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Editor:
Benny Peiser Faculty of Science, |
THE SCIENTIST
AS REBEL: AN INTERVIEW WITH FREEMAN DYSON
Dear Professor Dyson
Please find attached the questions for the CCNet interview.
They range from your first manuscript (on Eros) to your latest book “The
Scientist as Rebel.” I hope you will find my questions acceptable and look
forward to your response.
With best regards,
Benny Peiser
P.S. A distant relative of mine, Dr Ernst Straus, worked
with Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in the 1950s. I don’t know
whether you ever met him. His mother and my father were cousins.
-----------
Dear Benny Peiser,
I am sorry to be slow in answering your questions. They are
good questions and deserve thoughtful answers. I am a slow writer and it took
me a long time to get started. Please excuse me if it turns out that some of
the answers are briefer than the questions.
Here they are:
------------
Benny Peiser: Let me start with your essay, "Sir Phillip Robert's Erolunar
Collision," that you wrote in 1933, aged 9. Your first ever piece of
science fiction, a story about asteroid Eros, is very charming from a
historical perspective. Eros plays a significant role in the history of modern
astronomy. It was the first discovered near Earth asteroid and, with a size of
circa 13 x 13 x 30 km, is the second largest known NEO. Evidently, your
narrative about the asteroid's close approach was written in the aftermath of
the Eros fly by in 1930/31.
What I find intriguing in your account is the conspicuous
cheerfulness of the astronomers. When the fictitious president of the
astronomical society, Sir Phillip Roberts, announced that Eros may one day
collide with the Earth, the reaction of his fellow astronomers is enthusiastic:
"Three cheers for Eros!" and "Hip, Hip! Hurrah! They all shouted."
After more calculations revealed that Eros would collide with the Moon in as
little as 11 years, the astronomical society decided to organise an expedition
to the Moon so that they would witness the collision in situ, “instead of
through a telescope."
It would appear that the perception of a collision by a
large asteroid with the Earth was still regarded as something of a challenge
rather than a global catastrophe. Today, we know that the impact of an asteroid
the size of Eros would wipe out more than 90% of all terrestrial forms of life.
This, then, raises the following questions: Why was the potentially existential
threat at the time of your writing greatly underestimated? Looking back at your
own intellectual development, when did you yourself begin to realise the
severity of the threat posed by asteroids and comets?
Freeman Dyson: Certainly as a nine-year-old I
considered the Erolunar collision as a great lark and did not worry about the
dangers. That is the normal reaction of nine-year-olds to adventures of all
kinds. I remember an excellent film called Hope
and Glory' portraying World War Two as seen through the eyes of a
nine-year-old kid in
To me it came as a complete and wonderful surprise when Luis
Alvarez discovered the iridium layer that showed a connection between the
dinosaur extinction and an extraterrestrial impact. There was no doubt that the
two events occurred at the same time, and that many species of plankton in the
ocean became extinct at the same time too. And still, I was always skeptical of
Alvarez's theory explaining how the impact caused the extinctions. And I am
still skeptical. We now know that the other major extinctions do not have
iridium layers associated with them, and we know that the dinosaur extinction
has a major volcanic eruption (Deccan Traps) associated with it. So it is
plausible that volcanic eruptions are the main cause of extinctions, with extraterrestrial
impacts giving an additional push if they happen to occur at the same time.
After looking at the evidence, I do not agree with your
statement, "we know that an impact of an asteroid the size of Eros would wipe
out more than 90% of all terrestrial forms of life". I would say that this
statement is an exaggeration, similar to statements of the same kind that are
made about global warming. Certainly the danger from asteroid impacts is real,
and certainly it makes sense to study ways of deflecting asteroids when the
opportunity arises. But I find much of the rhetoric about asteroid impacts to
be exaggerated. It seems likely that the real dangers to the survival of the
biosphere come more from inside the earth than from outside.
Benny Peiser: In your book Infinite in all Directions (1988) you discuss eschatological
questions surrounding the theoretical issue of the end of the universe. As one
of a very small number of optimistic cosmologists, you have developed a
scientific theory of infinity. You write: "I have found a universe growing
without limit in richness and complexity, a universe of life surviving forever
and making itself known to its neighbors across unimaginable gulfs of space and
time." This hopeful cosmology contrast sharply with the apocalyptic
Zeitgeist. What would you say are the most important intellectual principles
and ideas that have sustained your unrelenting optimism?
