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Very interesting read.

Freeman Dyson wrote:That's now the new era of what I call open-source genetics, an analogy to open-source software in the computer business. It means that genes are shared between species. Species in the end will fade out. They will become merged. I think that's a hopeful future, but it's also going to be dangerous, of course. And all sorts of unintended consequences will no doubt come to plague us.
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My idea is that in 50 years, this whole problem of fossil fuels will evaporate because we'll learn how to grow trees that produce liquid fuels much more efficiently than existing trees. So we'll have an ample supply of fuel without having to dig it out of the ground.

Has he been playing After the Bomb?

I don't agree with his view global warming views. Sure it's been politicized and has probably been exaggerated, but to shrug it off and says, "There's no reason why one should be scared." Especially for someone who, as the interviewer reminds the readers...

Onnesha Roychoudhuri wrote:Dyson is quick to remind readers that he's a scientist, not a soothsayer. He has said that "it is better to be wrong than to be vague" and has certainly suffered the former rather than the latter.

Also, the thought of biotech games leaves me a little unsettled:

Freeman Dyson wrote:With that will probably go biotech games for children, where you give the child some eggs and seeds and a kit for writing the genomes and seeing what comes out. That will certainly be a very messy and sometimes dangerous business, but I think it's on the whole likely to be very good for education.

After all, even though a computer virus may be able to destroy your work, hijack your harddrive, and steal your identity, it's unlikely to mutate into a genocidal virus.

Also, the thought of biotech games leaves me a little unsettled:

Freeman Dyson wrote:With that will probably go biotech games for children, where you give the child some eggs and seeds and a kit for writing the genomes and seeing what comes out. That will certainly be a very messy and sometimes dangerous business, but I think it's on the whole likely to be very good for education.

After all, even though a computer virus may be able to destroy your work, hijack your harddrive, and steal your identity, it's unlikely to mutate into a genocidal virus.

you also get into ethical concerns. what if that wunderkind you gave a bio-tech game too decided that making plants and bugs wasn't fun, and spliced human DNA into a dog's cells. i don't think humanity is ready for dogboys, we have enough trouble getting everyone in our own species to get along. tossing in an alien race, even one we made, would not be pleasant for any such created species.

or what if the kid decides he wants a brother or sister and clones himself?

heck, we're already debating over the legalities of this kind of stuff.

I think what troubled me most was his apparent cavalier attitude in the interview. He brushes off global warming saying, "The fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn't scare me at all. There's no reason why one should be scared. The economic conditions in the world and the technology change much more rapidly than the climate, so I don't see any reason for being in a hurry." And of our 'our ethical maturity' in regards to biotech he says, "Technology gives you power that you can use both for evil and good. I'm looking forward to the good uses of biotech. You can't get rid of the dark side, but one shouldn't overestimate the dark side. It's a question of balance."

Fortunately, worrying is usually what helps push technology along and keeps people vigilant. Necessity is after all the mother of invention.

[EDIT]: Worring about something can also lead to rash decisions (panic) that can have almost as bad as an effect as what it was we were worrying about in the first place...

I've been doing some more reading and I think I now understand what it was that Dyson was trying to say (transcripts don't usually give you much insight into the inflections of the interviewee during an interview). Here's an article & video clip over at New Scientist which helped turn me around:
Are we overreacting to climate change?

I just thought someone should point out, this was the last post Erick Wujcik made on these forums.


RIP Erick