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"As far as we know, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, is an evolutionist, however many of his crticisms of mainstream science and it's political, bullying nature are the same ones we've tried to make on these pages...webmaster Caltech Michelin Lecture January 17, 2003 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...

It’s a measure of Carol Browner’s growing influence in the West Wing that she’s been given the coveted key to the taupe-accented kingdom — President Barack Obama’s personal BlackBerry e-mail address. The administration’s so-called energy czar is just about the only high-ranking official to emerge from the BP oil disaster with an enhanced reputation — making her, some say, the most powerful woman in the White House next to Obama’s longtime friend Valerie Jarrett. Yet even as Browner’s stock rises, her rationale for remaining by Obama’s side is declining. The collapse of the administration’s comprehensive climate change effort — a...

It's been a  few years since the release of the film The Thirteenth Warrior. It was a rarity: an intelligent actioner. Directed by Michael Crichton and based on his novel Eaters of the Dead, it was a retelling and rationalization of the ancient Beowulf legend. In Crichton's version, the monsters of legend comprise a tribe of human cannibals preying on Viking settlements. The story is told through the eyes of an educated Arab visitor who has traveled to the far north out of curiosity and wanderlust. He witnesses an attack by the cannibals in which the Vikings panic and run...

November 10, 2008 Michael Crichton, who died at 66 on November 4, election day, may not have been an outstanding stylist but he sure sold a few books in his time, mostly in the techno-thriller genre, such as Jurassic Park. He was a writer of ideas and also a medical doctor (Harvard Medical School), television producer, and film director. Crichton’s enormous success did not prevent him from speaking out on politicized science, a raging issue of our time and too often overlooked. He took up the theme in State of Fear (2004), a footnoted novel about environmental intrigue on a...

'Aliens Cause Global Warming' From a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology on Jan. 17, 2003: Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. 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. In 1960, Drake organizes the...

Michael Crichton, 1942-2008 Michael Crichton was a man of formidable intelligence and boundless curiosity. The two don't go together quite as often as they should. For years, when I picked up his latest novel, I'd find myself sighing, "Of course." The books had the inevitability of all the truly great ideas - as if they had not been cooked up in his study but had always been lying there, like truffles out in the woods, and he'd just been the first hound to get to them and snuffle them out. But, of course, he got to them again and again,...

In memory of Michael Crichton, who died Tuesday, let us consider a question that preocuppied him: How do we separate science from religion in environmentalism? As a spinner of sci-fi horror stories himself, he had a finely honed skepticism for the apocalyptic scenarios presented by environmentalists. In a speech in 2003, he argued that environmentalism was a modern remapping of Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths: There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as...

Best selling author Michael Crichton died unexpectedly in Los Angeles after what his reps call a "courageous and private battle against cancer." Getty Images Crichton, best known for such books as "Jurassic Park" and "Disclosure," also created the hit TV series "ER." His rep released the following statement: "While the world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us -- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each...

CBS News is reporting that author Michael Crichton has died at age 66. According to the report, Mr. Crichton, whose books include The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Prey, and others, fought "a courageous and private battle against cancer, according to a statement released by his family." (Gawker brought this story to our attention.)

Prolific novelist and "ER" creator Michael Crichton has passed away. He was 66. Perhaps best known for being the author of Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, which were turned into a hugely successful movie franchise, his numerous books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. In what his family calls an unexpected death, it was revealed that he was waging a private battle against cancer.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday that his religious beliefs influence his plans for how to protect the environment. Speaking before religious leaders and others at what he called an "interfaith forum on climate change," the Illinois senator said God has entrusted humans with the responsibility of caring for the earth, and "we are not acting as good stewards of God's earth when our bottom line puts the size of our profits before the future of our planet." "It is our responsibility to ensure that this planet remains clean and safe and livable for...

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms. -excerpted- Click HERE for the rest of the essay.

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. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to...

This is the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series of exchanges with notable friends of the Ablution. Our first respondent is one of the most popular novelists of our time. According to his official biography, he: 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. He’s “a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the...

David Suzuki vs. Michael Crichton Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Last Thursday, environmentalist guru David Suzuki stormed out of a Toronto AM640 radio interview with host John Oakley because Oakley dared to suggest that global warming might not be the "totally settled issue" Suzuki insisted it was. Oakley only reported a fact: Many accredited scientists -- some full professors from top universities, including Nobel prize winners and a former president of the National Academy of Sciences -- would argue that "global warning is at best unproven and at worst pure fantasy," according to novelist and...

One of the perquisites of being president is the ability to have the author of a book you enjoyed pop into the White House for a chat. Over the years, a number of writers have visited President Bush, including Natan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis and John Lewis Gaddis. And while the meetings are usually private, they rarely ruffle feathers. Now, one has. In his new book about Mr. Bush, "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "State...

Fear and Complexity The Independent Institute San Francisco, CA November 15, 2005 by Michael Crichton  Is this really the end of the world?  Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods? No, we simply live on an active planet.  Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months.  It’s nothing new, it’s right on schedule. At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six...

It would be nice if FR allowed more search options. For instance: Author. I'm currently trying to find a Michael Chricton article about global warming that appeared as a thread a time back but none of the keyword or title searches have helped. I'm sure I could google both Chricton and global warming and probably find the link and then search for that title at FR, but wouldn't it be better to have that option within FR from the getgo. Just a thought; in reality, I don't know how much of a strain that would put on the search engine...

Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy Washington DC November 6, 2005 By Michael Crichton I am going to challenge you today to revise your thinking, and to reconsider some fundamental assumptions. Assumptions so deeply embedded in our consciousness that we don’t even realize they are there. Here is a map by the artist Tom Friedman, that challenges certain assumptions. . .

I have not read Dracula ever again. I was ashamed of myself. Here I was, a 2nd lieutenant of Marines, fresh out of OCS, going to fight those Japanese SOB's, and just think, I let a book of fiction scare me like that.