John Maddox died on Sunday from pneumonea at the age of 83. He was editor of Nature, the most prestigious scientific journal in existence, for 23 years. He had interesting opinions on a range of topics.
On global warming.
He thought that global warming was “going to happen sometime, and we have to do something about it,” but was scornful of the IPCC and its predictions.
“I think it’s dangerous to rely on computer modeling when you are trying to make predictions about the real world. In fact the satellites that have been used to measure the temperature show that the temperature is increasing less rapidly than the computer models predict, by a factor of three. So I think that the scenario is less gloomy than the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change says”
John Tierney writes: “He debunked the catastrophists, most notably in his 1972 book, “The Doomsday Syndrome,” in which he argued that Spaceship Earth had more carrying capacity and ecological resilience than environmentalists realized. ”
On cloning, and the famous “Dolly the sheep” experiment
up until now people haven’t been sure whether the DNA in every cell of our body retains the power of making an embryo. This experiment shows that that happens. You can in principle take a cell from your skin or anywhere and make it into an embryo which then grows up into a person.
On new diseases and future epidemics
“We’ve had AIDS pop up since the early 1980′s; it’s been a big shock to people that there could be such a completely novel disease doing such terrible damage and apparently untreatable by existing remedies. It’s my belief that there must be many other diseases like this waiting for us as the centuries tick by. “
on other threats to humanity
“I believe that it’s only a matter of time before the world will have to plan to avoid catastrophe by the impact of asteroids.”
On bad science
“people should know what second-rate science is and that there is a lot of it about.”