Freeman Dyson: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 พ.ค. 2024
- Freeman Dyson with dry wit and self-effacing good humor explains that by heretical he means ideas that go against prevailing dogmas, and that in his self-appointed role as heretic, he is unimpressed by conventional wisdom.
Hosted by Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future on November 1, 2005.
In memory of Freeman Dyson, I'm watching this today.
Such simple, insightful, and profound thinking from a gentle man.
This is my first time listening to Professor Dyson. I never realized how much I was missing! A man brilliant in every way.
R.I.P Freeman Dyson!
Ah! The lost fail safe of the hypothesis! The original concept of the hypothesis went something like this: Form your hypothesis! Then try like hell to disprove it! The application of this single principle, assured you’d get as close to the real answer as possible.
Today the Scientific Hypothesis is applied in the complete opposite manner; Form your hypothesis, then try like hell to prove it and ignore all science that may contradict your hypothesis. Now what could go wrong with this approach???
This new hypothesis sounds like religion
Dyson is an amazing thinker. I have been amazed and delighted by him for several decades.
Future generations may mark this as a shift from the time when science could be thought about, even debated, rather than 'followed' by coercion.
Of course, because science doesn't mean verifying a result through replication, it means "DO EXACTLY AS WE SAY"
He is without a doubt one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, R.I.P.
Without a doubt one of the dafter comments of the 20th C.
With the little caveat that for the most important topic affecting the future of organized life on Earth, he was utterly, shamefully and unequivocally WRONG. Did a lot of damage to the profession, to the institutions that supported him, and to the hopes of tackling the problem while there was still time. Very nice guy though.
@@adrianicasuriaga2948 What topic? To be clear? The introduction of rabbits?
He also said he would be wrong.
@@adrianicasuriaga2948 how so?
@@adrianicasuriaga2948 You seem to have rather missed the point that irrespective of which orthodox majority consensus takes your fancy, the future of organised life on Earth will inevitably demonstrate that it was never utterly, unequivocally correct or 'right', despite the vehemence of any shamefully hubristic belief to the contrary.
One of my few heroes of this time.
Joe Ellerbrock lol
I remember when this was first put online years ago. It was great then and still is. I do with the last part was of the Q&A were not cut short. Cheers
So refreshing to hear this great mind challenging the paradigms of the times.
why? he turns out to be wrong and off-base from what I can determine from current literature: the idea of abiogenic production of petroleum is completely discredited, and it turns out climate change was not exaggerated but severely underestimated.
Funny how against the paradigm then is for the paradigm now.
@@davidrave563 the was right........
I started helping an old man on an allotment, fell in love with Nature, fell into Farming, started a degree in Agriculture...
This lecture I will never forget discovering. A true genius that I wish I could have met, who is the true original thought provoker that has inspired Community and EcoSystemic Regeneration Projects that I have been synthesising.
I wish I could have met him. I hope his Soul can see the gratitude I've begun to sculpt 💙♥️💚💛
I'm an atheist... but I LOVE the spirit behind your thought... ;)
@@theseustoo So do I. I'd also like to say that regardless of atheism, a "spiritual" aspect of the human condition seems to be acknowledged by all scientists and philosophers and most humans regardless of "God", and I don't believe that being atheist effects that. And perhaps "spirituallity", for want of a better word, even allows that ? Just a thought, may be wrong.
Literally been binging Dyson vids for the past week
What a brilliant mind
There's so much wisdom in his words! As usual, wisdom is simple. When the so called scientists use complicated words, they show their foolishness. How much we need people like Professor Dyson instead of state-paid so called biased scientists! My deepest respect and admiration for this great Briton!
He is state-paid. Dependent on grants like 99% of legitimate scientsts
@@granthurlburt4062 I believe he is deceased. Then, he is only on God's payroll.
@@granthurlburt4062 doesnt matter... the point is the people who do diverge from the cult get no funding and often kicked out of academia
@@granthurlburt4062 wow, they couldnt kikc out olne of the biggest legends alive? how relevant
"Science is organized unpredictability. What scientist do is to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, then do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable, it's not science." His clarity is sorely lacking among scientists today.
I disagree. Science is targetted unpredicatbality - where as much as possible is controlled and then one sees what the outcome is when as few input variables as possible are changed.
