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  1. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    09-14-2011, 12:13 PM #31
    Here: I'll start one off for you.

    The Civil Heretic

    FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince*ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.

    But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.” Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the “high priest of string theory” whose office at the institute is just across the hall from Dyson’s. Yet instead of hewing to that fundamental field, Dyson chose to pursue broader and more unusual pursuits than most physicists — and has lived a more original life.

    Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart.

    Yet even while probing and sifting, Dyson is always whimsically gazing into the beyond. As a boy he sketched plans for English rocket ships that could explore the stars, and then, in midlife, he helped design an American spacecraft to be powered by exploding atomic bombs — a secret Air Force project known as Orion. Dyson remains an armchair astronaut who speculates with glee about the coming of cheap space travel, when families can leave an overcrowded earth to homestead on asteroids and comets, swooping around the universe via solar sail craft. Dyson is convinced that our current “age of computers” will soon give way to “the age of domesticated biotechnology.” Bio-tech, he writes in his book, “Infinite in All Directions” (1988), “offers us the chance to imitate nature’s speed and flexibility,” and he imagines the furniture and art that people will “grow” for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will “grow” for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car.

    These ideas attract derision similar to Dyson’s essays on climate change, but he is an undeterred octogenarian futurist. “I don’t think of myself predicting things,” he says. “I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen. To a large extent it’s a question of how badly people want them to. The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.” Formed in a heretical and broad-thinking tradition of British public intellectuals, Dyson left behind a brooding England still stricken by two bloody world wars to become an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament. And according to the physicist and former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity. “You point Freeman at a problem and he’ll solve it,” Goldberger says. “He’s extraordinarily powerful.” Dyson seems to see the world as an interdisciplinary set of problems out there for him to evaluate. Climate change is the big scientific issue of our time, so naturally he finds it irresistible. But to Dyson this is really only one more charged conundrum attracting his interest just as nuclear weapons and rural poverty have. That is to say, he is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.

    Dyson is well aware that “most consider me wrong about global warming.” That educated Americans tend to agree with the conclusion about global warming reached earlier this month at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (“inaction is inexcusable”) only increases Dyson’s resistance. Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus. The Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg admires Dyson’s physics — he says he thinks the Nobel committee fleeced him by not awarding his work on quantum electrodynamics with the prize — but Weinberg parts ways with his sensibility: “I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice.”

    Page 2 of 8 starts here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/ma...d=2&sq=Freeman

  2. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    09-14-2011, 12:43 PM #32
    "Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

    Well said Michael Crichton.

  3. Atypical is offline
    09-14-2011, 04:00 PM #33
    "Well said Michael Crichton".

    Your constant use of sources that you think make your point show your overwhelming ignorance of anything more than superficial, unfounded opinions that are satisfying to you.

    All I have ever seen from you is to gloat over finding something, anything, with which to attack facts that you don’t agree with, a puerile pursuit. One needs extensive, detailed, professionally recognized (peer reviewed) and objective sources to begin to truly understand anything. Your avoidance of these standards strongly indicates that you are, apparently happily, enamored of your stupidity. Of course, you view it as ‘enlightened’.

    Stephen Hawking had a theory, held for approximately twenty years, that he now admits was wrong. Other physicists hold him only in average esteem, contrary to the public’s perception.

    Linus Pauling, highly respected, thought that vitamin C could, in large enough doses, cure many serious diseases. He was wrong.

    Michael Crichton, whom you quote approvingly, was an MD, but ignorant of climate science in the extreme.

    Around twenty years ago there were two physicists that achieved a short-lived celebrity due to their announcement that they had discovered a process for ‘cold fusion’. Some scientists were ‘intrigued’. It was, of course, baloney and was debunked finally.

    Those with significant education in one field can be stupid in another. And, of course, they can be wrong in their own field as well.

    I am trying not to be personal about this. You and I have talked in other threads and I find you to be, seemingly, a nice guy. But where objective facts, complex details and competent people are required, you know almost nothing. You’ve said you are not well read. And what you do know is probably accidental. Your rejection of ‘liberal’ sources for information whenever they are used is appalling, and exposes your fanaticism. You always assume that ‘bias’ is deadly (when it’s liberal) and undermines validity. And you see it everywhere. Yes and sometimes no. I have said previously that the accuracy of data is all that matters. You say that conservative points of view should be considered but are unable to debate their validity beyond saying, see, here are opposing views so you’re wrong. Your position is worth nothing.

    Humans are capable of reason and analysis but thinking competently is difficult. Truth is all that matters and identifying it difficult as well. You see simplicity.

