World-renowned physicist and global warming skeptic Freeman Dyson will deliver this semester's Richard E. Snyder Presidential Lecture. Dyson will give his lecture, entitled "Nukes and Genomes: Two Genies out of the Bottle," on Oct. 1.
Dyson, 85, has long been one of the most celebrated figures in the international scientific community. Dyson's work, which spans many scientific disciplines, has won him acclaim, but he has more recently come under fire for seeming to downplay the implications of global climate change.
The selection of Dyson follows the tradition of past Snyder lectures. Started in 2004 thanks to a donation from Richard E. Snyder (A '55), the series aims to attract prominent figures who break with the conventional wisdom in their fields and raise controversial viewpoints.
"This is a university, an institute of higher learning; students benefit from hearing different views," Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser said. Past guest lecturers have included former President of Harvard University Lawrence Summers; Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals;" and prominent evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis.
Many accomplishments highlight Freeman Dyson's long scientific career. He has served as a physics professor at Princeton University for most of his life and has authored many books, including "Origins of Life," "Disturbing the Universe" and "Weapons and Hope," a treatise on the nature and implications of nuclear weapons.
"He's interdisciplinary and he's able to work in a wide spectrum of sciences," said Physics Professor Eric Chaisson, director of Tufts' science and technology Dudley Wright Center and a personal friend and mentee of Dyson. "His mind's moving so rapidly, it's just unbelievable."
Physics Professor Roger Tobin also spoke to Dyson's innovative work. "He's become known as one of the foremost great thinkers of science," Tobin said. "He takes on big questions and thinks about them deeply and often very provocatively."
But it was a March 25 New York Times Magazine article that catapulted his views into the national spotlight.
Entitled "The Civil Heretic," the piece expressed Dyson's controversial view that "all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated," as he announced in 2005 at Boston University. The article noted Dyson's comparison of the climate change movement to "a worldwide secular religion" and his description of Al Gore and NASA climate scientist James Hansen as "propagandists."
Such controversial statements were nothing new for Dyson, who has a reputation for challenging convention and approaching existing scientific conundrums with an original perspective.
"He's something of an intellectual provocateur," Tobin said. "He's certainly not afraid to buck conventional wisdom but he doesn't do it for the sake of publicity or making noise.
"Not everyone agrees with him but he's always worth listening to," Tobin added.
Chaisson echoed this sentiment. "I like to think he is a constructive iconoclast," he said. "He takes traditional, conventional views and challenges them but he does it in a positive way, in a refreshing way."
Dyson has never been awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in the sciences, despite receiving several other academic prizes. But according to Chaisson, this suits Dyson's style. "He's done a dozen things for which he could have won the Nobel Prize. But it doesn't mean anything to him; he's trying to make contributions to humanity," Chaisson said.
