4 ms·

Sometimes all it takes is one novel to lose all respect for an author and any pretence about their relationship to science. One that's not mentioned in this art

Sometimes all it takes is one novel to lose all respect for an author and any pretence about their relationship to science. One that's not mentioned in this article. State of Fear, which had the added bonus of being a novel with dozens of charts and graphs and incredibly heavy going. He should have stuck with the sillier stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear

zenbai 8y ago
His legacy will be that he was one of the most impactful climate deniers who influenced so many, including politicians and presidents, to ignore the issue of global warming precisely when there was still time to fix it.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  There's a good chance those climate deniers would've gotten to the same point without Crichton. You can probably train a machine learning algorithm and see that there are traits that are highly correlated with climate denialism. If some person has (some of) these traits, then reading Crichton is only a trigger, but absent that there will be plenty of other triggers that will lead to the same conclusion.
  - InfiniteBeing 8y ago
    yeah, it's called actually taking science seriously, but not being stuck in a false paradigm
  - YouAreGreat 8y ago
    > traits that are highly correlated with climate denialism Sure. Since it is socially so much easier to be a secretly skeptic climate congregationist than an open climate denier, I'd bet one such correlated trait would be extreme honesty.
- jraby3 8y ago
  I wonder if he would still be a denier today. A lot has changed since he died, and I think the evidence is much clearer now. It’s easy to forget that.
folli 8y ago
OTOH, he gave us Jurassic Park, that likely influenced legions of kids to be interested in Science and Biology.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  I think this book and movie actually started the whole movement where the first HN or reddit comment on any breakthroguh is basically saying what could go wrong. And it sours the rest of the discussion trying to recover from that top comment. The majority of the world now believes that scientific breakthroughs offer more harm than good.
ggm 8y ago
I loved the book, but I utterly repudiate his denialist position espoused in it. It feels to me like loving Ian Fleming but abhoring the sexism inherent in James bond. Michael Chrichton wrote pot-boiler thrillers really well and to relax on a long flight I still read them, including this one but the climate denialism is a royal pain.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  I enjoyed the likes of Jurassic Park, Timeline, The First Great Train Robbery hugely. Found State of Fear too much like hard work. I think I might be similarly disappointed with Fleming if he had held a well publicised stance about equality and women's rights through his career, and then put out James Bond. Course the Bond movies were very different to the books.
  - tnecniv 8y ago
    You should definitely read Sphere and Prey if you haven't! Also avoid the Timeline movie at all costs unless you are trapped on a flight.
    - ggm 8y ago
      I rather liked the timeline book, but it's juvenalia. I liked his reasoned (if entirely hypothetical) comments about the mistakes we make visualising the past as white, because we see whitewashed walls, when they were probably as polychromatic as they could be in the circumstances. And I liked his characterisation of the poor as probably predating everyone they could, not some robin-hood fantasy of nice people waiting for gifts of food. But the whole quantum foam and nasty scientist at home angle was just trashy. Geniuses like this don't rise to the top of corporations. Oh wait.. hang on...
      - tnecniv 8y ago
        I did like the Timeline book as well, but I read it at around 13. It did really change a lot of images I had of the period though. One thing that sticks out in my memory was a comment on how much distance the average serf could cover in a day from walking since it was their only mode of transportation. The movie, though, is just completely middling. It's not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to be exciting. I watched it on a plane, which adds two points to any score I would give a movie, but if I was at home I would have probably turned it off after 45 minutes.
sanxiyn 8y ago
It's a fiction. Liking the author is optional, even if one likes the book. I do think there is heavy politicization of climate science going on, when reporting science to the public. For example, reporting is increasingly confident, while science is not. Climate sensitivity estimate hasn't improved at all for >10 years between TAR(2001) and AR5(2014), it's still from 1.5 to 4.5 C. Where is confidence coming from? Repeating things over and over should not make one more confident.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Why would you say that scientific confidence is increasing? The only change that I have noticed is that the public is slowly deciding that the believe the scientists. The public includes journalists from the scientist's perspective.
rtx 8y ago
It's one of my favorite books. The economic model discussed in there tells us lot about humanity. Everyone with an openmind should give it a read. The biggest demonstration of the model you can see today in, environmentalist opposing nuclear power
jasonkester 8y ago
My personal favourite conspiracy theory is that Michael Crichton was actually murdered by the “fear industry” because he hit too close to the truth with that book. I don’t actually believe it, but the timeline works out so nicely. I keep waiting for the crazy people to take up the story and run with it, but thus far nobody has.
jhbadger 8y ago
Although "State of Fear" was horrible, it really isn't inconsistent with the rest of his novels. Crichton never liked science and scientists. It and they are always villains in his books. The heroes always have to destroy the findings so the world won't know of the new discovery of genetic engineering, nanotech, time travel, alien artifacts, etc.
lowken10 8y ago
State of Fear is a great eye opening book. The parts about how the news media exists to keep is scared is very enlightening and true.
gopstopushka 8y ago
a very good book, one of his best. it wouldn't cause so much butthurt if it wasn't relevant
vixen99 8y ago
Which particular charts and graphs did you take issue with? It's great to see critical takes on anything but they're fairly pointless (we're anonymous here) unless you offer some reason to believe. For all I know all his data was cherry-picked to fit an anti-CAGW agenda but someone merely claiming this doesn't make me any the wiser.

