"Bad Science, Bad Fiction
In Michael Crichton's work, the two are intimately connected.

Publius wrote:

Michael Crichton's *State of Fear* was released in paperback a few days
ago, and is already #1 on most paperback best-seller lists.

The hardcover edition induced apoplexy among Green doomsayers when it w=

released last December. The paperback will reach a much larger audience.

It's a great read, and a welcome expose of the motivations and machinat=

of the eco-ideologues.

"Bad Science, Bad Fiction
In Michael Crichton's work, the two are intimately connected.

Chris Mooney; January 18, 2005

NOTE: ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------=

Michael Crichton's latest book, State of Fear, is a novel in name only.
More accurately described, it's a work of thinly disguised political
commentary, in which a wildly implausible plot--eco-terrorists supplant
Al Qaeda as the leading global menace, unveiling dastardly weather
modification schemes to convince the public of a nonexistent global
warming threat--serves as an excuse for a string of Socratic-style
dialogues about climate science. Since Crichton's characters repeatedly
find themselves jetting across the globe to stop the latest
eco-terrorist menace (blowing off parts of Antarctica, unleashing a
tsunami, and so on), they have plenty of time in transit to question
the reality of human caused global warming. The plot contrivance of a
pending climate change lawsuit--abandoned once its proponents realize
they don't have a case--provides yet another didactic opportunity for
the author. When the legal team cross-examines one of our heroes about
climate science, Crichton seizes the chance to insert temperature trend
diagrams and copious footnotes into the text.

All of these "educational" dialogues take the same format: A smart-guy
character, holding forth in technical banter bearing little resemblance
to spoken English, runs rings around a character who holds misguided
beliefs that he or she cannot defend with reference to the scientific
literature. These erroneous beliefs all hinge on the notion that the
earth is warming significantly, that this has resulted at least in part
from human activities, and that the consequences have begun to make
themselves felt and could grow quite severe over time--a robust
mainstream scientific view, although apparently not one shared by
Crichton. Hilariously, at the end of his book Crichton states: "A novel
such as State of Fear, in which so many divergent views are expressed,
may lead the reader to wonder where, exactly, the author stands on
these issues...." As if it wasn't obvious.

Crichton's central smart guy is Richard John Kenner, a scientist who
heads the fictional MIT Center for Risk Analysis while doubling as a
secret agent who likes to bring lawyers and hot babes along on his
adventures. Kenner seems a composite of Richard Lindzen, the famed MIT
prof and global warming "skeptic," John Graham, who headed the Harvard
Center for Risk Analysis before joining the Bush administration (see
here for a previous column about what Graham has been up to), and Vin
Diesel. In essence, Kenner's character serves as a vessel into which
Crichton can pour his agenda-driven reading of the scientific evidence.
Here's an example of how Kenner talks:

There are one hundred sixty thousand glaciers in the world, Ted. About
sixty-seven thousand have been inventoried but only a few have been
studied with care. There is mass balance data extending five years or
more for only seventy-nine glaciers in the entire world. So, how can
you say they're all melting?

Try reading that aloud, and then ask yourself whether real people, even
real scientists, speak this way. Though perhaps intended to make Kenner
seem smart, such language only makes him seem fake.

Nevertheless, Kenner excels at getting equally fictitious lawyers and
Hollywood celebrities to see the error of their ways. But for some
reason, Crichton never has his mouthpiece argue against another
scientist who reads the evidence on climate change differently and can
cite literature to back his or her view as well. In our world--the real
world--you can find a small army of these. I have interviewed many of
them, heard others lecture, and met still more at conferences. In
Crichton's universe, however, they seem not to exist.

Crichton's scientific footnotes--which he promises "are
real"--similarly misrepresent reality. In the text of State of Fear as
well as in its 20 pages of citations, Crichton glosses over a high
profile 2001 National Academy of Sciences report entitled Climate
Change Science: An Analysis of Key Questions, which opens with the
following passage:

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of
human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes
observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human
activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these
changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced
warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through
the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model
simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in
rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to
drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on
the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.

The mention of "human-induced warming and associated sea level rises"
is particularly interesting, because Crichton seeks to debunk concerns
about rising sea levels. Crichton's footnotes also exclude statements
by the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical
Union, which broadly agree with NAS. No wonder real life climate
experts, of the sort that Crichton excommunicates from his "novel,"
have scathingly critiqued his depiction of their field and the level of
understanding it has achieved.

