Seven Answers From ... [Michael Crichton]

The Daily Ablution ^ | March 28, 2007 | Scott Burgess

[DaveCooper]

This is the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series of exchanges with notable friends of the Ablution.

Our first respondent is one of the most popular novelists of our time. According to his official biography, he:

Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He has taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT.

He’s “a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER.”

He is, of course, Michael Crichton.

To what extent is climate change happening, to what extent is it anthropogenic, and what should we be doing about it?

There has been so much disinformation about my position that I feel obliged to repeat what I said in my book. Yes, the globe is warming; the greenhouse effect is real; CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it is increasing from human activities; we would expect this increased CO2 to produce warming. All true.

But nothing in this sequence of statements implies that CO2 is the primary driver of the warming we are seeing. Not at all. It is one thing to say that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is therefore causing warming; it is quite another to say CO2 is causing all of the warming that we see. There is good evidence (and good physical theory) for the first statement, and weak evidence, primarily computer models, for the second.

[DaveCooper]

Especially, note this later comment:

What is the most serious threat facing our civilisation?

Loss of classical liberal values in those western societies that embraced them.

England was the first modern state, the first superpower, the first nation to deal with moral issues around the world, and the first nation to install the benefits of what we might now loosely term a liberal society. I mean that in the 19th century sense of liberalism. That notion of liberalism was also present in America, but made it to the Continent only in a pale and limited form. It is a wonderful social conception that must be vigilantly guarded. It is not shared by other nations in the world. Nor is it shared by many citizens in English-speaking countries. Peculiarly, many of our most educated citizens are least sympathetic to classical liberal ideals. Indeed the term liberalism in the modern day has come to imply a constellation of attitudes that John Stuart Mill would not recognize as liberal at all. Nor would, say, John F. Kennedy recognize them as liberal. Kennedy’s conception of liberalism was simultaneously more tolerant and more tough-minded: tolerant about varieties of behavior within the society, and tough-minded toward threats to a tolerant society from without.

That’s all gone, now. Today there is far too much sensitivity within societies, and too little hard-nosed recognition of threats from without. We are inclined to be intolerant of speech by our friends and neighbors, and tolerant of beheadings, rape, and homophobia in distant lands.

This makes no sense. But here we are.

[dodger]

Herer, Here (Hear, hear), Michael ...
mon amie & sayer of larger truths.

[cammie]

Can someone draft him as a Presidential candidate? I'm sure most freepers would probably not like him once they knew all about him -- I believe he's an atheist and I'm assuming he's pro-choice, but so far he sounds better than the front-runners.

[cammie]

Actually, just read more about him...I don't think I'd vote for him. So I'll just hope he keeps writing...:-)

[RobbyS]

Reminding us that our part in destroying the British Empire was short-sighted.

[outofstyle]

He is an exceptional intellect and a brilliant fiction writer. He also thinks right.

[Sender]

Michael Crichton hooked me into reading intense sci-fi novels with his first, Andromeda Strain. I still read it from time to time, it's a keeper.

And he is exactly right; whatever warming is being caused by SUVs and power plants is apparently happening on the other planets as well, so go figure.

[xjcsa]

Great read; Crichton is a smart guy. But what on earth is this:

We are inclined to be intolerant of speech by our friends and neighbors, and tolerant of beheadings, rape, and homophobia in distant lands.

Beheadings, rape, and homophobia? Let's play a game: which of these is not like the others?

[Windcatcher]

The anti-capitalist Left (that's what this is *really* about) keeps screaming, "Consensus! Consensus! Consensus!" when attempting to debunk anyone who disagrees with them. Well, let's take a look at history:

In the late 19th century, there was widespread consensus that, at last, the Universe was fully understood. The behavior of nearly every single element could be predicted, Newtonian mechanics could predict the motions of the planets to surprising accuracy, and nearly the entire scientific community had a consensus that all would be discovered with only some increases in precision of their instruments.

They were all DEAD WRONG.

Newtonian mechanics, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much precision they used, no matter how many times they repeated their calculations, could not explain the precession of Mercury's orbit.

Newtonian mechanics could not explain why light seemed to act in such a bizarre fashion, seeming to move at the exact same speed no matter what one did to the device shining it.

Chemistry could not explain the behavior of the Carbon atom, no matter what anyone did. And people certainly tried.

The scientists of the day were dead wrong because they didn't know about two things: relativity and quantum mechanics. It wasn't until Einstein's General Relativity that they could explain the behavior of Mercury's orbit and the speed of light, and it wasn't until Quantum Mechanics that the behavior of certain "pesky" elements began to make sense.

In the late 19th century, all their smug consensus meant exactly squat. In the early 21st century, guess what: it means squat.

The global warming "consensus" is an anti-capitalist one, not one based on testable hypotheses and scientific measurements. It's a "consensus" that the wealthy countries should have their wealth and productivity given to the poorer countries. It's a "consensus" for a global form of Communism.

Socrates was killed for seeking philosophical truth. Galileo was punished by the Church for seeking scientific truth. The global warming activists (for that is what they really are) are no better than the closed-minded cretins who handed the philosopher the hemlock.

[SquirrelKing]

How do you think we helped destroy the British Empire?

[ClaireSolt]

The Gw movement took an untested hypothesis and decided to run with it. Bush wanted facts, and when the data started accumulating, it did not prove the old hypothesis they had found in some dusty books.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Any departure from environmental orthodoxy is marked by ad hominem attack, vigorous spread of false information, claims of criminality and mental derangement, and general nastiness. Apparently this is one area where reasonable people cannot disagree...bet he got a lot of the same treatment after the release of the movie "Disclosure" which he wrote and which demonstrated that women could be just as predatory and abusive in power as any man - the feminazis must have been outraged......

[RobbyS]

Roosevelt was a Wilsonian and anti-imperialist. Just remember that until the Spanish-American War the British was our number one foe. Subsequently, the Washington Naval Conference began the decline of the Royal Navy. But the real blow was the abrupt ending of Lend-lease late in 1946 when Britain was tittering on the brink of financial collapse. This shortsighted decision led to the collapse of the British military position in Greece and the need for the Truman Doctrine. But the major blow was our refusal to aid the British, the French, and the Israeli in Suez.

[RobbyS]

I like his use of the word superstitition. Having taught science in High school, I can testify to the fact that people cling to superstition, and indeed they try to reduce science to superstition because knowlege requires so much effort.

[Mike Darancette]

Beheadings, rape, and homophobia? Let's play a game: which of these is not like the others?

They are things about Muslim societies which we do not tolerate in our society. I think misogyny might have been a better choice.

[SquirrelKing]

Wow, good answer. I thought you were referring to the American Revolution but I had forgotten the intrigues of the last 150 years. Short-sighted indeed.

[chaosagent]

bookmarked

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

---

blogasms...

[Sam Cree]

*