Saturday, June 06, 2009

Reasonable dissent ...

... Freeman Dyson Takes On The Climate Establishment. (I have just discovered that Dave also sent this to me.)

... when the profile’s author, Nicholas Dawidoff, was asked on NPR’s “On The Media” whether it mattered if Dyson was right or wrong in his views, Dawidoff answered, “Oh, absolutely not. I don’t care what he thinks. I have no investment in what he thinks. I’m just interested in how he thinks and the depth and the singularity of his point of view.”
This a more than a little flip, I admit, but the fact is, as a reporter, that is all Davidoff ought to be interested in, since he is not, presumably, qualified to judge for himself whether Dyson is right or not. And we ought to be able to hear what Dyson has to say for himself.

See also: 'Worse Than Fiction'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

1 comment:

  1. On the other hand, since Dyson is one of the smarter and more thoughtful people alive today (especially since Feynman died), what he thinks IS worth listening to, even if one ends up disagreeing with it.

    Your point about reporting is spot on, and all too often missing from television "news" these days, it seems to me.

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