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It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I don't necessarily endorse it, but here you go: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You ope
by danielweber 14y ago
It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I don't necessarily endorse it, but here you go:
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” — Michael Crichton
- snowwrestler 14y agoIronically, Crichton was himself known to play fast and loose with facts. Mathematicians laughed at his portrayal of chaos theory and its implications in Jurassic Park, and the scientific community cried foul over his portrayal of climate science in State of Fear. It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.
- oconnore 14y agoA novelist is allowed (and encouraged!) to bend facts to make their books more exciting to the reader. Crichton may or may not have been an expert on certain subjects, but the contents of his fictional novels are not relevant to that discussion.
- clobber 14y agoSure, except that Crichton was extremely outspoken regarding "climate change as a lie"[1] where he used his book, State of Fear, to present his views as facts[2]: 1. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html 2. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/crichton-thriller-state-of.html http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/glo...
- jbuzbee 14y agoWhat turned me off on Crichton was his belief in spiritualism, mystics, spoon bending, etc: http://www.crichton-official.com/features-spoonbending.html http://www.crichton-official.com/features-spoonbending.html Really? A medical doctor that believes in spoon bending and fortune telling? Sigh... Of course Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in Fairies
- CamperBob2 14y agoCrichton's Travels is a fascinating and infuriating book. You know he's a human being just like yourself, but yet his thought processes are as alien as anything you'd expect to find in a Star Trek script. The idea that the author of The Andromeda Strain could be taken in by spoon-bending was also more than a bit frightening.