    Human psychology is heavily involved in decisions that people make. Our brain is wired to make decisions quickly for survival purposes. Unfortunately, this useful ability in certain areas can cause serious problems in others.

    You obviously think that your side saying something makes it so, aside from all of the obstacles to clear thinking that exists for everyone. I recognize that which is why I believe nothing until it is validated overwhelmingly. Until that happens I remain skeptical and open to review.

    I know that you will not see any merit in what I say. You have done so before. And I know why. I am obviously a biased liberal and undeserving of any respect. I understand. It supports your emotional needs.

    So I’m glad I could make you happy today. You’re welcome.
    Last edited by Atypical; 09-17-2011 at 07:00 PM.

  4. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    09-14-2011, 08:07 PM #34
    Thanks for your assessment Atypical. Candidly speaking, you miss the mark on all counts. I don't know a thing about climate change. I don't follow it. I don't endorse or reject it. I simply provided our mutual friend Hava-gafa-kasha some contrary points of view.

    We should be good stewards of the Earth.

    Liberal sources have an agenda. Why would you believe anything from a conservative site? Would you lend credit to a point of view from a conservative site? Doubtful. Very doubtful. You may even qualify as a hypocrite from that perspective. You even have two dedicated threads that are "anti conservative" - as if you accept bias. You tend to throw the word "ideologue" around when in fact, you cannot see that you may qualify as well.

    So however eloquant you assessment is, you and I will always disagree because you don't repect anything thoughts remotely "conservative", and I reject most thoughts "liberal". C'est la vie.

    By the way, I am a very nice guy. I simply don't believe government is a solution to our problems, and that government / politics may in fact BE the problem. I believe that you and I are the solutions to our problems, and lastly, the only emotional need I have is to have my wife of 25 years tell me she loves me once in a while. That was, pardon my language, a stupid ass remark on your behalf.

    It is you who truly believes he is enlightened. You have said that. Many would think you are the stupid one - accepting only those things that agree with your political agenda, but I know a little better. You are a well informed individual whose discourse I consider seriously - we simply are political opposites. C'est la vie.

    You're welcome.

    One more thing, I think the late Michael Crichton is qualified to talk about science in general, and that was what the quote was about. I don't know what you have acheived in life, but achieving the qualification of MD is meritous.

  5. Havakasha is offline
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    09-14-2011, 08:36 PM #35
    Well said Atypical.

    "I am trying not to be personal about this. You and I have talked in other threads and I find you to be, seemingly, a nice guy. But where objective facts, complex details and competent people are required, you know almost nothing. You’ve said you are not well read. And what you do know is probably accidental. Your rejection of ‘liberal’ sources for information whenever they are used is appalling, and exposes your fanaticism. You always assume that ‘bias’ is deadly (when it’s liberal) and undermines validity. And you see it everywhere. Yes and sometimes no. I have said previously that the accuracy of data is all that matters. You say that conservative points of view should be considered but are unable to debate their validity beyond saying, see, here are opposing views so you’re wrong. Your position is worth nothing."

    S&L you have STILL NOT answered my basic questions. Of course i am not surprised. Typically when you have been faced with a losing argument
    (such as when discussing Peter Schiff economic predicitons) your method is to ignore the questions posed to you; ignore the evidence that overwhelms your argument; or claim you dont have an opinion.

  6. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    09-14-2011, 08:43 PM #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Havakasha View Post
    S&L you have STILL NOT answered my basic questions. Of course i am not surprised. Typically when you have been faced with a losing argument
    (such as when discussing Peter Schiff economic predicitons) your method is to ignore the questions posed to you; ignore the evidence that overwhelms your argument; or claim you dont have an opinion.
    LMFAO.

    Let's go back to this

    "I hear you. I quess this is an argument over semantics. There are CLEARLY significant differences between President Obama, and former President Clinton, and the Republicans in Congress today."

    http://siriusbuzz.com/forum/showthre...all-Businesses

    Atypical owns you lol.

  7. Havakasha is offline
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    09-14-2011, 09:56 PM #37
    Stick to the topic S&L. I understand that its your modus operandi to change the topic
    when you are on the losing end of an argument, but try to take some personal
    responsibility for being wrong.

    According to the evidence i provided 98% of climate scientists line up on one side of the argument. For whatever ideological reason you seem to want to believe the other 2%. Your "evidence" is
    pretty slim pickings woudln't you agree? Stop quoting physicists, and MD's on climate change. Silly. You promised me reputable Climate Scientists. Im so damn disappointed. LMFAO.

