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Michael Crichton does his homework, which is a good thing, because his novels depend entirely on his ideas for their success.

It's not as if he's ever created a memorable character in his writing career. But that's a moot point: He doesn't try to write the kind of novel that depends on character.

Instead, with State of Fear, he may have written the most important novel of his career.

There are those who will take this book as an anti-environmental screed. Certainly his villains are eco-terrorists, and the bulk of the novel is devoted to exploding the global-warming bubble that is the current religious craze that inspires the credulous of the world.

But Crichton's real opponent is ignorance, laziness, and fanaticism. He doesn't attack the global-warming myth because he wants the world to bake to death under a carbon-dioxide lid. Rather he attacks it because it's merely the latest in a long and humiliating string of intellectual fads that have led to bad policy and, yes, crimes against humanity.

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If the writer has a preconceived conscious plan for how to present a particular philosophical point, he will start to ignore his own unconscious ideas and will force the characters to act out his little allegory. The result is: Bad fiction, and therefore an ineffective presentation of the theme.

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what books do you consider "preachy" that you like anyway?

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I liked The Chronicles of Narnia and The Worthing Chronicle. Beyond that, preachiness leaves me pretty cold.
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
It really pissed me off when liberal messages were spouted in books I read. When I read Tom Clancy and he started going off on conservative rants that I agreed with him on, I decided I still prefered that politics and fiction should be kept seperate.
 

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Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
 
I hate it when D.H. Lawrence tries to convince me that...

Oh wait, I have no idea what D.H. Lawrence was trying to say so I guess it doesn't really bother me.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
More than that, I wonder what various believers in global warming-Crichton's case against it is pretty damning, in my biased and non-science oriented opinion-think about the book.

I'd be interested to hear perspectives from someone who read it and didn't come away thinking global warming is a warm pile of poo.
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
So Tom, I can preach to you, but only in a "chronicle"?
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
Rak, it's been my observation that people who actually know something about science think Crichton's book is full of crap, whereas those who do not, and are already personally biased against the topic, think it's full of challenging truths. We've already had a thread debunking the novel, though, so I won't go into it here.

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Geoff: Apparently.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Rakeesh -- go read the thread we had on the subject, it should pop up in search. While I haven't read the book, I have read a Crichton essay which makes the same arguments (in a non-fiction setting).

Most of them are laughably easy to puncture, simply because a lot of what he bases them on is just plain wrong -- for instance, that the models are not being verified against data, and that the same people verifying the models are the ones creating them, both ideas just, well, wrong, as can easily be shown by linking to numerous papers by people verifying the models against data and verifying other people's models.
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 

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He acknowledges the fundamental underlying truth of the 2000 statement when he says, "It's not as if he's ever created a memorable character in his writing career."

And, he doesn't call State of Fear good fiction, he calls it important.

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But even your reading of Card seems incompatible with his view (ca. 2000) that a polemical story will fail not only as fiction but as an attempt to present an argument. To say that State of Fear is an important work implies that it succeeds on at least some level.

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So when this novel devotes most of its serious content to conversations between people who are flying or driving from one place to another, it's not an accident. The action sequences are there so that somebody will make a movie out of the book. But the conversations are the reason the book exists.

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Rak, it's been my observation that people who actually know something about science think Crichton's book is full of crap, whereas those who do not, and are already personally biased against the topic, think it's full of challenging truths.

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Since I'm one of the people who opposed you in that thread, I thought I should toss something in.

I think the main challenging truth in Michael Crichton's book — that science is supposed to work a certain way, and that people who put idealogy ahead of science, by definition, screw up the science — is, in fact, true, and applies in a lot of situations outside the narrow focus of the book. The book made me think of a lot of conversations I've had with people into Creation Science, for instance, or people who insist that certain idealogically-correct theories about human behavior should be treated as fact.

