Freeman Dyson dies, age 96.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/01/freeman-dyson-obituary

He was a smart man with good critical thinking skills.

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@sonhouse

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/freeman-dyson-humanist-and-climate-change-heretic/amp/

@joe-shmo
Well, Newton was a world class assshole but that didn't stop the world from using his science wizardry did it?

@sonhouse said
@joe-shmo
Well, Newton was a world class assshole but that didn't stop the world from using his science wizardry did it?

So you are saying A-holes are useful! 😉

-VR

@Very-Rusty
Yep, everyone has one, at least😉

@sonhouse said
@joe-shmo
Well, Newton was a world class assshole but that didn't stop the world from using his science wizardry did it?

I think you are being a little shortsighted and short-tempered. You prefer a thousand completely unqualified politicians in a room regurgitating halve truths, or journalist grossly misrepresenting scientific information to sell a narrative, over a brilliant physicist that has been following the debate since it began?

@joe-shmo
I didn't misrepresent anything. I was acknowledging he had issues but just saying despite his failings he was still a brilliant scientist.

@sonhouse said
@joe-shmo
I didn't misrepresent anything. I was acknowledging he had issues but just saying despite his failings he was still a brilliant scientist.

Maybe he just didn't have the patience with people much more primitive than himself. He probably got tired of arguing with ignorant people bent on remaining dogmatic even after being proved wrong.

@metal-brain said
He probably got tired of arguing with ignorant people bent on remaining dogmatic even after being proved wrong.

Like yourself, for example.

@humy said
Like yourself, for example.

I never mentioned me. I was talking about Newton.

@metal-brain said
I never mentioned me. I was talking about Newton.

The people Newton was arguing with were Leibniz and Hooke. There was considerable malice involved, but I don't think either of them can be considered ignorant or dogmatic.

When he was Master of the Royal Mint he discovered about 20% of coins that had been in circulation were counterfeit, counterfeiting was difficult to prove, but he vigorously pursued counterfeiters gathering evidence himself. At the time counterfeiting was a treason offence and treason was punishable by drawing and quartering.

His father died three months before he was born and he was premature. His mother remarried when he was three and went off to live with her husband leaving him in the care of his grandmother. This is not conducive to producing a well balanced adult. He did alchemical research and traces of mercury were found in his hair after he died, so some of his behaviour might be attributable to that.

None of this changes that he was the greatest physicist of all time.

@sonhouse
What I'm saying is I highly doubt he had the "issues" you think he did. Chances are if he held a position on climate change ( however unfavorable - in your case ), it likely wasn't mere religious belief. Undoubtedly, if he chose to, could argue it to its core on the basis of scientific fact. You, I, or any politician, journalist on the other hand...could not.

@joe-shmo said
@sonhouse
What I'm saying is I highly doubt he had the "issues" you think he did. Chances are if he held a position on climate change ( however unfavorable - in your case ), it likely wasn't mere religious belief. Undoubtedly, if he chose to, could argue it to its core on the basis of scientific fact. You, I, or any politician, journalist on the other hand...could not.

From Wikipedia:

Dyson agreed that anthropogenic global warming exists and that one of its main causes is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. He said that in many ways increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial, and that it is increasing biological growth, agricultural yields and forests. He believed that existing simulation models of climate change fail to account for some important factors, and that the results thus contain too great a margin of error to reliably predict future trends.

Dyson's views on global warming were criticized. Climate scientist James Hansen said that Dyson "doesn't know what he's talking about ... If he's going to wander into something with major consequences for humanity and other life on the planet, then he should first do his homework – which he obviously has not done on global warming." Dyson replied that "[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it's rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have."

In 2008 Dyson endorsed the now common usage of "global warming" as synonymous with global anthropogenic climate change, but argued that political efforts to reduce the causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.

I think he's closer to an actual climate skeptic rather than an outright denier. He's disputing the extent and importance rather than it's existence. I think he also objected to being told to shut up.