Freeman
Dyson is a 91-year-old theoretical physicist who was a contemporary of
Einstein at Princeton, has received multiple international awards for
his scientific efforts, and has published numerous books and papers on
a wide range of topics.
“That
is to me the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific
mystery but a human mystery. How does
it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to
obvious facts? ... I’m 100 per cent Democrat myself, and I like
Obama. But he took the wrong side on
this issue, and the Republicans
took the right side.”
Dyson is criticizing scientists who advance what he describes as an
‘agenda-driven’ perspective on global warming.
In an interview with The Register, Dyson responded to questions about
the forward he just wrote for a scientific paper that confronts the
“overrated” concerns about CO2 in the atmosphere:
“That is to me the central
mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human
mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific
experts is blind to obvious facts?”
Dyson, who describes himself as 100% Democrat, strongly disagreed with
President Obama:
“It’s very sad that in this
country, political opinion parted [people’s
views on climate change]. I’m 100 per cent Democrat myself, and I like
Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans
took the right side.”
Part of the issue, according to the interview and the CO2 paper, is
that the scientific models that have been used to predict climate
outcomes have been wrong:
“What has happened in the
past 10
years is that the discrepancies between what’s observed and what’s
predicted have become much stronger. It’s clear now the models are
wrong, but it wasn’t so clear 10 years ago. I can’t say if they’ll
always be wrong, but the observations are improving and so the models
are becoming more verifiable.”
For example, NASA has
admitted that it is unable to explain a
17-year hiatus in an average global temperature increase, which has led
to 95% of manmade global warming projections being false.
Explaining why this refusal of scientists to adjust their opinions when
confronted with facts that seemingly refute their manmade global
warming hypothesis, Dyson gives a couple of reasons.
He suggests that there has been a confusion between “pollution,”
something definitely man-made and solvable, and “climate change,” a
feature of nature and mostly beyond the control of humanity.
Furthermore, he also asserts that there’s not only a “large community
of people who make their money by scaring the public,” but an element
of groupthink at play, as well:
“Real advances in science
require
a different cultural tradition, with individuals who invent new tools
to explore nature and are not afraid to question authority. Science
driven by rebels and heretics searching for truth has made great
progress in the last three centuries. But the new culture of scientific
scepticism is a recent growth and has not yet penetrated deeply into
our thinking. The old culture of group loyalty and dogmatic belief is
still alive under the surface, guiding the thoughts of scientists as
well as the opinions of ordinary citizens.”
Dyson concluded with an assertion and an appeal to dispassionately
evaluating facts:
“Climatic effects observed
in the real world are much
less damaging than the effects predicted by the climate models, and
have also been frequently beneficial. I am hoping that the scientists
and politicians who have been blindly demonizing carbon dioxide for 37
years will one day open their eyes and look at the evidence.”
If anything, Dyson’s disputation of manmade global warming just adds to
the list of scientific voices who are bucking the received “consensus”
on temperatures.
(cuzzin ricky)