Freeman Dyson: My optimism about the long-term
survival of life comes mainly from imagining what will happen when life escapes
from this planet and becomes adapted to living in vacuum. There is then
no real barrier to stop life from spreading through the universe. Hopping
from one world to another will be about as easy as hopping from one island in
the Pacific to another. And then life will diversify to fill the infinite
variety of ecological niches in the universe, as it has done already on this
planet. If you want an intellectual principle to give this picture a philosophical
name, you can call it “The Principle of Maximum Diversity". The principle
of maximum diversity says that life evolves to make the universe as interesting
as possible. A rain-forest contains a huge number of diverse species
because specialization is cost-effective, just as Adam Smith observed in human
societies. But I am impressed more by the visible examples of diversity in
rain-forests and coral-reefs and human cultures than by any abstract
philosophical principles.
Benny Peiser: In the first chapter of your new book,
The Scientist as Rebel*, you
write that the common element of the scientific vision "is rebellion
against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture," and
that scientists "should be artists and rebels, obeying their own instincts
rather than social demands or philosophical principles."
Contrary to this liberal if not libertarian concept of
scientific open-mindedness, there has been growing pressure on scientists to
tow the line and endorse what is nowadays called the ‘scientific consensus’ -
on numerous contentious issues. Dissenting scientists frequently face ostracism
and denunciation when they dare to go against the current. Has Western science
become more authoritarian in recent years or have rebellious scientists always
had to face similar condemnation and resentment? And how can young scientists
develop intellectual independence and autonomy in a bureaucratic world of
funding dependency?
Freeman Dyson: Certainly the growing rigidity of
scientific organizations is a real and serious problem. I like to remind
young scientists of examples in the recent past when people without paper
qualifications made great contributions. Two of my favorites are: Milton
Humason, who drove mules carrying material up the mountain trail to build the
Mount Wilson Observatory, and then when the observatory was built got a job as
a janitor, and ended up as a staff astronomer second-in-command to Hubble.
Bernhardt Schmidt, the inventor of the Schmidt telescope which revolutionized
optical astronomy, who worked independently as a lens-grinder and beat the big
optical companies at their own game. I tell young people that the new
technologies of computing, telecommunication, optical detection and
microchemistry actually empower the amateur to do things that only
professionals could do before.
Amateurs and small companies will have a growing role in the
future of science. This will compensate for the increasing
burocratization of the big organizations. Bright young people will start their
own companies and do their own science.
Benny Peiser: In a Winter Commencement Address at
the University of Michigan two years ago you called yourself a heretic on
global warming, the most notorious dogma of modern science. You have described
global warming anxiety as grossly exaggerated and have openly voiced your
doubts about the reliability of climate models. These models, you argue,
"do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the
biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real
world that we live in." There seems to be an almost complete endorsement
of the world's scientific organisations and elites of these models together
with claims that they reliably epitomize reality and can consistently predict
future climate change. How do you feel belonging to a tiny minority of
scientists who dare to voice their doubts openly?
Freeman Dyson: I am always happy to be in the
minority. Concerning the climate models, I know enough of the details to be
sure that they are unreliable. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted
to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed
data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give
the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world
with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
Benny Peiser: In a chapter about the scientific
revolutions in modern physics and mathematics, you describe the deep intellectual
confusion in Weimar Germany in the aftermath of the First World War. You
portray a society troubled by a mood of doom and gloom, a milieu that was
conducive for scientific revolution as well as political upheaval.
Unmistakably, the Great War set off a major shift in German thought, from the
idea of progress and technological confidence to cultural pessimism and
apocalypticism. As we know, the consequences of this mood of despair was
calamitous. Do you see any comparison with the gloomy frame of mind that seems
to be on the increase among many Western scientists today?
Freeman Dyson: Yes, the western
academic world is very much like Weimar Germany, finding itself in a situation
of losing power and influence. Fortunately, the countries that matter now are
China and India, and the Chinese and Indian experts do not share the mood of
doom and gloom. It is amusing to see China and India take on today the role
that America took in the nineteen-thirties, still believing in technology as
the key to a better life for everyone.
Benny Peiser: One of your most influential lectures
is re-published in your new book. I am talking about your Bernal Lecture which
you delivered in London in 1972, one year after Desmond Bernal's death. As you
point out, the lecture provided the foundation for much of your writing in
later years. What strikes me about your remarkably optimistic lecture is its
almost religious tone. It was delivered at a time, similar to the period after
World War I, when a new age of techno-pessimism came to the fore, reinforced by
Hiroshima and Vietnam.
