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.

[Publius6961]

This article is as bad as his novels. His misunderstanding of environmentalism makes him less than helpful in fighting junk science.

Your opinion is usually well-regarded, but isn't expecting us to simply accept your opinion his entire point?

Can you be a bit more specific? It would certainly be more uselful (and scientific) than "na na na na... lousy writing".

[Kozak]

I bailed when it went from "Ecology", based on logos or knowledge, and became Environmentalism, an ism based on belief like "facism, communism, or consumerism.

[Rummyfan]

Bump for this!

[GatekeeperBookman]

I just sent the following e-mail to some correspondents, over the article:

I beg you to read the article below my commments.

I am sure any reader of my 'reply' email, thought me quite rude & perhaps a little insane to speak as roughly as I did a few weeks ago, to the news & comments surrounding the 'assasination' of a Whooping Crane here in North Texas. They were in the forum known as the Bird Nerd Network.

Here, a Harvard trained medical doctor, who has written perhaps a dozen extremely popular books which became movies ( Jurasic Park the most well known ), addresses our modern confusion.
This 'confusion' about what is truly important caused my reply of about two weeks ago.

We, our culture, seems entirely lost-when one considers that the parts of babies are literally harvested for profit-after they are assasinated ( carefully, so as not to damage the most valuable tissues ). I can give you referrence for this activity-I assure you that this is common-place & constitutes an industrial process. http://www.prolife.com/HarvestingAbortedBabies.html
"...at least 5 companies are in the business of procuring babies’ in-tact bodies, bones, blood, organs and tissues for profit. One company, Opening Lines of West Frankfurt, Ill, published a brochure in which they listed charges for various body parts including $999 for a brain, $500 for a trunk, and $325 for spinal cords. They claim they are within the letter of the 1993 law which allows for the above-mentioned reasonable payments. The hearings, which are to be scheduled by Congressman Tom Bliley (R-VA), chairman of the Commerce Committee, are expected in January when Congress returns from its recess. They will look into whether these tissue retrieval companies are violating the law."

We pay sports figures ( almost all of them ) in six figures & now, last week I heard on the local radio, in Casper, Wyo that a gathering in the public park was to open the 'season' with hot chocolate & cookies for the children with festive lights to liven the event. For some ten minutes I entirely mis-understood what 'season' they were opening! Hunting season, outdoor sports, hot chocolate & cookie season?
Only later did I realize they were forbidden to NAME the Christmas Season! It was in a public park & they could only mark a point in time which was 'generic'-chronological & non-religious.

What wonderful changes we see all round. The remarks below are from a most intelligent fellow. I read some of his books before he was 'famous'.

[GatekeeperBookman]

Exactly! Fascism-its all about Fascism!

In fact, My post just moments ago-http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1035401/posts

A Real War: Fighting the Worst Fascists Since Hitler
National Review ^ | 12/5/03 | Victor Davis Hanson


Posted on 12/06/2003 5:19:31 PM PST by bdeaner




I appreciate the article & am very glad you posted-but we seem to ignore that we swim in a sea of Fascist sharks-here at home. Yes, sharks-for instance, they would & do kill our very babies in abortion mills-& they sell the parts.

The Left in America is run by & for our very own Fascists. They have very nearly overwhelmed our entire society & the culture we cherish.

From Amazon.com:

Modern Fascism, a book by Gene Edward Veith , Jr.
187 pages

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0570046033/qid=1070760653/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-0546791-9884118

The foundations of Fascism revealed, July 31, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Seattle, WA United States
Most people are only exposed to two historical aspects of Nazi Germany - WWII military campaigns and the Holocast. This book eloquently and thoroughly presents the most important aspect of the rise of Fascism in Germany, which is in fact the development of the philosophy and world-view of progressive, anti-Judeo-Christian European high-culture.

Hitler and the Nazis should not be dismissed as insane lunatics. The terror they unleashed was perfectly rational within their world-view which was based on Atheism (paganism), Socialism, and Darwinism. With Atheism, there is no absolute right and wrong & the ends justify the means. With Socialism, the greater good is more important than the rights of the individual. With Darwinism, man is just a highly advanced animal evolving by tooth and claw - survival of the fittest! What transpired in Europe was inevitable given the prevailing philosophies.

I think that Hitler and his leutenants absolutely believed they were creating a Utopia - within the framework of their worldview.

The Nazi leaders and their actions were put on trial at Nuremberg, but the philosophers, and especially the ideas that made the rise of Nazism possible, escaped serious scrutiny. The ideas are alive and well in modern progressive circles. History is ripe to repeat itself. (ie. Hatred of Christianity, expanding socialism, and promotion of evolution in public edu-indoctrination"

Please see more on Fascism in my tagline. Thank you.

3 posted on 12/06/2003 5:40:40 PM PST by GatekeeperBookman ("The War does indeed have many facets; http://aztlan.net/ Look at your enemy." Listen to Tancredo)

[Prodigal Son]

Outstanding read. Thanks for posting this.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Swordmaker]

If this were widely distributed (published in NYT sunday mag, for instance) it could destroy the enviro movement.

That is naive. The fact is that if it were trumpeted from EVERY newspaper, published in every magazine, and reported on every TV program, the true believers would still be true believers.

Remember, none are so blind as those who WILL NOT see.

[Prodigal Son]

the true believers would still be true believers.

Yep. And there's a lot of 'em out there.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Calling bad science religion doesn't help refute the problems with the bad science. It merely makes the critics look like religious kooks. (I disliked Andromeda Strain when I first read it; Crichton's science is no better than that of the environmentalists.)

[Swordmaker]

Rachel Carson and her "Silent Spring" has done far more harm to this country and our world than she could ever have imagined.