The actual narrow focus of the book — global warming — can't be proved or disproved only by the data provided by the book. So if someone thinks they're reading an exhaustive explanation of "The Truth" then they are likely to come away just as ignorant as they went in, only with a different opinion.

Similarly, if someone reads the book with a firmly-established opinion on the matter based on other sources (as both you and Card did), then they are likely to come away with exactly the same opinion they had when they went in.

When I read the book, the main things I got out of it were (1) rah-rah enthusiasm about the scientific method, and about impartiality while evaluating evidence, and (2) a healthy dose of skepticism about what I hear on the news

Granted, I already had both, but this book really stirred me up about it. I thought back to the Y2K scare, and the fact that during the whole media hoopla, I sat there, trying to figure out a way that this bug could actually destroy civilization as predicted, and honestly, I couldn't come up with one. The stuff they presented on the news was all mysterious black-box stuff. "The dates are wrong, and then magically, EVERYTHING BREAKS!" It wasn't convincing, I doubted it, and I was vindicated.

Now, naturally, that doesn't mean I'll be vindicated every time I doubt something, but it does make me think twice when someone presents me with a situation, and says, "This big disaster will happen in the future if we don't do x, y, and z right now." I think that more often than not, such a person will be wrong, to some degree or another. To what degree, it's hard to say, and I'll have to take it all on a case-by-case basis.

But it means I'm less likely to jump on the "New York will be underwater in forty years!" wagon, too

I know that's not the position most scientists take, either, but ... well, I personally think that just about any long-term climate change that occurs over the next few hundred years will be gradual enough that we'll deal with it the way we deal with anything. I think that there are more pressing issues ahead of us — oil shortages, economic problems, food shortages — which are already on the cusp of becoming major disasters. The latter two of which already ARE major disasters in many places in the world, and whose solutions are sometimes seriously hampered by our reaction to scare issues like global warming and the ozone layer.

[ January 24, 2005, 07:30 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 

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he attacks it because it's merely the latest in a long and humiliating string of intellectual fads that have led to bad policy and, yes, crimes against humanity.

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I know that's not the position most scientists take, either, but ... well, I personally think that just about any long-term climate change that occurs over the next few hundred years will be gradual enough that we'll deal with it the way we deal with anything.

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Yes. And because this is your gut feeling on the issue, you go with it, ignoring the ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

Crichton's point is that ample scientific evidence doesn't matter because we can't count on scientists to be honest with themselves or each other -- or, most importantly, with us -- when money and reputations are on the line. And it baffles me, then, that more people do not recognize that this is, in general, both an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of scientific culture and the scientific method itself, which generally does a pretty decent job of culling out fads (which certainly do pop up; it would be silly to suggest otherwise) within a few years.

Crichton's argument speaks to you because it reinforces biases you already have and gives you both scientific and pseudo-scientific arguments that can be used to justify those biases. In this respect, I think it will be very popular; it will not convince people who already feel one way or another to feel any differently, but will serve as yet another unscientific tool used by unscientific people to contradict scientists.

In my opinion -- and your dad apparently disagrees with me on this one, Geoff, because being a science fiction author makes him an authority on science -- the world doesn't need more of that. Crichton's no more an "expert" on the issue than Card is on, say, the Muslim faith; they both know a little bit more than they have to know on the topic to sell their larger story -- or, if they're writing a polemic, their larger agenda. And in the latter case, part of that agenda is convincing us that they do know more than they're letting on, and that the rest of that agenda is something that they know, by dint of their hard-earned expertise, is good for us. Authors who use straw men -- like Crichton, for example, or Card (see that conversation with Peter's mom) -- know just enough to defeat weak opposition arguments and in this way attempt to sell us on the strength of their own expertise.

It's not uncommon. Voltaire, Hugo, Heinlein -- they all do it.

But it's demagoguery, pure and simple. It plays to the people who already lean in that direction, whips 'em up and gives them a focus, and attempts to sway people who've never really given the issue any serious attention.

