Warming Heretic

dogjones

Graduate Poster
dogjones
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1&em

snip

This also happens to be a fine description of Dyson’s own relationship to science. In the words of Avishai Margalit, a philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study, “He’s a consistent reminder of another possibility.” When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the “enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories,” these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.

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Seems one of those rare breeds, a genuine AGW skeptic rather than a denier.
 
He’s actually a common breed. All too often respected scientists in one area overstep their expertise and end up endorsing quackery. In fact it should actually be a big red flag to any skeptic whenever they see “a respected scientist” publicly entering a scientific debate when they have never published a paper on the topic.
 
lomiller said:
He’s actually a common breed. All too often respected scientists in one area overstep their expertise and end up endorsing quackery. In fact it should actually be a big red flag to any skeptic whenever they see “a respected scientist” publicly entering a scientific debate when they have never published a paper on the topic.
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Well said! It's a long way from cosmology to climatology.
 
Reading the article, I think it's a little more complex/subtle than that.
 
lomiller said:
He’s actually a common breed.
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if only we were so lucky.

All too often respected scientists in one area overstep their expertise and end up endorsing quackery. In fact it should actually be a big red flag to any skeptic whenever they see “a respected scientist” publicly entering a scientific debate when they have never published a paper on the topic.
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Dyson isn't your average idiot.
 
lomiller said:
He’s actually a common breed. All too often respected scientists in one area overstep their expertise and end up endorsing quackery. In fact it should actually be a big red flag to any skeptic whenever they see “a respected scientist” publicly entering a scientific debate when they have never published a paper on the topic.
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Edited for Rule 12 violation. Attack the argument.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky


Dyson delivered major contributions to QED, the fundamental basis of all radiation theories. He also actively researched on the effects of carbon in the atmosphere. All of which being, by an amazing coincidence, what the greenhouse effect is all about.
 
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EdipisReks said:
Dyson isn't your average idiot.
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He doesn't need to be...

climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism.
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First alert...

Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. “The biologists have essentially been pushed aside,” he continues.
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Actually, biologists are not only not been "pushed aside", they're observing and verifying predictions of the theory, like migration of ecosystems.

Dyson has said that it all boils down to “a deeper disagreement about values” between those who think “nature knows best” and that “any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil,” and “humanists,” like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.
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He's speaking as an ideologue, not as a scientist... I know the usual suspects will be all over him, until the next El Niño. Unfortunately by then much time will have been wasted by this manufactured controversy.
 
lomiller said:
He’s actually a common breed. All too often respected scientists in one area overstep their expertise and end up endorsing quackery. In fact it should actually be a big red flag to any skeptic whenever they see “a respected scientist” publicly entering a scientific debate when they have never published a paper on the topic.
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He's another example of the arrogance of ignorance.

Nice chap, but still, way out of his area of expertise.
 
EdipisReks said:
Dyson isn't your average idiot.
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When he goes outside his field of expertise, then sadly he is. How often have we heard the refrain “but X is brilliant, so we should just ignore the fact they don’t have any expertise relevant to the topic at hand and just believe them”
 
billydkid said:
He is not even close to being alone as a genuine AGW skeptic. Unfortunately, anyone who questions AGW orthodoxy is tarred with the "denier" epithet. The issue is not nearly as cut and dried as most people seem to believe.
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That’s the type of claim that really needs to be backed up with real papers published in real journals, otherwise it starts to sound a lot like “the scientific establishment is against us and surprising our evidence” used by every crank and crackpot who ever took their case to the internet.

A real skeptic will judge a scientific debate by the published literature not the people or the blogs, and the papers are indeed heavily one sided on this issue.
 
One could say monolithic.

The most credible critic is Pielke Sr and he merely questions that looking at CO2 alone is insufficient.

From Pielke's site

“Carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change, Gurney said.”

Climate Science agrees with this statement as it accurately reflects that the atmospheric concentrations of this gas is the one undergoing the most change from the pre-industrial atmosphere.
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and he has much to add in this area

What is a critically important next step, however, is to do the same kind of analysis for the other human climate forcings including inventories of the input into the atmosphere and locations of deposition of human-caused aerosols including sulphates, nitrogen compounds and soot, as well as of the alteration of the landscape by human management in terms of how the surface fluxes of heat, moisture, momentum and trace gases such as carbon dioxide are altered.
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I agree with Pielke especially on aerosols and so does NASA which indicates that is the area most in need of additional research.

Dyson is past best by date I'm afraid....85 and fading....

THIS is the consensus from those active IN the field

97% of active climatologists agree that human activity is causing global warming
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http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/97_of_active_climatologists_ag.php
 
billydkid said:
He is not even close to being alone as a genuine AGW skeptic. Unfortunately, anyone who questions AGW orthodoxy is tarred with the "denier" epithet. The issue is not nearly as cut and dried as most people seem to believe.
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A denier is someone who will believe anything on AGW science, as long as it is not the accepted science as it stands, no matter how inane or loopy it is. A good test is Gerlich and T, or Miscolczi. Believe in them, and you are a denier.
 
I'd hazard a guess that Dyson has at least 20% more intelligence and integrity than anyone on this forum.
I've noticed a similar reaction to him that there was to Anthony Flew.
Well.. they're both old. If you're old you're not gonna be bothered about fitting in to the acceptable cosy consensus.
If you're old you're going to be more liable to just speak the truth. Think deathbed confessions.
 
macdoc said:
THIS is the consensus from those active IN the field

97% of active climatologists agree that human activity is causing global warming
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http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/97_of_active_climatologists_ag.php
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The statement is fraud. The actual question has been:

Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
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The methodology of running and evaluating the survey is pretty questionable.
 
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