@@shaneegan7354 That does not seem really to disagree. Organized and targeted are not so different.
We need to pollute a bunch of oxygen too, cause 25,000 years ago the plants grew like crazy because of the CO2 and the megafauna exploded because of the O2.
A lot of wisdom packed efficiently into this lecture by professor Dyson. A lot to digest - but I believe that he did in fact, live to see some of what he has predicted come true!
Delightful! I will share this with others.
Great mind , Freeman Dyson . Thanks.
It was impressive to hear him say years ago that he was wrong about his teachings in college as a professor. Admirable human. Much respect.
Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.
I and others did not outwardly laugh at his dry humor but I, and probably others, recognized it and smiled/laughed inside.!!! I hope Freeman Dyson understands and appreciates how I, and I believe others, appreciate the clarity with which he speaks, sincerity, and precision of what he is saying... I plan on listening to other talks Freeman Dyson has made and I do know of his contributions to science from listening to others like Jim Al-Khalili to name one of many.
Love him! My hero! Such a pure heart!
He's a fallen scientist. So sad when the oil billionaires get to one of them. He's been recieving money for lobbying.
And a pure and diverse intellect.
Such a lame attempt at a smear. The climate loons are doing so much damage to western industry and technological advancement it won’t be surprising to learn they’re mostly funded by enemy regimes. Wasn’t it proven russians were behind similar efforts? Gullible westerns
@@Ree1981 The entire academic community receives far more money empowering the politicians who fund their research and careers. Show me your documentation.
The most intelligent person I have ever listened to. I thought of my grandson and wished he was older so I could share this video with him. So well explained.
That’s sad
That's inspiring
Well... I suppose it's a nice thought... but please stop wishing your grandson's life away... Sadly enough, I'm sure he'll probably end up making exactly the same mistake(s) for himself, and probably for even less reason! But I do so appreciate your motive! :/
he did replace Einstein at Princeton
I am sure that you will: the video endures!
Dyson was so brilliant, across so many fields, that no one could pin him down on one subject enough to give him a Nobel Prize on only ONE thing!
Incredibly, he started -- AS A TEENAGER(!!!) -- in WW2, working in the War Department, using Maths to determine the best ways to divide an inadequate supply of fighter jets into units to combat incoming waves of bombers!
And ... I LOVE that he is prepared to stick his head above the parapet and say that the "problem" of Climate Change is VASTLY exaggerated and is diverting a HUGE amount of attention, research and investment from much more important problems that could be solved with a fraction of the attention and investment!
(His ONLY weakness/blind spot was to retain some belief in Christianity!)
Why is Christianity a blind spot? It all depends on how you read it. One reading invites magical thinking, another reading involves a revelation of disenchantment.
@@nightoftheworld he was a spiritual man in the style of his milieu. What more can we ask of ourselves when thrown into the world by the accident of birthplace.
some of these notions seem very obscure after only roughly 15 years, others blatantly false, but it was a fascinating listen... hope this opens the minds or melts the hearts of those who listen to it
Can you be more specific?
I believe with respect to the climate issue many of his insights are still quite relevant. The connection between climate and the biosphere with respect to water and carbon cycling is hardly mentioned but could be leveraged to do a lot of good.
"My purpose is to challenge the prevailing dogmas of the day. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I'm PROUD to be a heretic! The stories I shall tell are heresies numbered from one to six..."
Even before I've heard the body of his argument, I LOVE this guy! 'Onya Freeman! They must have named you well! :D
Being a heretic is meaningless. He should be proud to either take the necessary years to study the overwhelming evidence or else respect the thousands of scientists who have taken the years to learn the methods and study the evidence. It doesnt matter how intelligent he is or how accomplished in one field. In science, we respect the verifiable investigations and analysis of data, not the person themselves. It's a religious or other type of argument from authority to accept what someone has said without looking at the evidence from peer-reviewed investigations using empirical evidence.
@@granthurlburt4062 Peer review is bust.
@@granthurlburt4062 like the big bang for instance? this is what peer review got us for a theory. possibly the dumbest theory ever aside from creationism. yet, despite the pillars of the theory being kicked out over time mainstream science uses those words every single time space is mentioned. It can never be proven or disproven. Suggesting you "know" anything about something that happened billions of years ago is nonsensical and totally unscientific. And this is how its always communicated, as a fact. Degrasse Tyson never tires of starting sentences with "with what we know about the big bang"........and you think that should be totally respected? He just happens to be cut from similar cloth as I, where there is little that I find more insulting than someone telling me facts that there is no chance they can ever verify.