zenbai 8y ago

His legacy will be that he was one of the most impactful climate deniers who influenced so many, including politicians and presidents, to ignore the issue of global warming precisely when there was still time to fix it.

credit_guy 8y ago
There's a good chance those climate deniers would've gotten to the same point without Crichton. You can probably train a machine learning algorithm and see that there are traits that are highly correlated with climate denialism. If some person has (some of) these traits, then reading Crichton is only a trigger, but absent that there will be plenty of other triggers that will lead to the same conclusion.
- InfiniteBeing 8y ago
  yeah, it's called actually taking science seriously, but not being stuck in a false paradigm
- YouAreGreat 8y ago
  > traits that are highly correlated with climate denialism Sure. Since it is socially so much easier to be a secretly skeptic climate congregationist than an open climate denier, I'd bet one such correlated trait would be extreme honesty.
jraby3 8y ago
I wonder if he would still be a denier today. A lot has changed since he died, and I think the evidence is much clearer now. It’s easy to forget that.

folli 8y ago

OTOH, he gave us Jurassic Park, that likely influenced legions of kids to be interested in Science and Biology.

mrfusion 8y ago
I think this book and movie actually started the whole movement where the first HN or reddit comment on any breakthroguh is basically saying what could go wrong. And it sours the rest of the discussion trying to recover from that top comment. The majority of the world now believes that scientific breakthroughs offer more harm than good.

ggm 8y ago

I loved the book, but I utterly repudiate his denialist position espoused in it. It feels to me like loving Ian Fleming but abhoring the sexism inherent in James bond. Michael Chrichton wrote pot-boiler thrillers really well and to relax on a long flight I still read them, including this one but the climate denialism is a royal pain.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I enjoyed the likes of Jurassic Park, Timeline, The First Great Train Robbery hugely. Found State of Fear too much like hard work. I think I might be similarly disappointed with Fleming if he had held a well publicised stance about equality and women's rights through his career, and then put out James Bond. Course the Bond movies were very different to the books.
- tnecniv 8y ago
  You should definitely read Sphere and Prey if you haven't! Also avoid the Timeline movie at all costs unless you are trapped on a flight.
  - ggm 8y ago
    I rather liked the timeline book, but it's juvenalia. I liked his reasoned (if entirely hypothetical) comments about the mistakes we make visualising the past as white, because we see whitewashed walls, when they were probably as polychromatic as they could be in the circumstances. And I liked his characterisation of the poor as probably predating everyone they could, not some robin-hood fantasy of nice people waiting for gifts of food. But the whole quantum foam and nasty scientist at home angle was just trashy. Geniuses like this don't rise to the top of corporations. Oh wait.. hang on...
    - tnecniv 8y ago
      I did like the Timeline book as well, but I read it at around 13. It did really change a lot of images I had of the period though. One thing that sticks out in my memory was a comment on how much distance the average serf could cover in a day from walking since it was their only mode of transportation. The movie, though, is just completely middling. It's not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to be exciting. I watched it on a plane, which adds two points to any score I would give a movie, but if I was at home I would have probably turned it off after 45 minutes.

sanxiyn 8y ago

It's a fiction. Liking the author is optional, even if one likes the book. I do think there is heavy politicization of climate science going on, when reporting science to the public. For example, reporting is increasingly confident, while science is not. Climate sensitivity estimate hasn't improved at all for >10 years between TAR(2001) and AR5(2014), it's still from 1.5 to 4.5 C. Where is confidence coming from? Repeating things over and over should not make one more confident.

whatshisface 8y ago
Why would you say that scientific confidence is increasing? The only change that I have noticed is that the public is slowly deciding that the believe the scientists. The public includes journalists from the scientist's perspective.

rtx 8y ago

It's one of my favorite books. The economic model discussed in there tells us lot about humanity. Everyone with an openmind should give it a read. The biggest demonstration of the model you can see today in, environmentalist opposing nuclear power

jasonkester 8y ago

My personal favourite conspiracy theory is that Michael Crichton was actually murdered by the “fear industry” because he hit too close to the truth with that book. I don’t actually believe it, but the timeline works out so nicely. I keep waiting for the crazy people to take up the story and run with it, but thus far nobody has.

jhbadger 8y ago

Although "State of Fear" was horrible, it really isn't inconsistent with the rest of his novels. Crichton never liked science and scientists. It and they are always villains in his books. The heroes always have to destroy the findings so the world won't know of the new discovery of genetic engineering, nanotech, time travel, alien artifacts, etc.

lowken10 8y ago

State of Fear is a great eye opening book. The parts about how the news media exists to keep is scared is very enlightening and true.

gopstopushka 8y ago

a very good book, one of his best. it wouldn't cause so much butthurt if it wasn't relevant

vixen99 8y ago

Which particular charts and graphs did you take issue with? It's great to see critical takes on anything but they're fairly pointless (we're anonymous here) unless you offer some reason to believe. For all I know all his data was cherry-picked to fit an anti-CAGW agenda but someone merely claiming this doesn't make me any the wiser.