Aliens Cause Global Warming - Michael Crichton (Great Read)

California Institute of Technology ^ | 01 17 08 | Michael Crichton

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Renegade]

Knew this since 1997—” The Arrival”

[StAntKnee]

Great post. Great argument by Crighton. Especially about consensus.

Thanks.

[jdub]

My favorite was: “Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”

[Bertram3]

One of the responses to the horse manure problem was to import thousands of English sparrows, which eat the stuff. Now we have zero trouble with street manure, but the imported sparrows have overwhelmed several native song sparrows, which are rarely seen.

Even today, to take issue with the notion that the new world was populated by people who arrived via the Behring land bridge is regarded as ridiculous. This despite the enormous “negroid” Olmec heads carved in black basalt and found downwind from Africa on Mexico’s east coast, which suggest migration by raft or boat from Africa.

Another example used by Crichton that as a demagogue’s rallying cry irks me, the Holocaust. I don’t disagree with the fact that over six million Jews were killed during World War II. I do think that referring to the World War II as “the holocaust” fits pleasantly into the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, while trivializing the genocide of the gypsies, Poles, and others. It is a horrible thing that Jews were assassinated. It is just as horrible that intellectuals and other groups were also selectively assasinated. If we have to pick one group as representative of the tragedy of Hitler’s war, Russia’s twenty million deaths trumps the holocaust by 333%.

I am a big fan of Crichton. I just wish the title of this article didn’t compare the notion that human intervention causes climate change to life on other planets. That makes the article too easy to ridicule without evaluating it.

[dangerdoc]

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