I find much I agree with in this Michael Crichton spiel, yet much more that I don’t. For instance:
Quote:
“Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.”
Why just in recent years? When was this magical time when the above situation was not true? Does he have proof that this is happening more now than in any given time in the past?
Quote:
“Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.”
Just because children see a pattern does not make it true. This is not science. It does nothing good for his case to mention it here.
Quote:
“What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.”
True, biases are present in how he presents the nuclear winter case here, but science is about the ideas, not about how people bias & spin them – this has always been the case. Peer review is in place to challenge weaknesses in assertions and point out he biases. The concept of nuclear winter isn’t just a formula, & I would argue that shooting down the formula is a strawman to concept of ‘nuclear winter’. To me, he clearly reveals an opposing bias to the one he describes. The ‘idea’ itself of nuclear winter is interesting, holds certain merit & is hardly junk science. I’ve seen a variation of a nuclear winter-type scenario (as a result of a comet impact in this case) put forth in a recent science publication to describe the fossil evidence we see from the last major dinosaur extinction. Crichton appears to prefer the idea go away entirely than strip away the biases & see what’s there. Similar biases & convictions show on his stand on the concepts of second hand smoke and global warming (with similar strawmen).
Quote:
“At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely?”
HUH???? Don’t know what to say to this.
Quote:
“As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic.”
Does he have any proof of this ‘increased elasticity’, or is it just gut instinct? He continues:
“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.”
Again, when was this magical time that he speaks of that we’ve wandered away from? I believe there is a fallacy that many of us fall for at some point in our lives - that is that when we were young and your parents provide a safe haven for us, that this colours our perception of the world at that time in our lives. When we gain a wider perspective on nature around us, and must look after ourselves, our perception shifts to a world that includes dangers we were unaware of before. Each generation tends to carry a certain nostalgia for the ‘simpler’ times of their youth. It appears to me, surprisingly, that Crichton is displaying this bias. At least, he seems unable to state his case well that times were better in the past than they are now.
Quote:
“The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country.”
Or maybe the deterioration of his ‘perception of American media’.
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“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?”
He was a sucker for holding the NYT in such high regard in the past.
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“Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.”
He was a sucker for holding Scientific American in such high regard in the past.
Quote:
“Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggresively separate science from policy.”
When scientists do anything “aggressively”, it often can be shown to be political & short-sighted in hind site.
Quote:
“The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.”
This sounds alarmist to me in an ‘Andromeda Strain’ kind of way.
Also, I find his use of Richard Feynman’s name in the context of his agenda is an insult to the great skeptic’s memory.