It is in this atmosphere of entrenched techno-scepticism and
environmental anxiety that you advanced biological, genetic and geo-engineering
as industrial trappings of social progress and environmental protection. At the
height of ecological anxiety, in the same year as the Club of Rome proclaimed
the "Limits to Growth," you envisaged endless technological
advancement, terrestrial progress and the greening of the galaxy, famously
predicting that "we shall learn to grow trees on comets."
At one point towards the end of your lecture, you christen
your speech a "sermon." Indeed, your entire lecture reads as if it
was written for a tormented audience searching for a glimmer of hope. In his
book The Religion of Technology,
David Noble claims that the whole history of technological innovation and
advancement has been primarily a religious endeavour. Noble claims that even
today your ideas of technological solutions to terrestrial problems constitute
in essence a religious conviction. How much of your cosmological view of the
world has indeed been shaped by Judeo-Christian traditions? And do you see that
there is an inherent link between your religious and your philosophical
optimism?
Freeman Dyson: It is true that the tradition of
Judeo-Christian religion is strongly coupled with philosophical optimism. Hope
is high on the list of virtues. God did not put us here on earth to moan
and groan. As my mother used to say, "God helps those who help themselves".
I am generally optimistic because our human heritage seems
to have equipped us very well for dealing with challenges, from ice-ages and
cave-bears to diseases and over-population. The whole species did
cooperate to eliminate small-pox, and the women of Mexico did reduce their
average family size from seven to two and a half in fifty years. Science
has helped us to understand challenges and also to defeat them.
I am especially optimistic just now because of a seminal
discovery that was made recently by comparing genomes of different
species. David Haussler and his colleagues at UC Santa Cruz discovered a
small patch of DNA which they call HAR1, short for Human Accelerated Region
1. This patch appears to be strictly conserved in the genomes of mouse,
rat, chicken and chimpanzee, which means that it must have been performing an
essential function that was unchanged for about three hundred million years
from the last common ancestor of birds and mammals until today.
But the same patch appears grossly modified with eighteen
mutations in the human genome, which means that it must have changed its
function in the last six million years from the common ancestor of chimps and
humans to modern humans. Somehow, that little patch of DNA expresses an essential
difference between humans and other mammals. We know two other
significant facts about HAR1. First, it does not code for a protein but codes
for RNA. Second, the RNA for which it codes is active in the cortex of
the human embryonic brain during the second trimester of pregnancy. It is
likely that the rapid evolution of HAR1 has something to do with the rapid
evolution of the human brain during the last six million years.
I am optimistic because I see the discovery of HAR1 as a
seminal event in the history of science, marking the beginning of a new
understanding of human evolution and human nature. I see it as a big step
toward the fulfilment of the dream described in 1929 by Desmond Bernal, one of
the pioneers of molecular biology, in his little book, The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the
Three Enemies of the Rational Soul. Bernal saw science as our best tool for
defeating the three enemies. The World means floods and famines and
climate changes. The Flesh means diseases and senile infirmities. The Devil
means the dark irrational passions that lead otherwise rational beings into
strife and destruction. I am optimistic because I see HAR1 as a new tool
leading us toward a deep understanding of human nature and toward the ultimate
defeat of our last enemy.
Benny Peiser:
Freeman Dyson: My view of the prevalence of
doom-and-gloom in
Benny Peiser: Your sociological reading raises the
question whether the current fashion of issuing doomsday predictions could be
interpreted as the revenge by leading academics against the business community?
After all, their very activities, success and societal role are blamed for
impending catastrophe. Could it be that the scientific prophets of doom are
trying to regain some of their lost influence by portraying themselves as
saviours who, at the same time, provide governments with strong incentives for
increased state power and intervention?
Freeman Dyson: I agree with your diagnosis of the
academic disease. The academics are suffering from business envy, in the
Benny Peiser: There has been an apparent shift among
the political left and liberals from what used to be called progressive ideas
to more dystopian anxieties. What are the reasons that you have not been
carried away by this tide of cultural and technological pessimism. And why have
so few academics and authors of popular science been able to resist this shift
towards unhappiness and desperation? In other words, how much of our optimism
is shaped by people around us and positive experiences, and how much is due to
rational thought, I wonder?
