Remarks to the Commonwealth Club Michael Crichton (Theme: Environmentalism is really Urban Atheism)

Michael Crichton ^ | September 15, 2003 | Michael Crichton

[FreedomPoster]

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.

[Honestfreedom]

He does write well in his books and his ideas are interesting. I still enjoy watching movies like Disclosure even though I have seen it numerous times. The guy is a genius and I don't always agree with him.

[CaptRon]

I can't say that I know anyone who is anti-environment, only those who believe pretty much what Crichton has said, that we need to be heedful of the environment and act on the facts

[forester]

A good article for the ping list.

[liberallarry]

I watch old movies all the time. I love 'em. They're good stories, well-told and they also are good records of their times. As in all things, you have to pick and choose. There's plenty of crap too - just as in real life. :)

[liberallarry]

I can't say that I know anyone who is anti-environment<P. I do. People who care only about getting rich. Some of them even call themselves environmentalists. :)

[massadvj]

that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric

Very true, and not just on the issue of environmentalism.

Bush, for example, turns out to be the most fiscally liberal president since Johnson, and yet people who call themselves "conservatives" love him while those who call themselves "liberals" hate him.

Had Gore been elected, he would never had succeeded in implementing an agenda as progressive as GWB's over the past 4 years.

[gatorbait]

religious fundamentalists, and we understand that one of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves.

Crichton got this right , and damn Larry, I am agreeing with him,and you too.

I think I need to up my meds..

[liberallarry]

I think I need to up my meds..

I'll send you some of mine. Got 'em cheap from Rush. A low blow, I know, but anything for a laugh....

[KAUAIBOUND]

The closest comparison I can make with the "fundamental religion" of environmentalism is that of the suicidal religion of Islamic fundamentalism. Both religions have believers firmly out of touch with reality and common sense. Also, here on Kauai, we are repeatedly reminded of the power of nature - 3 tourist deaths in the past 10 days or so in the ocean and rivers. A nearby ocean tourist attraction, Queen's Bath, has claimed 34 lives since 1970, almost all visitors. Yet when my 16 year old son warns the tourists of the dangers, they usually ignore him.

[gatorbait]

I think I need to up my meds..
I'll send you some of mine. Got 'em cheap from Rush. A low blow, I know, but anything for a laugh....


Yes indeedy :- )

Yep, I'm a Rush fan,but that's still funny.

[RogueIsland]

Great find.

People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.

Yup.

[John Will]

"there's a place called the Rain Forest, that turely sucks a**, let's knock it down and get rid of it fast".
Just love south park.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[cornelis]

It will take some work to undo it

I'll take a step toward it by making a distinction.

The mistake of these particular environmentalists and others such kind is to assume that a total comprehensive control is possible. It is similar to the optimism of rationalism that views knowledge as sufficient to comprehend a totality of factors.

Religion, in contrast, from its earliest days, comes from the other direction. The idea in religion is that it is tied to something else (re-ligo) or relies on something else because of our limited comprehension.

The very good illustration of this view is the religous disposition of Socrates who stands alone in his understanding of limited knowledge against the Athenian intelligentsia. He attacks the sophistic thinkers and "whackos" who assume to know the whole from the part.

It is no coincidence that later Christianity found common ground with Socrates rather than the "sophists." They found common ground with him because they too were religious insofar as they denied themselves--total comprehensive knowledge and certainty--what was only the priveledge of the divine.

That is not to say that religion has problem with dogma. Gnosticism was rampant and still is. It can take its understanding of truth too seriously and so dangerously far as to eclipse the concept of humility in religion. That religious people make such errors is an indication of the nature of our humanity, especially our impatience in the face of uncertainty. However, that gives no priviledge to turn it around as an excuse against the possibility of truth.

Perhaps the point to stress is here is hubris, and not religion. Nobody has a monopoly on hubris.

[Lil'freeper]

Brilliant! Except for the praise of the FDA. It, too, is subject to the pull of politics.

[gatorbait]

"there's a place called the Rain Forest, that turely sucks a**, let's knock it down and get rid of it fast".


Remind me to tell you about my older girl's 3rd grade Rain Forest report. I cannot post it publically as it does kind of invite moderations(rightly so) .

Dave

[PoorMuttly]

Got it. FOLLOW THE LINK, MUTTLY :

"In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% coinfidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen.

This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation's third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.

In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information." The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science….there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people.

Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.

As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we've given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We've told them that cheating is the way to succeed."

[Lancey Howard]

WOW!
Bumped and bookmarked.

[PsyOp]

Bush, for example, turns out to be the most fiscally liberal president since Johnson, and yet people who call themselves "conservatives" love him while those who call themselves "liberals" hate him.

Spending X or Y amount does not make one liberal or conservative. What the dollars are spent on does. Welfare vs. defense for example.

The President who spends twice as much on defense as the one who spends on welfare is the conservative. Why? Because that's what the constitution says it should be spent on, when neccesary.

Most of the money Bush has spent has been on national security. That makes him a conservative in my book, as opposed to Clinton, who saved money by allowing our national defense to languish and failed in his constitutional duty to provide for the common defense.

[Tribune7]

Wow. Great post.