Michael Crichton debunks the "consensus science" of Dr. Carl Sagan

www.crichton-official.com ^ | January 17, 2003 | Michael Crichton

[Benrand]

Aliens Cause Global Warming

A long read, but filled with interesting anecdotes from people like Feynman and Teller. I must say, he sounds pretty conservative.

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.

[EggsAckley]

I read this speech some where a few weeks ago. Not only is Crichton a great writer, he also pretty much nails environmentalism. Great speech.

[Support Free Republic]

[Benrand]

he really is good. I thought he was more a pop writer, but there is a depth to his writing that is really good. I love this excerpt. I have always cast a suspicious eye towards this magazine.

Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?

[Benrand]

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

[EggsAckley]

And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains.

Frank Drake is a neighbor of mine. Very fine man. He's taken up square dancing of late.

[Nataku X]

I thought one of his books was basically a mouthpiece to legalize abortion...

[Moosehead]

Incredible speech...not that familiar with Chrichton but will certainly check his books out.

[Andyman]

That was one terrific piece. Thanks for posting.

[hillary's_fat_a**]

I actually was a babysitter for Carl [for his son Nick] when I was at CU. Carl was a great guy - used to take me to HoJo's for dinner a few times.

[elbucko]

I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Well put. The same could be said for financial and political prognosticators.

Good article, good read. Thanks.

[Rummyfan]

Bump for later.....

[DouglasKC]

Excellent article by Crichton. I read "Jurassic Park" before it became a movie. It echoed many of the themes he brings out here such as promoting scientific "ideals" over scientific accuracy.

No doubt about it, science is the religion of the secular.

[Nataku X]

To be frank I was surprised to see him come out against environmentalism--he always appeared to be a liberal to me. One of his earlier books basically was a push to legalize abortion, and his sequel to Jurassic Park had large chapters bashing 6-day creationism. I'm not a literal creationist but if I had to write books bashing political issues I'd write 100 books bashing liberal issues before getting around to creationism.

And his Jurassic Park book, while a good read, seemed to be full of stereotypical liberal themes--big evil arrogant corporation buys island, messes with nature, pays for it all in the end... so I was *really* surprised to read this article.

[bootless]

I love Chrichton's environmental speeches, esp. his Commonwealth Club speech. I'll post it as soon as I get some coffee.

[EggsAckley]

How cool! Frank is so quiet and brainy, everytime I see him I'm scared I'll ask something stupid like, "so, Frank, are there really little green men up there?" Sweet guy.

[Snake65]

Great find and a great post.

[EggsAckley]

I love Chrichton's environmental speeches, esp. his Commonwealth Club speech. I'll post it as soon as I get some coffee.

I got that one RIGHT HERE

[chiller]

Here's that Environmentalism is Atheism speech.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1035163/posts

This speech was found on Instapundit yesterday, I wonder why it's dated Jan. '03?

He really trashes the scientific community.

[Restore]

Ask him if the Drake equation isn't usually written:

N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L

Where R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life. Likewise, L (The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.) is a whole number, not a fraction (fL) as Crichton suggests.

I'm not trying to be an upstart but it seems that the way Crichton writes the equation,

(N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL)

well, it doesn't make sense.