It's important to remember, at the end of the day, that Crichton has not released an important book. His book is not being reviewed in scientific journals; it is not being vetted for truth or accuracy or even basic standards of fiction (like, say, competent dialogue). If it is "important," it is because people like Card are attempting to convince people that it's important -- attempting to sell it to an audience who couldn't be bothered reading the really important works in the field, and pandering to their egos by telling them that here, at last, is an "important" book that tells them what they already think.

I don't see why that's a good thing.

[ January 24, 2005, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Oh yes, I'm reminded of another of Crichton's "points" in that essay -- when a large number of the experts in a field come to a consensus position and publish a report detailing large amounts of evidence about why they have arrived at a consensus we should . . . (wait for it) . . . be suspicious and pretty much ignore or automatically reject what they say.

I know that makes me take Crichton seriously. Experts are only correct when they all disagree about what's correct!
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
First of all, my dad doesn't think that being a science fiction writer makes him an authority on science. He actually thinks he's an authority on everything, which is completely different

As I've said, I don't consider my knowledge of the subject to be sufficient for me to establish an informed dissenting opinion. In other words, I know what I don't know.

And I'm not sure what harm you think I'm going to do when I "run with" my "gut feeling". My "gut feeling" is to be cautious and not to panic when I read articles like this one, and instead, to ask questions, and not stop asking questions. My gut feeling is to weigh all the issues, all the costs and risks, rather than running off after chicken little and doing whatever he says just because he says the sky is falling.

There isn't anything wrong with this, Tom. You'll notice that I haven't gone off on a "Global Warming isn't happening, it's all a conspiracy!" tirade. Instead, this is a "Wait a second, let's think about this and make sure we know what we're doing" tirade. I have those a lot, and they aren't bad tirades to have, especially for those of us who don't "know a scientist" and therefore, are not entitled to opinions.
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 

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Oh yes, I'm reminded of another of Crichton's "points" in that essay -- when a large number of the experts in a field come to a consensus position and publish a report detailing large amounts of evidence about why they have arrived at a consensus we should . . . (wait for it) . . . be suspicious and pretty much ignore or automatically reject what they say.

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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.

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Emphasis mine.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
"My 'gut feeling' is to be cautious and not to panic when I read articles like this one...."

And honestly, Geoff, I think most scientists out there who are actually researching global warming are doing exactly the same thing. The "panic" comes, I believe, from ascientific activism.

But here's the problem: Crichton lumps the two together. Instead of doing the responsible -- albeit boring -- thing and attempting to separate them, saying "Okay, yeah, there's something to this global warming, and we should be concerned, but let's not fly off the handle; let's try to determine exactly what we can do now to make it more likely that we'll have the leisure to study this more in the future," he conflates this view -- by far the more common one among the environmentalists I know -- with the "Oh my God, the sky is falling! Throw money at my pet cause!" loonies.

And I know why he does this. It's because the whole debate has been politicized. But instead of trying to depoliticize it, he lumps in the scientific establishment with the panicky pundits -- most of whom never understood the science in the first place -- and, in making them complicit pawns to this behavior, strips them of any real authority on this issue. Which leaves us with whom, exactly, to trust about global warming?

And when you ask that question, you realize that that question is, itself, a revealing one, one that speaks to the biases of the author and those readers swayed by his fiction.

If the Emperor genuinely had no clothes, why would Crichton need a work of badly-written fiction to point it out?
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
Fugu, you're reading your interpretation into that. He's saying that the people (activists, politicians) who CITE consensuses, rather than CITING convincing evidence, are not to be trusted.

He's not saying that scientists themselves are automatically untrustworthy when gathered in large numbers.

Tom, it looks like we actually agree more than we initially thought. Even Crichton acknowledges in his final essay that he thinks global warming may well be occurring, and it may well be our fault ... but that he does not think we have enough evidence to make the statements that he sees environmentalist activists making.

