"Aliens Cause Global Warming"

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html ^ | January 17, 2003 | Michael Crichton

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks.

MC will be ripping the Gorebull Warming BS with humor and logic combined with real science for a long time.

[hgro]

Finally we know that Al Gore is an alien.

[Old Professer]

The very fact that an organization titled The National Academy of Scientists exists is contrary to the true science of discovery for it turns its members into a hierarchical band of fame-seekers on the high end and a bunch of toadying butt-kissers on the other.

[null and void]

Don't be silly, it's the Reptoids. They like it warm...

[Old Professer]

Footnote: I'm reminded of "The Cheyenne Social Club."

[MrCFdovnh]

"Finally we know that Al Gore is an alien."

[joseph2]

What Crichton writes about has become pervasive, I'm afraid, in the scientific community. There was a book published recently called "Destructive Trends in Mental Health," by Rogers H. Wright and Nicholas A. Cummings, that was all about this -- how the mental health establishment had lost credibility because it's been overrun by political correctness. Whether it's the hysterical reaction against "The Bell Curve" a few years ago or the endless studies done by (gay) scientists attempting to prove that homosexuality is innate (which have never been replicated by straight scientists), politics has informed science much too much. I think conservatives understand this a lot more than liberals do. But conservatives need to be more vocal about this, though.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks! You did a public service.

[SunkenCiv]

alas...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1038662/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1050918/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1297893/posts?page=23#23
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1300661/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349258/posts?page=26#26
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1636618/posts

[Quix]

Alex,

I realize the following will be unlikely to match your escatology . . .

However, I'm increasingly convined that we need to pray for folks such as Crichton.

In fact, I believe we will be increasingly able to guage where we are on the road to the global tyrannical government by:

1. How many of such folks are speaking out against the MSM brainwashing from the puppet masters . . .

then

2. How many of those suddenly have terminal 'accidents' and 'heart attacks' and 'suicides.'

or

3. How many recant vociferously but not very convincingly.

[Kevmo]

Fascinating. Perhaps you could elaborate a little bit? I had not heard this stuff before. Sagan often did strike me as someone with an axe to grind.

[Tolik]

Michael Crichton:

...I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

...Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

...Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant.

I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.

...As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?

And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming.

When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?

[Much more begging to be highlighted :^) Absolutely brilliant. If you were postponing to read this article because of it size, be assured that this is the time well invested]

Nailed It!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[Thud]

Sagan's lie about his TTAPS co-authors supporting him concerned his radiological (fallout) model in his October 1983 Parade article. They had specifically rejected the one he wanted to use (a Lawrence Livermore Laboratories study), so he used it anyway and stated in the Parade article that "my colleagues" agreed with him on this point.

Mis-representing the opinions of your scientific colleagues in print is career suicide in science.

So, in the as-printed TTAPS nuclear winter article in the December 1983 issue of Science, Turco, Toon, Ackerman and Pollack inserted a footnote specifically denouncing the Lawrence Livermore study Sagan had used for his Parade radiological model.

I spotted the whopper in the Parade article immediately and wondered where all that energy was coming from. The amount of radioactive energy in fallout from mass use of strategic nuclear weapons is an ascertainable amount basd on the total yield (megatonnage) of the weapons used. It's complicated and I won't go into it here.

But I will say that the Lawrence Livermore study assumed that ALL the nuclear reactor fuel rods in the entire world, including all the spent rods awaiting reprocessing, were irradiated and vaporized as if they were the U-238 casings on "hydrogen" bombs (really fission-fusion-fission devices).

My familiarity with the subject enabled me to instantly realize that Sagan's Parade radiological model exceeded the energy budget for his weapons yield model by several to many orders of magnitude (24 years later I forget by how much, but it was a lot).

So I waited with bated breath for the Science article's publication, whipped through it to find the fatal footnote, used that to obtain the Lawrence Livermore study, and shipped my findings to someone who could use them to good effect.

With the result that the nuclear winter fuss entirely dropped off the charts within a month after I did that.

There were lots of errors and outright intentional lies in the TTAPS atmospheric model - I found a truly comic decimal point error in a critical computation. The nuclear winter concept was definitely an intentional hoax.

But what killed it was Sagan lying about his colleagues supporting his radiological model. That scandal was so awful that the doomies and lefties had to drop the whole subject to avoid the Sagan scandal becoming public.

I took it as a win. And kept my peace until after Sagan's death.

[Chena]

bookmark

[Kevmo]

Sagan's Parade radiological model exceeded the energy budget for his weapons yield model by several to many orders of magnitude
***Thanks for posting that and for your work in getting the truth out. In engineering, when you're one order of magnitude off, you have the wrong answer. Fleas do not knock over elephants due to their kinetic energy.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I already have a trillion Quatloos invested here.

[happygrl]

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Let me add that the push for "consensus thinking" comes from the "education" establishment. This mode of scholarship begins in the classroom, where "group projects" have become part and parcel of the teaching plan as part of pedagogy. Group projects necessitate consensus thinking, regardless of subject. The rationale for incoporating group projects into methods of learning is that it teaches teamwork, and that teamwork is important because that is how the world works.

But there is a more subtle effect at work here, and that is the need to bend, conform, not stick one's neck out for the truth.

Habits of mind are being cultivated, and the old idea that "one man with truth on his side is a majority" is insidiously being disparaged.

These ideas are a product of the "schools of education" where education is bereft of content, but comprised of faddish methods.

[happygrl]

"One man with truth on his side is a majority" Ping.

See my comments, post #58.

[happygrl]

I feel awed to be in such august company here on this forum.

Sincere, no sarcasm intended, except for this: I'm so glad Al Gore inventd the internet so we could meet this way:)