Freeman Dyson On The Question Of Global Warming

Full essay here.

Say what you want about people insisting we go green:  They’re watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside), they’re busy constructing the new secular religion…they’re do-gooders more interested in being right then in thinking the ideas through…

…but how can you distinguish the science and doubt from all the ideology and certainty?

Freeman Dyson in his review of two books in the NY Times Sunday (covering the politics, science and economics of GW), would seem to wonder at the same questions, and stresses:

“The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism”

Which doesn’t help public discussion of the science nor protect reasonable skepticism…

…of course there is much truth there as well.  In Dyson’s work and in the data that leads some to say global warming is happening.

See Also:  From The Literary Review–An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, The National Geographic-Marching To The Eco-Drumbeat,

Al Gore: Confusing Science With Politics Since 2006!

 

Stanley Fish In The NY Times: More Colorado Follies

Full post here.

“The University of Colorado is considering a $9 million program to bring high-profile conservatives to teach on the left-leaning Boulder campus.”

Bad idea says Fish. Put scholarship and learning above any political considerations.

He also distinguishes between conservative thought and conservative aesthetics:

A course in conservative thought might run from:

“…Plato and Aristotle and hitting the highlights including Hooker, Hobbes, Adam Smith, Burke, Schmitt, Wyndham Lewis, Oakeshott, Strauss, Kirk, Bork…”

and conservative aesthetics:

“…Plato and Aristotle [sic} including Dante, Puttenham, Swift, Pope, Bergson, Matthew Arnold, Irving Babbitt, Eliot, Pound and Allan Bloom…”

So would liberal aesthetics include the Romantics, Santayana, modern lyrical poetry etc…? What about Nietzsche?

Certainly Plato isn’t merely conservative?

by carpe icthus