And do note that every actual scientist he represents in the story is actually honest and rigorous with his work. In the story, it is the activists who try to turn the scientists' findings into marketable disasters.

Crichton makes his statement in an extreme way to give it weight. Hard to fault that too much, my dad does the same thing And I was annoyed by the fact that I wasn't in a position to check all of Crichton's sources, because I felt like I was simply being given the opposite skewed view to counteract the activist view, rather than being given a truly balanced evaluation of the evidence.

My position is, we should go where the science leads us, and should honestly weigh costs and risks as we do so. My position doesn't leave a lot of room, though, for hysterical activism, which is what I think this book was written to combat.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I am not reading something into that. You are reading something into that. He neither states nor alludes to "citing". Not only that, but he was speaking to a scientist in the part of the article just before this which led him to the topic (as he states), not a politician or such.

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Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

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Scientists talk about reaching consensus on things (including global warming (and relativity)) all the time. He specifically says that when one hears someone (unspecified, but the example he gives involves a scientist) speaking about reaching consensus, one is being had.

Furthermore, the global warming debate is partly built on a number of stated consensus papers (that is, they are called consensus papers by the scientific community) about what the nature of global warming is. If Crichton is ignorant of those papers, then he didn't bother doing the first bit of research on the topic and should be ignored. If he is not ignorant of those papers, then that statement clearly implicates them. There really isn't a middle ground, except for him just not thinking that statement through (which, for such a strong statement, should lead to him being ignored much as in the first condition).
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Oh, and I see no "rather than". Another thing you are reading into it.
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
I guess we got different impressions from the same bit of text. Interesting, though, that the one of us who most strongly disagrees with him is the one taking the most literal, exacting, and extreme interpretation of his statements

As I said above, Crichton's book again and again absolves the scientists themselves of trying to screw up their own research, and rather blames the activists who preach about their findings for what he sees as mistakes and misrepresentations.

In other words, it's not the scientists who wrote the paper that you are being "had" by. It's the person you "hear" about it from, who uses it to justify their political agenda. (And I believe I am correct in quoting the word "hear" from Crichton's statement.)

If you want to pick apart a single line, and ignore the rest of the book as it doesn't suit your position, fine. Just don't expect to be persuasive.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
As I said, I haven't read the book, just the essay. And its hardly being overly literal to assume he's talking about scientists doing it when, unsurprisingly, he talks about a scientist doing it. You're adding stuff that's just not there, assuming he's really not talking about scientists, and that he really means in the absence of evidence when there's no statement even close to that -- he just says that when somebody talks about consensus among scientists, they're ignoring the truth.

Also, I've pointed out major flaws with other parts of the essay as well, and pretty much the entire thing has been picked apart by people on other sites. That's hardly picking one particular sentence.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
And perhaps I should rephrase the part about consensus among scientists.

You're saying Crichton is really saying "when people talk about consensus among scientists, except the most well known instances of when people talked about consensus among scientists in the global warming debate, they're having you on." Because the most well known instances of people talking about consensus among scientists in the global warming debate are the various consensus reports of conferences on the subject that have been published. All the instances I know of politicians, for instance, affirming consensus among scientists (as opposed to doubting it, which is the norm), have been in reference to such reports.

And yes, I insist that if he feels he has some pertinent commentary to make on the subject that he be educated on it.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Fugu, you say:

quote:

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Oh yes, I'm reminded of another of Crichton's "points" in that essay -- when a large number of the experts in a field come to a consensus position and publish a report detailing large amounts of evidence about why they have arrived at a consensus we should . . . (wait for it) . . . be suspicious and pretty much ignore or automatically reject what they say. (emphasis added.)

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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.

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How exactly did you demonstrate the bolded portion?

Dagonee
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Its a subset of "whenever".
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
I suspect that Crichton did not intend that sentence to be universally applied to every imaginable instance of multiple scientists' opinions being cited to back up a claim
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Yes. You can read something into it that makes the conlcusion absurd ("even when they present other things than what I said"), or you can read something into it that makes the conclusion reasonable ("when they only speak of consensus").