Rachel Carlson, 1907-1964

In the mid 50s to mid 60s, Malaria was almost eradicated everywhere in the world due to the widespread use of a very inexpensive pesticide, DDT. During one of these years, the total worldwide incidence of NEW malaria cases was under 1000 as DDT eliminated a necessary vector in malaria's transmission: the anapheles mosquito.

Then that idiot Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" contending that DDT was weakening the shells of songbirds. This was untrue and was based on bad science. Ignorant, early "environmentalists" caused the banning of DDT and the abandonment of the mosquito eradication programs that were on the verge of eliminating malaria around the world.

Today, because of Rachel Carson and her polemical book, 1.5 to 2 million people die from malaria every year. 300,000,000 people suffer from malaria.

Thanks, Rachel.

[Doctor Stochastic]

More specifically: environmentalism is based on bad science; that doesn't make it a religion (even though religions often utilize bad science themselves.) One should oppose bad science by good science. Trying to re-define environmentalism as religion makes those in opposition look like they have no scientific answers to back up their claims.

As for my dislike of Crichton's writings, it's mostly a matter of personal taste; he uses bad (rather than just extapolated) scientific positions to bolster (what I find) to be poor plots. I haven't liked a single one of his books (to be fair, I only read "Andromeda Strain," "The Terminal Man," and "Sphere"; I quit watching the movies: "Disclosure," and "Congo" in the middle.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Rachael carson was an idiot. Unfortunately, no scientific refutation of her writings appeared so she could get away with her fraud. The "scientific establishment" failed badly here. I was trying to get people to say something back in the 1950s (unfortunately, no one paid much attention to high school students then.)

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Windcatcher]

Green on the outside, red on the inside

I was about to point that out. I don't think it's possible today to consider the environmental movement without also considering the fact that environmentalists today are inextricably linked to Marxism. Has anyone ever seen an environmentalist activist that isn't also a leftist? How about conservative environmentalists? Supply-side environmentalists? I sure haven't. Indeed, the very idea is laughable, but have we considered why this is so? I'm not suggesting that we conservatives should become eco-freaks, but rather why eco-freaks are always Marxists. Does being an eco-freak drive one to Marxism, or is it the other way around?

There's something important here, methinks. We're all familiar with the description above, but why is that? What is driving these eco-freaks into the arms of Marx? Hatred of capitalism? Hatred of religion? It's happened too often for me not to think that something snapped in their minds that's causing this. I'd like to see a strategy emerge to stop whatever is doing this so future generations don't go the same route.

Drawing from Mr. Crichton's argument, here's a thought to bandy around. Say you start with an avowed Marxist. Marxism contends that religion is bad, the "opiate of the masses", and should be rejected. Only the proletariat matters. Fine and dandy. They cheer on the ACLU and try to expunge the world of religion, starting with Christianity.

There's a problem, though: the human mind is hardwired in that we need a "religion", or its equivalent. One could choose Marxism, and indeed most Marxists probably do this, but some people need something more. Christianity is out (and by inclusion Judiasm), so what's left? Islam? Too far a leap for Western Marxists where Islam isn't present to any great measure. Ah, but there's Gaia...so they go eco-freak and form the environmentalist religion. Not a religion in the technical sense so good-ol' Marx is happy, and they get their religious fix.

Thoughts?

[I M Nick]

Hey "Nicksaunt" are you my aunt?!

[cornelis]

I'd like to see a strategy emerge to stop whatever is doing this so future generations don't go the same route.

One has an obligation to conscience over and above the hoped for configurations of the future. After all, didn't marxism employ such a strategies in the form of five-year plans?

[Swordmaker]

"...environmentalism is based on bad science; that doesn't make it a religion (even though religions often utilize bad science themselves.) One should oppose bad science by good science. Trying to re-define environmentalism as religion makes those in opposition look like they have no scientific answers to back up their claims.

Doc,
I understand what you are saying... and for the scientists at the core of the environmental movement, that may be true. Fighting bad science with good science may work. But many of those "scientists" who are at the core of environmental belief have discovered, like many at the core of other religions, that it is very financially rewarding to stick to the dogma of their "ism." It is also ego boosting as adoring environmentalists adulate them and buy their polemics.

However, it is not the scientists (The priests of environmentalism) but the congregations, those who BELIEVE, as opposed to understanding, in ENVIRONMENTALISM, that make this a religion. THEY have accepted what they have been told by the high priests and priestesses of environmentalism as articles of their faith. THEY hold the belief that anything told them by someone NOT annointed as an "environmentalist" should be disbelieved because it comes from a disbeliever (read atheist).

Arguing facts with a "true beleiver" will not make them change their beliefs one iota.

Arguing facts with a hypocritical scientist may convince him the truth of your facts, but it may not cause him to change and give up the perks he gets by adhering to the dogma that pays the bills.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Your post exemplifies the problems I'm talking about. It is extremely insulting to the scientists doing the work. Of the many people I work with, none are "sticking to dogma" in their scientific work. All are just reporting what they find.

Many of those in things like climatology or ecology claim that most of their most vocal opponents only have religious reasons for opposing them. From my experiences on FR (and other places, unfortunately, their claims seem correct.)

None of the scientis I know support the (defunct, if we are lucky) Kyoto protocols either. They point out that the Kyoto portocols actually make things worse.

[Swordmaker]

Doc,

I believe that most true scientists will look at the facts and act only on the facts. But unfortunately there are STILL "scientists" inside the environmental movement that lend their names and credibility to the nonsense that is Global Warming despite the mountains of facts showing their position to be false. THESE scientists are the hypocrits.

Just look at the positions the staff scientists of the EPA take on tese issues. What can I conclude but that they have sold their professionalism for a mess of pottage?