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Remarks to the Commonwealth Club Michael Crichton (Theme: Environmentalism is really Urban Atheism)
Michael Crichton ^ | September 15, 2003 | Michael Crichton

Posted on 12/06/2003 8:16:02 AM PST by FreedomPoster

Edited on 12/15/2003 11:31:15 AM PST by Lead Moderator. [history]

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: commonwealth; crevolist; enviralists; environment; environmentalism; green; greens; michaelcrichton
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To: FreedomPoster
This is a great article! It is very wise and full of insight, honesty and common sense.

P.S. I'm a religious fundamentalist, a philosophy which he somewhat denigrates, but he still hit the ball out of the park with this speech/article.

181 posted on 12/27/2003 7:57:31 PM PST by wife-mom
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To: FreedomPoster
I would vote for this posting as one of the "FR Top 10 Postings of 2003"!

If we don't have such a list of best posts of the year here, we should, but I'm not about to make a vanity posting.

182 posted on 12/28/2003 11:05:14 AM PST by StopGlobalWhining (Cheney - Rumsfeld in '08)
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To: FreedomPoster
The speech has been pulled from Crichton's site and from the Commonwealth Club site.

Here is another link.

http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/michael_crichton_remarks_commonwealth_club.htm
183 posted on 02/05/2004 5:34:34 PM PST by Atlas Sneezed (Your Friendly Freeper Patent Attorney)
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To: Beelzebubba; Lead Moderator
I just saved that off to my local drive. Very interesting.

Lead Moderator, I've pinged you, since you had "excerptized" the original, and since I find this sort of expunging of history interesting (see #183 just above). I've got to think it was done due to pressure MC received from the watermelon enviro-whacko Left, but maybe I'm being too tinfoil-hat-ish.

Was this at one time published in the LAT? And therefore they owned the publishing rights, leading to it be "excerptized" here, and perhaps causing it to be removed from MC's personal site?

If you could see fit to add Beelzebubba's link to the main post, instead of buried down here at # 183, that would be above and beyond the call of duty, and greatly appreciated.
184 posted on 02/06/2004 1:50:23 AM PST by FreedomPoster (This space intentionally blank)
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To: FreedomPoster
We were contacted by Chricton's attorney, who requested that we take down copies of the speech. Thanks, LM
185 posted on 02/06/2004 6:58:19 AM PST by Lead Moderator
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To: FreedomPoster
Fortunately, due to the Internet, one will ALWAYS be able to find the speech by Googling "Crichton Commonwealth."
186 posted on 02/06/2004 7:02:53 AM PST by Atlas Sneezed (Your Friendly Freeper Patent Attorney)
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To: Beelzebubba
I hope you are right. Again, the whole thing just smells of Orwellian / Soviet-style expungement of history. Again, I'm probably being too tinfoil hat-ish, but that's how I see it.
187 posted on 02/06/2004 7:44:49 AM PST by FreedomPoster (This space intentionally blank)
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To: FreedomPoster

Hi all, I'm new to the forum...so excuse me if i've posted incorrectly...

I just wanted to make the point that although Crichton advocates the abandonment of the religion of environmentalism, his vision for a return to the SCIENCE of environmentalism itself appears to take on a similar omnipotent messiah-like quality. My issue is not with the arguments he raises in relation to the need for a new framework for environmentalism, but rather with what I view as his simplistic and naive perception of science as "truth". There are respected scientists on both sides of many environmental issues who use science to argue their hypotheses...to suggest that one scientist might be more or less driven by a religious-like belief in their world view than another scientist is problematic. Throughout history science has been used and abused to a variety of disparate ends. At the end of the day, who's there to referee the process? In reality the "science" of "science" is a lot more subjective than we may like to admit.

In conclusion, i think Crichton's claim that environmental science should replace the 'religion of environmentalism' is one that relies heavily on the idea that science in its pure form is purely objective...there's an interesting parellel there with this "pure science" model and his notion of idealised nature as held in the Eden-myth of purity.

Actually, another thought occurs to me...while certainly, under the banner of "environmentalism" i beleive there are many cases that contain less hard facts and more sentimentalities there are also many cases in which well researched, intelligent and I beleive scientifically correct facts are presented (by the way, there is I believe a place for spirituality and emotion in our perception of ecology anyway)... My thought is this....does Crichton's perception of these "other views" as a religion, become a way of discrediting their alternate ideas in one big sweep of the board?

Are we simply swinging from environmental-eden-isms to scientific ones?


188 posted on 02/14/2005 3:56:06 PM PST by treeker (SCIENTIFIC-EDEN-ISM?)
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To: treeker

Well, you've certainly managed to find an old thread to resurrect. But I guess despite that, it's still "timely", given the book release.

I guess the issue I have is that the area of environmentalism seems to be heavily influenced by the "religion of environmentalism" right now, and there isn't enough "science", in Pournelle's sense of the word, meaning "something you can put in a letter to a colleague and he'll get the same results you did." Instead, there seems to be a lot of bald assertion-making.

See the article about the "hockey stick" in today's WSJ for an example.


189 posted on 02/14/2005 4:02:00 PM PST by FreedomPoster
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To: FreedomPoster

Isn't the "religion of environmentalism" simply a term that's been coined by Crichton (or whoever) to group together a selection of views? While I understand where he's coming from - there is most certainly that element of fanaticism expressed by SOME under the very broad banner of "ENVIRONMENTALISM", however - equally so, there are SOME that express a comparable fanaticism in their greed for the holy dollar. Can't that be classed a religion too? I suppose my point is, ALL people are INTERESTED - by that I mean, have an interest, an agenda etc, in these issues...you might call the hippy a fanatical religious environmentalism, and you might call the scientist contracted by an INTERESTED corporation or collective a fanatical economically driven environmentalist. There's not a whole lot of difference in that way.

It's well known for example, that a government department who want to acheive a certain goal can contract an environmentalist who will tell them exactly what they want to hear, and prove it "scientifically" too. Another environmentalist without the same agenda, might be able to see those results and methods in a very different light. It happens all the time.... Let's not be naive.

The environment is a MULTI BILLION dollar industry...that fact alone brings a hell of a lot of people out of the woodwork and sets in motions a hell of a lot of political spin doctoring and propaganda.

I just think what Crichton is advocating is INCREDIBLY dangerous, and that is, an uncritical view of science as "truth". By his very lack of detail regarding the "politics of science" he has really missed the larger point I think. YES, some of the points he makes are true, (they are also one sided), however his conclusion is a off the mark in my opinion. What we need is not to abandon this so called 'religion of environmentalism' for science - it's to research scientific and cultural facts thoroughly and present environmental issues in a transparent way that allows us as the public (and policy makers etc) to more clearly identify stake holders, political forces, cultural and ecological impacts and the PROCESS of scientific research. It's a bigger picture and it goes WAY beyond the kind of finger pointing and then uncritical (shallow even), advocacy of "science" I feel Crichton allows his argument to degenerate into.

That's my 2 cents...


190 posted on 02/15/2005 3:35:45 PM PST by treeker (SCIENTIFIC-EDEN-ISM?)
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