@@granthurlburt4062 The principle, the scientific principle, behind his heresy is that the revered, wise, and unquestioned were not always such. Reverence, wisdom, and automatic trust are things that are earned.
If no one questions scientific discourse and actions, they become dogmatic and eventually, false gods.
@@granthurlburt4062 There is no meaningful peer review of climate model papers. They don't publish the source code or the input data of the models so that the models can be tested on past data to see how they "predict" the past, which would constitute entry level documentation of methods. He mentioned a few of the failings of the models, but the most glaring is the tendential effect of producing conclusions that empower the politicians that fund research and careers. Scientist are men like other men. As Carl Sagan has one of his characters ask in a novel "What is there in science that would keep a scientist from doing evil?"
Dyson was also very pro nuclear energy, for those people concerned about his global warning views. If we do a manhattan (style) project for nuclear/thorium reactor technology, this would also greatly help the environment along with our national energy security.
>
Of course what has actually happened is that we have done a 100X Manhattan style energy project, promoting solar and wind both losing technologies, as illustrated by the failures in energy supplies in Germany and Europe.
And now that the failure has been amply illustrated, the same interest groups want to multiply that failure further. This illustrates the weakness of government promoted projects very often. They often choose badly.
It is already being done and has been done for decades without results. The human brain may be incapable of solving the problems, but AI might do it.
Yes small modular reactors (SMRs) are the next wave in nuclear-they are much safer than their old large counterparts and can fill in the gaps when green power can’t provide for demand.
@@shadeburst a successful experimental thorium reactor was built in the 60's . The unspoken problem? It doesn't create the isotopes to make atom bombs, so the funding was diverted to uranium reactors.
@@nightoftheworld How do the nuclear accidents of the past not convince you that nuclear is NOT a solution?! Fukushima is a clear example ... to this day, it's ucontrollably pouring radiation into the environment around it. Humans aren't reliable enough, nor are engineers, to trust us with this kind of technology.
Rest in Peace A real scientist
Well you answered my question...I was wondering!!!
@@vincentanguoni8938 The thing for which I believe he is most remembered is the Dyson Sphere. The enclosing of an entire solar system so that the entirely of that sun's energy can be captured by its civilization. A theory only, of course, the man was a physicist's physicist.
@@Svensk7119 The Dyson Sphere suffered fatally from the laws of thermodynamics!
It would quickly glow like the sun that it ensnares, frying anything in its volume.
Freeman is one of kind.
Yes to Freeman Dyson
Rest in the Lord prof Dyson. Your team forever.
Genial lecture.
I loved the parallels he made with the lessons of the past (human, biological, technological) and the possible paths of humanity according to our choices and actions. He weighs his words well, without falling into pessimism or chaotic scenarios. The conclusion, Shakspear's quote is also in line with his speech and his thought. Heritical ? Well, not for me.
It's nice to find videos like this. Simple heresy in words coupled with facts. :) An inspiring gent.
Amazing lecture!
Loved this video...For the future, the science should be able to keep this type of consciousness...alive
My Brother Anthony Poole Graduated Boston University ,Very Proud
Thanks F. Dyson great mind .
Hope you have since made contact with other advanced intelligences Freeman! Live long and prosper old friend! Thanks so much for a deeply purposeful life full of contributions and nudging our species along towards a better and more intelligent future. You are missed.
Does that mean that you believe in the infantile delusion of "life after death"?
A brilliant thinker and speaker. He will be missed.
Amazing!
"Tonight I'll be speaking as a story-teller..."
Whoah! Dude! Let me catch my breath! So much honesty before you have even begun to speak is breath-taking, to say the least! :D
it is good to create topsoil i agree
so all my kitchen waste that is green goes into compost
i recycled all my weeds and you get good root growth and tuber growth there that goes back into the soil to some extent - i am guessing i have 1/2 inch more soil over the fertile areas
"Google is doing wonderful things for the world" 🤦Google thought about doing wonderful things for the world but settled on doing wonderful things for themselves, at our cost.
I love my Dyson vacuum cleaner... You were a genius
The question should not be how did we live without Google, but rather, how do we live with it.
