Monday, January 10, 2005

Michael Crichton State Of Fear

So this is Michael Crichton's new book. It is about an environmental group that tries to enhance or cause a few natural disasters to get media attention around a new conference concerning global warming. Throughout Crichton gives arguments for both sides of environmental issues focusing mostly on global warming. However, the real point of the book is that we don't have enough information about the climate to predict the effects of global warming and we don't really know the causes or if it is just a small part of a warming cycle. The larger point is that most research done in the field is not double blind and is too dependent on the outcomes hoped for by the sources of funding.

If you check out the board though people want to argue about global warming to a huge extent and paint Chrichton as either a) a right wing nut, b) a corporate stooge, c) someone who wants to harm the environmental movement or d) an opinonated author with no training who did not research.

A few problems with this.

1) Crichton has a list of sources in the back of the book and asks readers to check them out.

2) Going against the idea of global warming being a tremendous threat goes against all media stories we hear and most reports that people read.

3) He also states that the only way to attack environmental concerns is not through partisan politics.

4) He makes various claims to the fact that the environment should be a concern but that we have no basis in thinking we know how to control it.

5) It is a work of FICTION

Finally many of the people posting have NOT read the book. They don't even know what they are talking about. They just heard that Crichton said global warming isn't happening and got their pretty little panties all in a bunch. Then they came to the board and started arguing. Most of them even admit it. The funniest part. Most of their arguments are addressed in the book. Idiots. Read something before you decided to comment on it. Then stop for a minute and decide whether you just read a scientific article or a piece of science fiction. It might make a difference in your opinion.

--Chuck


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