As if your idiotic polemic against global warming a few years ago wasn’t enough, you go and write an entire book (State of Fear) that seems to be nothing more than an anti-science propaganda piece, attacking the scientific consensus about global warming. And of course the book is bullshit. But that’s OK, right? Hell, why let facts get in the way of your oh-so-comforting world view? And you can pat yourself on the back for being such a fucking wonderful independent thinker, but your dishonest arguments make you more akin to a creationist than anything else.
Dude, people respect you for some reason. I don’t know why. But you are viewed as an educator, of sorts. You really should try to learn about what you write. No, really learn about it, not just seek for evidence that supports your preconceived ideas. People are going to read your book, and that book should leave them better informed, not worse. Why don’t you try and run your ideas past a scientist? Oh, sorry, I remember that you believe that the scientists are in on the big old environmentalist conspiracy.
No, I haven’t read your book, Crichton, and I’m not going to. I have better things to do than read your masturbatory fantasies about winning arguments with environmentalists. Next time, Crichton, use a kleenex - don’t just splatter it all into the pages of a novel.
So, in other words, you got your impression of a supposedly biased source material from a clearly biased one which favors your preconceived notions. How enlightened of you. Reminds me of the idiot I know who spends every waking moment talking about how stupid Fahrenheit 911 was, despite not having seen it. (I did see it, and yes, it is stupid.)
The thing is, while I agree that his prose is close to unbearable, he does have an education, nad quite an impressive one:
And all scientists don’t agree on cause and effect of global warming.
Since I haven’t read the book either, and don’t plan to suffer through his terrible writing, I’ll withhold comment. Since you go on 2nd hand information, I suggest you do the same. If not, the prognosis is you = shot-down-in-flames.
While I haven’t read the book, I’ve read Crichton’s earlier speech (which I can’t remember the name of right now) on the subject. So I think I have fair knowledge of Crichton’s thoughts on the issue. If he has changed them radically, then I stand corrected. But from what I read of his latest book, it seems like a rehash of the same arguments, this time in fictional form. So, yes, I’m familiar with his arguments.
As far as his education goes, it is impressive, but does not touch climate science, so seems irrelevant except for the fact that he should have some understanding basic scientific process. However, his rants show that he does not.
True, but when it comes to global warming I respect the opionions of climate researchers a great deal more then that of anthropologists and biologists.
True, too, Metacom.
However, having that education, tells me that he’s no dummy. I don’t find it hard to think that if he spent a year on research, then he’d be quite knowledgable, if not on the same level as people who work on this for a living.
I wouldn’t dismiss this because of his lack of a masters degree in the field. He might know enough to put forward interesting thoughts and question the memes that make up the debate as conducted by Greenpeace.
I take Crichton’s “warming is bullshit” argument as seriously as I take the idea that dinosaurs can be cloned from 100 million-year old fossilized fragments of DNA .
I used to really love Micheal Crichton, but I was turned off after Timeline; he might do a lot of scientific research, but his medieval research was shaky, and even among the scientific research there were such gaping logic holes. I really feel as though he is no longer writing for his readers, but for the eventual Hollywood movie producers who seem to get a thrill out of optioning his books.
I read an interview with Crichton yesterday on CNN.com, where he basically said that you just couldn’t leave this stuff to the “experts.” Normal, everyday folks should have just as much weight given to their conclusions.
I guess if he is diagnosed with a deadly disease, he will give equal weight to what the supermarket checkout girl thinks he should do as what his doctor thinks…
He is a freekin hack. He supposedly studied up on computers for one of his books, and then in Jurrasic Park had a Cray supercomputer doing real time control for the fences, security, environmental modeling, etc. I can’t imagine a worse choice!!
His writing sucks as well. His characters are as two-dimensional as Lara Flynn Boyle’s chest. My son went through a phase of reading all his books; I was relieved when he outgrew them at 12.
I didn’t get quite the same take on it. It seemed to me he was saying that it would be wrong for the population at large to either opt out or be expected to opt out of these types of questions simply because we are not experts in the field. In other words, we should participate ourselves in these matters that concern us all and not just turn our fate over to someone else who supposedly knows more about what should be done than we do.
Given the fact that, as previously mentioned, the experts themselves often disagree, I can see how he would come to feel this way.
Not to be a Crichton apologist or anything, but he wrote a non-fiction book about computers called Electronic Life, and he won an Academy Award for software he and his company developed in order to handle the finances involved in making movies.
I would not use the word incontravertible, but yes. I don’t know of any climatoligist that doesn’t believe that global warming is happening. Only a very few think that it isn’t caused by humans. And if you take the IPCC as the consensus, then that consensus is overwhelmingly supported by the scientists. The consensus may be wrong, but it’s the best we’ve got right now.