CRICHTON'S ''State of Fear'' Lies with Footnotes


A few weeks ago I heard Michael Crichton interviewed about his new book, State of Fear. The book is fictional, but is laden with tons of footnotes that claim to back up Mr Crichton's character's notion that science doesn't point to global warming. Hmm, what the heck have I been reading?

The interviewer seemed ready to give Mr. Crichton a fair shake, but at the end couldn't resist asking him, "What's next? A book about how Darwin got it all wrong?"

Let's take a closer look at Mr. Crichton's footnotes. Crichton's numerous citations refer to actual scientific publications. But often, they also reference the work of scientists who accept the mainstream scientific view that human activities have accelerated global climate change.

Yes, that's right, Mr. Crichton provides footnotes to studies, in an attempt to make his inaccurate "no-such-thing-as-global-warming" argument look legit, that actually show exactly the opposite.

It's OK Mr. Crichton; everyone makes mistakes. Sooner or later, everyone comes down on the wrong side of an argument. It's the nature of punditry. If you write your opinions often enough in blogs (or books) the odds are against perfection. Who knows, maybe the mainstream has it wrong, and the kooks and handful of contrarians have it right. But it sure doesn't look that way to me.


Posted: Tue - February 22, 2005 at 10:06 PM          

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