RIP FREEMEN DYSON, DIED ON FEBRUARY 28TH AT AGE 96
A true wise man...
That was Feb. 28th, 2020.
It's kinda funny how Boob Tube puts a link to a "fact checked source" under every climate naysayers video. Well with the ONE exception, Mr. Freeman Dyson.
They don't dare.
Inquisitor! Call an Imperial chaplain or Commissar
A great, great man x
Fantastic ideas
Not actually "ideas", but fact.
54:14 Very important comment, I am glad he brings that up.
Too bad his praise of G turned out to be so innocent and without any idea how pernicious the power of controlling information access could be,
Typical of the British culture, that produced a heretic, superior to others. Dyson's six topics discussed in this video, are important, worthy of drawing lessons, specially on biosphere and the carbon cycle. However, his opinion on the gap between city and rural life is planned anew by China, worthy of following by others.
I'm proud To be a heretic. The world needs new heretics. Challenging dogma and so-called absolute laws makes for anarchism and uncertainty. Also called change which is always with us and perhaps unknowable. The universe has changed since inception and continues to change.
Change has to be the meaning of life.
Insightful
#1 the USA has less than 100 years left as top nation. It's coming sooner than 2070. #2 Climate models are off. Love this.
Those dang expert's, they know so little and have such high Ego's.
can anyone direct me to any research into human emotive responses to digital devices? i suspect we may be slowly growing very strong emotional(as well as practical) attachments to our devices, could lead to very interesting societal changes, and this combined with biotech!
He studied the difference between rich people and poor people lol amazing
This guy is a legend
Comedy legend that is.
This man is impressive!
You are so lucky, you are witnessing true genius and wisdom.
Imagine the progress if such men were persuaded to accept leadership roles of nations, we would have our philosopher king of Plato. Instead of the clowns and tyrants and Nepotists we are forced to “select” between.
What everyone overlooks is that life probably got started around deepwater volcanic vents, only much later coming up to enjoy the sunshine newly made available by the transformation of the thick dusty opaque atmosphere into a somewhat transparent thing. Already the skies over Bey Jing have shifted back to the original thick soup deadly to any thing that isn't anaerobic.
For humanity to explore the stars, there has to be a concerted effort to shift biology back to its original configuration, dependent on chemicals and heat only, since producing Light Emitting Diodes to tight tolerances and separately maintaining a fusion reactor whose heat boils a fluid that turns a turbine that spins a magnet with a coil creating electric power.... is too much akin to a Rube Goldberg setup.
We HAVE to figure out a better way to turn heat into biomass in a reliable manner with minimal oversight, so there WON'T BE an oopsy moment when someone wakes up from a few centuries of deep cryosleep and find out that ALL plants on the starship have died a hundred years ago, and spinning up a whole new batch will take far longer than the starvation horizon.
Interesting I haven't anything more about these ideas ten years later.
It's everywhere though. It's very well known that more CO2 helps create a more lush, green planet. The greenness of the planet has risen by 15% over the last ! That means the equivalent size of the of the USA has become greener. And this includes the drier places of the world. The Sahara has shrunk in this time too.
The green psy-op is playing on guilt. We only need to look back at "climate-gate" emails where the scientists were told to adhere to the "warming" angle under Obama.
Repeatability is one of the principal tenants of science.
Awesome vacuum cleaners too brah, say can I send you the filter from mine I accidentally vacuumed up a bucket of slop from that time my toilet plugged?
Prof. Dyson's presentation is simply one I wished I was there. I wasn't. I just finished skimming through IPCC's 6th reports (7540 pages) and I wish that the 3 AR6- IPCC reports would be replaced by Prof. Dyson's 2010(!) presentation . What do policymakers need to know more?
Redefining the term „green technology“ is such a tongue in cheek 🤓🤣
Why is it cut off at the end? Did he get too heretical for Boston University?
How is this video not going mainstream is ridiculous
Apparently you haven’t spoken to college graduates of late
It's very well known that more CO2 helps create a more lush, green planet. The greenness of the planet has risen by 15% over the last ! That means the equivalent size of the of the USA has become greener. And this includes the drier places of the world. The Sahara has shrunk in this time too.
The green psy-op is playing on guilt. We only need to look back at "climate-gate" emails where the scientists were told to adhere to the "warming" angle under Obama.
