(who does harmony vocals with Emmylou Harris, in the song "Gold," in the latter's deep new album, "All I Intended to Be."  The two "Trio" albums, collaborations of Dolly, Emmylou and Linda Ronstadt, from back in the 1980s, are classic.)

It is terrificly ironic that scientists should be accused of being "priests" (as though that were a dirty word) for making recommendations -- when of course science is popularly confused with technology, and especially with technological "advances," technological "progress," i.e. what is "good" for us.

So, in some contexts, scientists are encouraged to do all the recommending that they want, but in others they must keep silent?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Dyson was a scientist during one of the most important times in nuclear history. And an important one. That he chooses to use that weight in a later age, for a different reason is unfortunate.

Teller and Fuller did it as well.  Depending on which side of the fence youre on, the super or the yurt, you may cheer or boo.  

But Dyson was an important man in his time.

the times they are a changin'

Joe - I respect you, but I also respect Dyson for his great contributions to physics many decades ago. The Tiger Woods of physics of recent history was, almost without question, Richard Feynman; Feynman developed his own approach to quantum electrodynamics that has become an extremely useful calculating tool (Feynman diagrams) in the 1950's; around the same time the traditional quantum mechanics people (Schwinger) developed their more mathematical-looking perturbation theory approach. Dyson was the one who proved the two methods were equivalent, essentially by putting Feynman's diagrams on a firm theoretical footing, and one of the fundamental equations still used in quantum field theory is the Dyson equation.

So Dyson isn't Tiger, no. But he wasn't far off in his prime about 40-50 years ago. Now, well, he's like many of those curmudgeonly old physicists - in fact I suspect he was good friends with Frederick Seitz as they're both Princetonites. There are Dysons and Seitz's and Roy Spencer's who we just have to deal with somehow or other. Denigrating their past contributions is probably not the best approach...

English language Education might need fixing too. I meant "root of the problem" of course.

But Dyson was an important man in his time.

It reminds me of Mencken's obit for William Jennings Bryan: It's a tragedy when a man spends his career as a hero and ends it as a buffoon.

Same thing's been true for Nader for awhile now.

although i support ralph's political career, if you can call it that, i know he's not the kind of person people really imagine when they picture the president -- but i don't think it's quite fair to describe his writings or proposals as laughable. they're solid, and if you throw them away because he spits at a lot of democrats, you might not end up electing someone who would help you get those things.