As these examples suggest, Crichton's skewed reading of the scientific
literature leads him into an utter abandonment of literary
verisimilitude. For this author, at least, bad science fuels bad
fiction. Nowhere does that shortcoming become more apparent than in
Crichton's inability to capture human character. His environmentalists
are total creeps, and not just that. They're nefarious schemers, who
won't even stop at mass murder to achieve their greater goals. As one
eco-terrorist puts it, shortly before Kenner silences him with a
bullet: "Casualties are inevitable in accomplishing social change.
History tells us that."

Sorry, but I've hung out with plenty of environmental activists
(although no eco-terrorists), and they're just not as Crichton
describes them. They have many flaws--na=EFve idealism, political
impotence perhaps--but they're not cold-blooded killers. They would
never dream of causing the types of disasters they're pledged to work
against. In Crichton's fictional universe, however, global warming
concerns are all made up. Therefore, environmentalists must transform
into outright evildoers--how else to account for their real life
behavior? Crichton should have realized, from the unreality of his
characters, that he'd been tugged in the wrong direction.

The author's depictions of journalists have similar flaws. In State of
Fear, reporters exist solely as environmentalist lapdogs. Crichton
makes this plain in a scene in which his characters find themselves
watching a newscast:

They cut to a younger man, apparently the weatherman. "Thanks, Terry.
Hi, everybody. If you're a longtime resident of the Grand Canyon State,
you've probably noticed that our weather is changing, and scientists
have confirmed that what's behind it is our old culprit, global
warming. Today's flash flood is just one example of the trouble
ahead--more extreme weather conditions, like floods and tornadoes and
droughts--all as a result of global warming."
Sanjong nudged Evans, and handed him a sheet of paper. It was a
printout of a press release from the NERF [an environmental group]
website. Sanjong pointed to the text: "...scientists agree there will
be trouble ahead: more extreme weather events, like floods and
tornadoes and droughts, all as a result of global warming."
Evans said, "This guy's just reading a press release?"
"That's how they do it, these days," Kenner said. "They don't even
bother to change a phrase here and there. They just read the copy
outright. And of course, what he's saying is not true."

In fact, no self-respecting journalist would take an environmentalist
press release and copy it verbatim. Members of the mainstream national
media do view environmental groups as self-interested, and check their
claims with independent scientists. What Crichton can't admit, or can't
stand, is that in reality these scientists often agree with the
environmental groups.

In State of Fear, however, Crichton is God, and his views become the
book's laws of nature. That's never more apparent than in Crichton's
numerous "conversion" scenes, in which characters who had previously
believed in the dogma of global warming suddenly see the light. At one
point in the novel, two such figures confide in one another following a
legal cross examination:

"I mean, when I gave those answers, I wasn't saying what I really
think. I'm, uh...I'm asking some--I'm changing my mind about a lot of
this stuff."
"Really?"
"Yes," he said, speaking softly. "Those graphs of temperature, for
instance. They raise obvious questions about the validity of global
warming."
She nodded slowly. Looking at him closely.
He said, "You, too?"
She continued to nod.

Let's face it: Such writing is pure porn for global warming deniers, in
much the same way that fictional accounts of UFO abduction skeptics
converting into true believers titillate UFO fans.

In the end, State of Fear bears little resemblance to Crichton's most
successful sci-fi thrillers, like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda
Strain. Instead, it's far more reminiscent of Disclosure, Crichton's
perverse attempt to address the issue of sexual harassment in the
workplace by focusing on a case in which a woman harasses a man, rather
than vice-versa. Similarly, in State of Fear the specter of a vast
environmentalist conspiracy--a problem even less significant than
sexual harassment of men by their female superiors--gets trumpeted
while real concerns (climate change, for instance) get scoffed at. By
the book's end, one can only ask: What planet is Michael Crichton
living on? Because this one is clearly getting warmer."
=20
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/

For a look at what happens to the environment without an environmental
movement one need only consider COMMUNIST CHINA and the old SOVIET
UNION.

The biggest highlight is of course Chernobyl, but some of the Rivers in
China have enough pollution to make, say England unihabitable.

Publius,
For a look at what happens to the environment without an environmental
movement one need only consider COMMUNIST CHINA and the old SOVIET
UNION.

The biggest highlight is of course Chernobyl, but some of the Rivers in
China have enough pollution to make, say England unihabitable.