Freeman Dyson: I do not agree that there has been a
recent shift from progressive ideas to dystopian anxieties. The best writers
have always been dystopian. In the 1890s we had Wells's Time Machine and The Island
of Doctor Moreau'. In the 1930s Huxley's Brave
Benny Peiser: Finally, let me ask you about your
thoughts regarding
Freeman Dyson: I do not agree with your assessment of
religion in
It is also interesting in this connection to observe the
similarity, in optimistic mood and rapid material progress, between China and
India. Although China is traditionally non-religious and India is traditionally
permeated with religion, this does not seem to make much difference. In both
countries, rapidly growing wealth and technological progress create a mood of
optimism, with or without religion.
That's all for today. Thank you for posing a good set of
questions.
Thanks also for CCNet which I enjoy reading.
Yours ever,
Freeman Dyson
P.S. One more thing. I met your father's cousin Ernst Straus
once when he came to a conference in
Benny Peiser:
Thank you for the interview, Professor Dyson!
* Freeman Dyson, The
Scientist as Rebel
14 March 2007
Wendell Krossa [wkrossa@shaw.ca]: Benny: in your interview
with Freeman Dyson you spoke a lot to the issue of cultural and scientific
pessimism. Martin Seligman in his book Learned
Optimism notes the strong relationship between pessimism and depression. He
argues that how we think shapes how we feel. I thought in this regard of the
prominence of the dogma of meaningless randomness which Scientific American
said was the reigning paradigm in physics (and no doubt in other disciplines).
The belief in purposelessness and meaninglessness would appear to affect
attitudes toward scientific research and toward life in general.
In the
past, and still too often in present debate, purposelessness has been posed in
opposition to design and hence the miring down of discussion in these
oppositional science/religion (or reason/faith) battles. Could this be resolved
somewhat if we were to view purposiveness in life, no longer in terms of some
outside divinity intervening or directing life, but in terms of human potential
and human intent to make the world (and the universe) into something better? I
think here of Catholic theologian Thomas Sheehan's argument in the essay from From Divinity to Infinity, that God has
incarnated in all humanity to explore the infinity of human potential in this
material universe. He argues that humanity has become the new marker for God
and we should no longer think of divinity as something up ahead on the horizon
or up above and outside of this material reality (something separate from
humanity). Even our consciousness seems to be oriented to this in that it
rebounds us back into material reality whenever we try to penetrate beyond.
If this
be true - that God has buried or hidden himself/herself/itself in humanity in order
to focus on the infinity of human potential - then perhaps the issue is no
longer divine purpose but rather the human potential and purpose to make life
better. This would seem to square with Freeman Dyson's vision of an unlimited
and hope-oriented human future. This would also square with the idea that we as
conscious creatures are now becoming more responsible for the direction and
evolution of life.
So I
suppose my question to Mr. Dyson can be distilled to this - could it be that a
new focus on the infinity of human potential is the new purposiveness that we
need in which to find renewed hope for the future?
Freeman Dyson: I agree with most of Mr Krossa's statement.
Where I disagree is with his emphasis on the word "human". I would
prefer to say "indigenous", leaving open the question whether the
indigenous creatures that are defining purpose for the universe are human or
alien. If it turns out that the universe is populated with many intelligent
forms of life, then we must accept the probability that we are minor players on
the cosmic stage and that others will define its purpose. If it turns out that
we are alone in the universe, then the responsibility for defining purpose is
ours. In either case, we have plenty of work to do.
W. M. Schaffer [scipio_a@ix.netcom.com]: The Devil being
often in the details, it would be useful to non-climate modelers if Professor
Dyson could elaborate on the following assertion: "Concerning the climate
models, I know enough of the details to be sure that they are unreliable. They
are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the
models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to
believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world
with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the
atmosphere."
Could
Professor Dyson give some examples of the "fudge factors," how they
are used / adjusted, etc. Some references would also be useful.
Professionally,
I play with models of the mathematical kind and, in fact, would distinguish
traditional models from the kitchen-sink (everything but) simulations employed
by climate "modelers." My prejudice has long been that they replace a
system they don't understand with a model they don't understand.
Freeman Dyson: I am not able to provide details of
particular climate models and their deficiencies. Typical examples of fudge
factors occur in the treatment of clouds. Each cell of the atmosphere in the
model is characterized by a set of numbers which specify the temperature,
pressure, density, humidity, wind-velocity, cloudiness, etc. in that cell.