    From Politifact a non partisan prize winning organization:
    "IT IS NOT FAIR TO SAY 'THE SCIENCE IS IN DISPUTE', AS IF THERE ARE GOOD ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES. RATHER, THERE IS SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE CONTRIBUTING TO GLOBAL WARMING. WE RATE HIS (PAWLENTY'S) STATEMENT FALSE."

    "To summarize: BASED ON OUR RESEARCH, THERE IS VERY LITTLE DISPUTE IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY AMONG CLIMATE SCIENTISTS ON WHETHER CLIMATE CHANGE IS PRIMARILY CAUSED BY NATURAL OR MAN-MADE FORCES. The overwhelming majority of scientists polled feel that human activity is the primary driver of climate change. Also, based on scientific studies by the IPCC and others, global warming over the past 50 years has been primarily driven by human activity.

    Based upon the preponderance of evidence we conclude that Tim Pawlenty’s claims are both incorrect and misleading to the public, who may not be familiar with the science behind climate change. It is not "fair to say the science is in dispute," as if there are good arguments on both sides. Rather, there is significant scientific consensus that human beings are contributing to global warming. We rate his statement False.
    We looked into the work of the most prominent and best credentialed people who have questioned the IPCC’s conclusions on global warming. Generally speaking, even these scientists do not claim that humans are making no contribution at all to rising temperatures. Rather, they tend to make more nuanced points. They question whether carbon emissions alone are driving up temperatures, or whether other human activities contribute as well. They question whether extreme weather events such as storms or floods can be conclusively linked to rising temperatures. And, they question whether significant changes to public policy are necessary as a means of coping with rising temperatures."


    P.S. The following are the basic questions Siriusly Long CONTINUES to avoid, just as he avoided responding to all the many wrong economic predictions Peter Schiff made over the years. I believe there is a pattern developing.

    "Are you telling me that you dont know if man has anything to do with the warming of the planet? Or are you telling me you dont know if the planet is warming? Are you also telling me that you dont know if the earth is cooling (that's looney tunes John's position)?"

    Still waiting.......
    Last edited by Havakasha; 09-14-2011 at 10:38 PM.

  8. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    09-15-2011, 08:43 AM #38
    Quote Originally Posted by SiriuslyLong View Post
    LMFAO.

    Let's go back to this

    "I hear you. I quess this is an argument over semantics. There are CLEARLY significant differences between President Obama, and former President Clinton, and the Republicans in Congress today."

    http://siriusbuzz.com/forum/showthre...all-Businesses

    Atypical owns you lol.
    If you read above, you would see this, " I don't know a thing about climate change. I don't follow it. I don't endorse or reject it."

    Why is it so hard for you to comprehend what is written? The answer to your long sought after question is right there.

    So now can we talk about Atypical owning you?

  9. Havakasha is offline
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    09-15-2011, 09:42 PM #39
    If you didnt have an opinion on climate change you wouldnt be trying so hard to provide information to "refute" it, and you wouldnt be refusing to acknowledge the well researched and well written piece by Politifact.com. Since you "dont know a thing about climate change" i would have thought a reading of the POLITIFACT articlewould demonstrate to you in a common sense way that what I say about climate scientists is true. In addition I dont suppose you remember commenting in the past that the Earth's atmosphere was way too large for it to be seriously affected by pollution? You seemed to have a predisposition back then to oppose climate change.
    In summation, I dont believe that you "dont know" or care to know a "thing about climate change". We all know how passionately you argue all kinds of subjects you know VERY LITTLE ABOUT. lol. Sorry but what you say dont pass the smell test. Good try though. lmfao.


    I asked you 3 basic questions about the subject. "Are you telling me that you dont know if man has anything to do with the warming of the planet? Or are you telling me you dont know if the planet is warming? Are you also telling me that you dont know if the earth is cooling (that's looney tunes John's position)?"

    Still waiting.......

    P.S. I think Atypical schools you on a regular basis and definitely owns YOU.

    I think he has you pegged in this following description. It may seem harsh to you
    but I feel sorry for you if you cant see even a bit of yourself in this description.

    "I am trying not to be personal about this. You and I have talked in other threads and I find you to be, seemingly, a nice guy. But where objective facts, complex details and competent people are required, you know almost nothing. You’ve said you are not well read. And what you do know is probably accidental. Your rejection of ‘liberal’ sources for information whenever they are used is appalling, and exposes your fanaticism. You always assume that ‘bias’ is deadly (when it’s liberal) and undermines validity. And you see it everywhere. Yes and sometimes no. I have said previously that the accuracy of data is all that matters. You say that conservative points of view should be considered but are unable to debate their validity beyond saying, see, here are opposing views so you’re wrong. Your position is worth nothing."
    Last edited by Havakasha; 09-16-2011 at 10:03 AM.

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