Re: [Phys-L] Freeman Dyson in an interview

[Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@ieee.org>]

On 10/18/2015 9:50 AM, Savinainen Antti wrote:
> Hi,
>
> there is an e-mail interview in Independent conducted by Steve Connor: <http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/letters-to-a-heretic-an-email-conversation-with-climate-change-sceptic-professor-freeman-dyson-2224912.html>.  It is obvious that Dyson is a genius with many valuable contributions to physics. However, this does not mean that his (or anybody else's) views would be automatically valid outside his expertise.

Indeed. Note, however, that Dyson does not pretend to have climate 
modeling expertise but rather to have an understanding of the ways 
science is advanced, the weaknesses of models, and the ways the 
scientific community operates. Which he undoubtedly does. One does not 
need to be an expert in biology to understand Lysenkoism. Which brings 
me to another recent writeup from Matt Ridley ... not a climate expert 
yet certainly an expert on science politics and climate science politics 
in particular. The issue is not who is right on what climate detail, but 
rather how climate science community ostracizes dissenters, manipulates 
its data, hides or low-balls model uncertainties, and how it benefits 
from huge funding streams while attempting to starve dissenters.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/what-the-climate-wars-did-to-science.aspx


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