Since the cell is much larger than a typical cloud, the "cloudiness"
number is only a rough measure of the fraction of the cell that is occupied by
clouds. An empirical formula then gives the rate of precipitation in the form
of rain or snow for a cell with a given humidity and given cloudiness. The
empirical formula contains several coefficients which are fitted to the
observations to make the model agree with the existing climate. These
coefficients are what I call "fudge-factors". They are not based on a
detailed understanding of clouds and rainfall but only on fitting a formula to
observations. If now the model is run with enhanced CO2, there is no reason to
believe that the same fudge factors will still give the right answers. There
are many other fudge factors concerned with processes such as snow-melting and
vegetation-growth that cannot be modelled in detail. I agree with the opinion
expressed by Schaffer in the last sentence of his fourth paragraph.
Christopher Morbey [cs.morbey@shaw.ca]: Dear Professor Dyson:
Thanks for taking time to answer questions! I'm wondering if you have an
opinion regarding the new interest in "intelligent design" as an independent
mode of explaining an event. Typically, pervading opinion demands that events
occur only by chance and/or necessity.
What
strikes me as strange is that many scientists are so willing to discard ideas
that may offer help to overcome significant difficulties in evolution
hypotheses. Instead, they tend to make alarmist comments that ID is merely a
creationist ploy, that Darwinian claims should be assumptions, not conclusions.
Global
warming skeptics point to fundamental temperature and CO2 data, then ask
pertinent questions. In a similar way, ID proponents look at fundamental,
complex biological and cosmological data, then ask pertinent questions. As you
might point out, asking questions could be perceived as rebellion.
But it
would appear that most scientists these days are not rebels at all; each is but
one case of an emotional-contagion pandemic. PS. It is interesting that war and
peace and religion all require a certain discipline of obedience rather than
too many questions. Each would offer the chance for freedom yet each would
demand necessity for devotion.
Freeman Dyson: My opinion is that most people
believe in intelligent design as a reasonable explanation of the universe, and
this belief is entirely compatible with science. So it is unwise for scientists
to make a big fight against the idea of intelligent design. The fight should be
only for the freedom of teachers to teach science as they see fit, independent
of political or religious control. It should be a fight for intellectual freedom,
not a fight for science against religion.
Jerome
Schmitt [nanoengineering@earthlink.net]: Dear Dr Peiser: I enjoyed your
interview of Freeman Dyson. I found the remarks about conflicts between English
academic and commercial classes to be particularly intriguing and would greatly
appreciate it if someone would write further on that subject, since the details
are certainly unfamiliar to Americans but should shed some light on our own
anti-business & anti-military academics.
My own
essay on the unreliability of numerical climate models and the
funding-advantages of "alarmism" may be found here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/numerical_models_integrated_ci.html
As you
can see, I am a self-employed scientist who thus fits the new-scientist model
proposed by Prof. Dyson.
Freeman Dyson: The best description that I know of the
English academic and commercial middle classes is by Clara Claiborne Park, with
the title, "Henry Wilcox, Babbitt, and the State of Britain",
published in the Berkshire Review, Vol.4, No.1, (Spring 1968), pp. 4-14. It is a review of the novel, "Howard’s End" by E. M. Forster.
I do not know whether Clara Park's essay was ever republished. It is a
brilliant and perceptive piece of writing.
John
Haythorne [John@Thunder-Box.Freeserve.co.uk]: Considering Professor Dyson's
work on the original "Project Orion" – I wonder about any thoughts on
using serial fission bombs to divert NEOs? How SERIOUS would a threat from an
asteroid need to be to overcome the "no nukes" campaigners?
Freeman Dyson: The idea of using nuclear bombs
to divert asteroids is absurd for technical as well as political reasons. To
divert an asteroid requires maximum momentum transfer with minimum cost in
energy. A nuclear bomb provides lots of energy but very little momentum. To
divert an asteroid we need a long steady push, not a series of jerks. The most
efficient scheme for diverting asteroids is a mass-driver, picking up material
from the asteroid and pushing it off into space at a low velocity around 100
meters per second. The mass driver could
be powered by solar energy. If you have
a few years for the slow push, you need only a few kilowatts of power per
billion tons of asteroid.
That's all for today. Thanks to the respondents for an interesting
set of questions.
Yours
sincerely,
Freeman
Dyson
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