@@lv4077 interesting, what do you mean?
Richard Feinman once said that most scientists when they state that something or other is impossible are usually wrong.
Great
It's great when he tells his jokes and shakes his own head in disappointment 😂
Are there estimates of how much mantle generated natural gas is being produced and at what rate? That would be worth knowing. Also, Wikipedia article's first four or five claims about natural gas are false because of this.
At the time of this talk few people were even considering the possibility. Perhaps more research was done since then. Perhaps the research didn’t fit wide enough support yet. Time will tell
What a star.
"Heresy!" He's a bit like Galileo, attacked for pointing out contrarian observations (Heretic, Blasphemer!) which is all that has ever been able to move us forward, again... Authority and Experts pull rank while heretics will always further move and uncover atoms, earth and heavens.
"Yet it moves." - another Famous Heretic
Introduction - Wow. I haven't done half that much.
I do not doubt Freeman Dyson's intelligence and his reach. What I am disheartened by is that he is choosing to take the stance that climate models are not the proverbial canary(canaries) in a coal mine and which act as a means for our species to take a greater note of. What I am not saying is that I disagree with Freeman's claim that poverty and infectious diseases are not important. I think that our effect upon earth's climate as well as infectious diseases and poverty are all important and that you and I do not have to choose one over the other. It is not about choosing, but about noticing if and when those in positions of power are making decisions which add to the suffering of our species and which harm our priceless pale blue dot. When people in positions of power are acting solely out of self-interest. Freeman may be intelligent, yet I worry about his moral compass. 🌱
Dear Freeman Dyson, bless me please.
Even if you had no video and just audio, you can tell this was made in 2005. If he said this stuff today, he'd be cancelled.
Dyson thought a PHD was a waste of time. He didn't have one.
Part 2?
Start at 04:00
38:10 - Heresy No.4 : "If we allow kids to play around with roses and snakes, we still have to stop them from playing around with viruses" ...didn't age well
And let's not forget his research into the vacuum
This guy will remain an icon.
A Russian tryptic painting on wood?
Once upon a time I sported the pseudonym, "Proud to be a Heretic too!"
Make of that what you will...
Regardless: I'm not only pleased, but perhaps, even, actually tickled pink, to be described as a 'heretic', most particularly in an age in which it is at least courageous enough to refain from burning all those who disagree with them at the stake!
I can feel how much time you put into that and I'm tickled pink to share how moronic it sounds.
The same talk with a more receptive audience would have been more fun.
He dropped a lot more dirty jokes, filthy ones, than the audience caught.
*Obviously British.
The more we are going to put human made things in environment,more we are near to foolish decay
We are running in time where human must be put on economics than on profit
Human enjoy by achieving themselves and everybody
He is the Zeus in my pantheon of heroes!.. and im not even a humanist, Im more of a naturalist.
It is probably the most rediculous thing I can do to commemorate this man,’s life, , but I am getting “Freeman Dyson” tattooed on my tight fore arm, if for no other reason but to ring a bell, this man is my hero, his spirit is unbound...a free man.
Boston University in November 2005…. I am left to wonder how placeholder speeches such as these will be viewed in the future. What kind of scientist couldn’t or wouldn’t walk around a city that looked empty above the first floor, and ask simple questions? At least for Prof. Dyson, he spoke from inside a room where there was no disconfirming evidence for his assumptions about the status quo in Boston. The view from the bench in front of the academic quad at MIT, looking across the Charles River, was not so forgiving.
Yes
A great book to read regarding future predictions as Dyson does is Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway, by Dan Gardner. 2005, when this video was made, seems so long ago. So much of what Dyson predicts is wrong. Just yesterday, you Americans just made a big breakthrough in fusion to soon create unlimited power. Crazy.
A fine man!
I think there might be a reason we don't see many videos like this
He would be horrified at the actual course of events regarding GMOs
He only passed on around 2 years ago, so I'm sure he knew. If not since at least the 1970s when we brought in the GM thing. And he mention Monsanto, founded in 1901, here. Maybe you missed it ?
Btw, : Between 1927 and 2007, more than 2,540 genetically mutated plant varieties had been produced using x-rays."
He knew.
what do you value as the horrified part of the actual course of events?
I like his vacuum cleaner.