"I hold it to be ethically irresponsible to tolerate the tremendous gap between the world's rich and poor," said Dyson. "But I also hold it to be intellectually reprehensible to abandon the possibilities of science."
Dyson told several stories intended to illustrate attempts by technology to achieve social justice, followed by his conclusions as to what may be learned from the various successes and failures he discussed. These conclusions included an emphasis on green technology and bottom-up development.
Dyson noted China's Great Leap Forward and an African peanut "fiasco" as two examples of top-down efforts that were unsuccessful. He noted several times that much of the failure of technology has come as a result of major powers, ignorant of local issues, claiming to know "what was good for natives and giving it to them" in the manner of history's "enlightened despots."
Commenting on one of his stories, which detailed the success of a blind linguist in first creating a method to translate Tibetan texts into Braille, and then successfully educating many blind Tibetan youths, Dyson noted that "while the biggest international efforts were failing, this woman was finding a way."
Dyson said that he sees green technology, or ventures in the genetic modification of food and other such bio-technical advances, as promising great dividends for the rural poor, as long as developments are implemented correctly.
"We who believe in science and social justice have a lot of work to do to prove our case," said Dyson. "But green technology can be a great equalizer, and through step-by-step experiments, the acknowledgement of failure when it occurs and an emphasis on initiation from the bottom up, we can succeed."
Much of Dyson's lecture was overshadowed by criticisms of his conclusions.
"I think he raises many important points, but there were numerous inherent contradictions in his talk," said Professor of Physics Arthur Zajonc. "His solutions from the bottom up ignore the fact that large transnational corporations hold the intellectual property rights to anything and everything, and they're doing everything they can do to limit distribution."
In response to questions regarding the feasibility of poor nations acquiring the genetically modified seed and other necessities of green technology that are controlled by research corporations, Dyson went so far as to encourage the breaching of international treaties, suggesting that it would be ethically justifiable to do so "when people are starving." However, even when granted the efficacy of green technology, Dyson was hard pressed to prove that his solutions would bring about any effective change in poverty levels.
"Green technology may solve food production issues, but the rural poor will simply move into the cities," said Zajonc. "Dyson virtually ignored the problem of the urban poor, which provides an even greater challenge than any of those that may be solved by his proposals involving agriculture."
"I've read some of his scientific writings and those were very intelligent," said Rishidev Chaudhuri '05, "but this lecture was something of a let-down, because he came across as very naive and simplistic, particularly when he was asked questions afterwards."
Though Dyson has become a respected ethical commentator, his most acclaimed work focused more specifically on questions of theoretical physics.
"Dyson's most important physics work was in the late '40s, when Feynman and Schwinger developed quantum electrodynamics theory," said Professor of Physics Kannan Jagannathan. "Schwinger was too obtuse, so nobody understood him; Feynman was too informal, and nobody trusted his calculations; but Dyson figured out what they were saying and explained it in a way everyone else could understand."
Dyson impressed many who spoke with him before and after the lecture with his breadth of knowledge and willingness to share experiences with professors and students alike.
"He was fun to talk to because he's met everyone; obviously not Plato, but he goes way back," said Associate Professor of Philosophy Alex George. "He's been at the Institute for Advanced Study for over 40 years, and all sorts of great figures have passed through there, so he can tell you about Einstein, Feynman or Wittgenstein."
"He was very eager to meet with students," continued George. "He came to the philosophy table at lunch, and the room was filled with students of physics and philosophy and other majors, and he sat and talked with them for two hours."
Dyson was the penultimate speaker in the series of lectures, "Science and Value," which was made possible by the Forry Fund in Philosophy and Science.