Freeman Dyson: Global Warming Heretic
Apparently Freeman Dyson (yes, that Freeman Dyson) doesn't buy into the hype on global warming:
My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
Read the whole thing. I'll just say this...when you're arguing against as prominent a scientist as Dyson, you'd better have more convincing evidence than just computer models and selective real-world data (i.e. - citing declines in specific polar bear populations without noting that globally, polar bear populations are actually rising).
I really liked this bit as well:
As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.
Folks like Freeman actually make me look forward to being a cranky old man. Not that I would suggest that I have anything like his level of intellect, but there's definitely something admirable about the "I don't give a damn" irascibility that comes with age.
There's also this:
When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than relying on computer models.
I think that captures the essence of the problem rather well. We have, today, a group of scientists, and the politicians who agree with them, who are demanding that we take draconian action on the basis of their asserted predictions of doom. Predictions which are based on computer models that do not adequately model real processes on our real planet, and whose inputs are based on a comparatively limited set of data. If it weren't for the fact that the liberal media agrees with them, these folks would've been laughed off the stage years ago.
Edge: HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY By Freeman Dyson via BoingBoing