Michael Crichton

Author Michael Crichton has died of cancer. Best known for his best selling books like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, Crichton was just 66.

Michael Crichton was a critic of the conventional wisdom regarding global warming. His novel State of Fear took on the global warming alarmists the environmental movement and the increasing politicization of science.

Michael Crichton. Rest in Peace.

An interview with Michael Crichton

Seven questions and seven answers from Michael Crichton.
h/t: SDA.

States of Fear: Science or Politics?

I read Michael Crichton's novel State of Fear when it was first released a couple of years ago. It's such an eye-opening look at the environmental movement that I've been meaning to post a review of it, even though it's not a new release.

Now comes word of this new DVD release:

At one time, both the pseudoscientific geocentric notion of the universe (that the Earth lies at the center of the solar system) and eugenics (the racial theory to “purify” the human race) were widely accepted by leaders in science, politics, journalism, and business.

Such theories were pushed by powerful interest groups that possessed highly politicized agendas driving government policies and public opinion, until ultimately both theories were disproved. Is environmental debate today, including global warming, bio-technology, and other issues, based on science or politics? Are popular accounts of such issues rooted in science or phantom risks? Are government policies focusing on the trivial while ignoring the real, and in the process wasting limited resources, crippling human innovation to address true dangers, and inviting tyranny?

In discussing not just environmental issues but the increasing politicization of science itself, best-selling author Michael Crichton examines the intersection of media, politics, and science, inspiring viewers to challenge old assumptions and to search beneath the surface of issues as they seek to discover the truth.

Scientists Bruce Ames (U.C. Berkeley), Sallie Baliunas (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), William Gray (Colorado State U.), and Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor show how scientific debates have been politicized by appealing to the fears of an uninformed public.

Here's a clip from the DVD:



h/t: GWH

Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion

Michael Crichton speaks to students in this video recorded in 2005.

Global Warming Debate

Debating the science. Crichton, Lindzen, Stott, Ekwurzel, Schmidt and Somerville. March 14, 2007. New York City. Really.

Update:The results of the debate are in:

Global warming is not a crisis
Intelligence² US audience confirms 46.22% to 42.22% in favor of the motion.

thanks to reader another_sean for the link.

Update (Mar 15, 2007): the debate transcript is here. (pdf)

The Backlash begins

You knew it would happen. After the airing of the Great Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4 in the U.K. last week, one of the scientists who appeared in the documentary is criticizing producer Martin Durkin. From the Independent:

Professor Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said he had been "completely misrepresented" by the programme, and "totally misled" on its content.

The Guardian also quotes Prof. Wunsch saying that his comments were taken out of context. The blog Global Warming Hyperbole takes an extensive look at what Wunsch actually said in the documentary and concludes:

After viewing these comments by the professor only hours after watching the program, I was shocked. I decided to go back and analyze the scenes in which the good professor appeared, and see if I could possibly imagine a "context" in which the actual words uttered by Professor Wunsch would have had a significantly different meaning. I could not. Maybe you can. I have printed the Professor's words as they appeared in the film, and the time at which they appeared.

Is Professor Wunsch feeling pressured by the global warming alarmists? Is he concerned that his research funds might dry up? Peter C. Glover comments at Global Warming Hysteria:

It seems that GW alarmists don't like it when freedom of speech is exercised and the mainstream media, for once, actually gives a platform to those of the world's leading climate scientists who do not agree with the prevailing view constantly delivered in the mass media that purports to suggest a science consensus on clime where none really exists. In short, they didn't like Martin Durkin's ''The Great Global Warming Swindle. So let;s quickly review their chief complaints.

1. Professor Carl Wunsch was "misrepresented". Actually he wasn't. He just thought he would be taking [part in a programme that was showing how complex and impossible it is to be clear about predictions. This of course does not put Prof. Wunsch in the alarmist camp at all but merely suggests he was misled about the nature of the programme - that is indeed regrettable and should not happen. Now set this instance against the fundamental fraud of the administrator's at the UN who put the name of dissenting scientists on their IPCC reports. Which do you think is worse?

2. They are complaining about the above (at 1) when, in fact, the complaint of those taking part in Durkin's documentary have had to suffer years of not being able to gain a platform for their views at all to speak in any documentary or by having their work published in 'science' magazines. Bearing this in mind then, which of these amounts to 'propaganda', years of denying a voice to other views in countless doumentaries and news stories - or those who have been allowed a single programme to put their case? Take your time...no rush...

3. Most important of all however, is the core point of the programme...that there is an entirely different - and much more obvious - cause for the small amount of global warming the earth has undergone. That is the clear complexity over the role of clouds in warming and cooling cycles and the role of solar activity as the chief cause which is the chief purpose of this documentary. The fact that they are picking holes in the minor issues and leaving the main issue entirely unanswered is highly revealing.

Peter also quotes from Janet Daley in the Daily Telegraph, who says:

"It is quite antithetical to scholarly endeavour, not to say the spirit of Western enlightenment, for researchers to seek to close down opposition to a theory or a thesis. But greenery is no longer scholarship: it is politics. The discussion has been taken over by politically driven forces with little interest in the value of free intellectual enquiry."

This might be a good time to review the quote from Michael Crichton in the right sidebar.

Criticism of the Great Global Warming Swindle was expected. Given the nature of the global warming industry, it's not surprising that some scientists may feel the pressured to backtrack on statements they made in the film. But who would have expected Death threats?

Expect more personal attacks and criticism of the scientists who dared to go against the grain and helped to make this important documentary. Just don't expect much debate of the science.