Dagonee
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Then what he's talking about is almost entirely irrelevant to the global warming debate, as pretty much all the instances of scientist consensus I can come up with are backed up by significant facts -- as I said, you're saying Crichton is really saying "when people talk about consensus among scientists, except the most well known instances of when people talked about consensus among scientists in the global warming debate, they're having you on."

That is, either he's intentionally making a point almost entirely irrelevant to the global warming debate here, or his intended interpretation does include instances where scientists have backed themselves up by evidence. Well, or he's just very ignorant of the global warming debate.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Then what he's talking about is almost entirely irrelevant to the global warming debate, as pretty much all the instances of scientist consensus I can come up with are backed up by significant facts

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As I said above, Crichton's book again and again absolves the scientists themselves of trying to screw up their own research...

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Geoff, I don't see that in the text. I agree that it's what he should have done, and agree that it would make both a better book and a better argument, but I believe that through the creation of his straw men and through his rather extremist narrative he manages to turn everyone who's anything but a determinedly hostile skeptic on the global warming issue into either a patsy or a willing participant in the "hoax."

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People have been investigating Global Warming for over a century? Or is that just how long they've been recording the temperatures?

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On the subject of consensus, are we permitted to cite it in the creationist debate?

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I don't think we should even HAVE a creationist debate
 

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Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
 
I am cynic enough to believe that in any field where money flows freely, the accumulation of that money becomes the primary goal for the majority, while integrity and ideology remain the realm of the minority. I don't mind this happening in the field of ecological science nearly as much as I mind it in the field of medicine. I liked "Coma".

I'm half way through "State of Fear". I'm interested in the ideas, but I'm ready to toss the book out because I'm having trouble accepting a protagonist who is so obtuse. Goodness, not only does he seem to be unable to put together a sense of scepticism regarding his environmental assumptions, but he is whiney and can't put two and two together with regards to what is happening around him.

I get the impression that Crichton is supposed to be Kenner, all knowing but bad at language, while the reader is supposed to be Evans, naive and wimpy and looking to the media to think for him.

IMO, that kind of preaching is just plain boring.
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Man, nobody really engaged with the issue I posed at the beginning of this thread.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Well, if you still want to discuss it you haven't responded to my last post that was directly on topic.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
"why is skepticism responded to with at best incredulity and at worst contempt?"

And, say, election to the Presidency? Domination of the media and big business? Complete control over the channels through which anything to address the issue must be taken?

It seems that skeptics are running the show, Rak. Why are you complaining, again?
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
So in other words, Tom, it's OK for environmentalists to do it because the bad guys do it too?(and clearly, as far as this particular disagreement is concerned, that's what the opposition is)

How idealistic-all I wanted to hear, really
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
How exactly has Crichton done harm to the cause he's trying to advance, Tom?

The only way I can see he's done harm is if you think he didn't properly state his point of view, so people would reach the right conclusions.
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Right after I posted I realized I should've said "except Dag." Anyway, I was hoping someone else would actually see Card's two essays as evidence of a serious change in his philosophy regarding the purpose and art of storytelling.

I will draw your attention to the following:

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It's not as if he's ever created a memorable character in his writing career. But that's a moot point: He doesn't try to write the kind of novel that depends on character.

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If the story is ABOUT character (i.e., it follows the character story structure), then you absolutely must know the character and all their relationships, and therefore all those other characters and THEIR relationships.

But if, as I suspect is the case with what you're writing, you are writing event or idea stories, then characters do not have to have the same level of depth.

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I just hate the idea of grand morals and essay-like themes. These things are discovered. How would Bean respond to event X and event Y? Not, how should I make Bean respond in order to show Virtue X and Sin Y?

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You mean we haven't done things like make automobiles cleaner, factories cleaner, conserved millions of acres of natural landscape, preserved species from extinction, etc.?

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