"Crichton's status as a 'mere' novelist"
Michael Crichton is a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.
Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He has taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton's 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C. (His conclusions have been widely misstated.)
Crichton's interest in computer modeling goes back forty years. His multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090 computer at Harvard, was published in the Papers of the Peabody Museum in 1966. His technical publications include a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma, in Metabolism, and an essay on medical obfuscation in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Crichton's first bestseller, The Andromeda Strain, was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. Now one of the most popular writers in the world, his books have been translated into thirty-six languages, and thirteen have been made into films.
He's had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects back in 1973. Crichton's pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him a Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1995.
Crichton has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered ankylosaur was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. Crichton is married and lives in Los Angeles.
"I had one of the first subscriptions to Ms. magazine. I was actually quite sorry to see feminism take the nosedive it did, to watch it commit intellectual suicide with its support for Clinton. If they like the guy, he can do anything. But if they don't-if it's Bob Packwood-they kill him. It revealed the intellectual contradiction. At least that's my reading of it."
If you ever visit Boston, the Peabody Museum is a must. There is an intact 45" Kronsaurus skeleton that will scare the bleep out of the kids. You'll be real glad that they died out when you see it.
"Next, and slightly more troubling, we have some rather misleading and selective recollection regarding Jim Hansen's testimony to congress in 1988. "Dr. Hansen overestimated [global warming] by 300 percent" (p247). Hansen's testimony did indeed lead to a big increase in awareness of global warming as a issue, but not because he exaggerated the problem by 300%. In a paper published soon after that testimony, Hansen et al, 1988 presented three model simulations for different scenarios for the growth in trace gases and other forcings (see figure). Scenario A had exponentially increasing CO2, Scenario B had a more modest Business-as-usual assumption, and Scenario C had no further increases in CO2 after the year 2000. Both scenarios B and C assumed a large volcanic eruption in 1995. Rightly, the authors did not assume that they knew what path the carbon dioxide emissions would take, and so presented a spectrum of results. The scenario that ended up being closest to the real path of forcings growth was scenario B, with the difference that Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, not 1995. The temperature change for the decade under this scenario was very close to the actual 0.11 C/decade observed (as can be seen in the figure). So given a good estimate of the forcings, the model did a reasonable job. In fact in his testimony, Hansen ONLY showed results from scenario B, and stated clearly that it was the most probable scenario. The '300 percent' error claim comes from noted climate skeptic Patrick Michaels who in testimony in congress in 1998 deleted the bottom two curves in order to give the impression that the models were unreliable."
Michael Crichton's State of Confusion II: Return of the Science
"Crichton should know that this assertion is false. He cites in the 'bibliography' at the end of his book, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But he appears unaware, for example, of the 54 page chapter (chapter "8") in that report on "Model Evaluation", which describes in detail how observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models. He also appears unaware of the 44 page chapter (chapter "12") on "Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes" which describes in detail how model-predicted changes are explicitly compared to the actual climate observations in determining the extent to which human influence on climate can be established. Finally, he appears unaware of the 56 page chapter (chapter "10") on "Regional Climate Information - Evaluation and Projections" evaluating the success of model-based regional climate predictions as measured against actual instrumental data."
Crichton: climate expert or biased, very wealthy, publicity-seeking, book-selling activist? You make the call.
A bit of personal analysis. Having lived in Germany for 14 years....there is a vast number of Germans who are absolutely uneducated beyond their high school "dump" of information. They rely heavily upon news organizations to inform them and to "know" the facts. Of course...the state-run media has taken a global warming position...so over 90 percent of the German population take that position. So when they want to engage in a "debate"...and I bring the top ten myths of global warming...they stand there and try to repeat what the TV host said...and I start tearing the argument apart for them. They usually come to a point of asking how I am so informed...and I simply respond that like most Americans...I refuse to accept information at face value. I read through alot of different publications and web sites. They don't.
As you look across the American population...the same situation exists there. People are picking up the publications and asking stupid questions. The global warming hawks now face a crowd who ask questions that can't be answered.
Adding to this entire episode is the necessity to tax people on invisible "weapons"...my favorite topic with Germans. For gamers out there...who must have a certain weapon...they are willing to spend cash on things which do not exist. When you examine the entire Kyoto treaty...its based totally on invisible "weapons" and giving money to someone to have their "weapons". In economics 101...you are taught a simple concept...a fool and his money are soon parted. This concept works well in today's environment. If you accept the idea of paying people for invisible "weapons"...then you might as well give up on your pension, your dreams, and settle back for the US being a third-world banana republic. I can't see myself or most of the American population taking that stand....
Thanks for the bio.
Thanks. Appreciate those impressive details.
That's right. He is cutting-edge and has the guns to stay that way.