Michael Crichton has died. I guess his cancer was a well-kept secret--I was certainly unaware that he was ill. One less voice for reason in political debate on scientific issues.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Well, That Sucks.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.transterrestrial.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/10647
11 Comments
mz wrote:
Voice of insanity rather. It must require complete ignorance or weird thought processes to see the IPCC as an unscientific conspiracy.
Eric Weder wrote:
Hey watermelon troll, how about a little decency. The man died.
Carl Pham wrote:
It must require complete ignorance or weird thought processes to see the IPCC as an unscientific conspiracy.
I can easily imagine you'd think so. Religious zealots always demonize deviation from orthodoxy. Four hundred years ago you'd have wanted Crichton burned at the stake.
On the other hand, good empirical scientists -- and Crichton certainly had that training, while you self-evidently have not, or perhaps have found that the mental demands of its application exceed the safety limits on your cranial circuitry -- recognize that authority of any stature and consensus no matter how broad are not even faintly equivalent to the truth, and hence treasure dissent and individuality.
mz wrote:
Interesting, Carl - Crichton is an authority on climate science, since he had medical training, but then again, authority is not even faintly equivalent to truth in the next sentence.
As for me being a socialist since I am against Crichton's anti-science rants, that's just sad. And claiming me to be religious too.
Truth is a function of nature - humans can construct models to describe it that are more or less accurate.
It is sad that you think I'm a religious zealot or a socialist for defending science against people like Crichton, who thought the research results were just religious propaganda.
It seems some group of people is moving further from reality day by day.
mz wrote:
I haven't read a Crichton book, though these excerpts seem interesting:
Of course they don't tell of the merit of his claims on the climate science front, there's other evidence there.
Carl Pham wrote:
Crichton is an authority on climate science...
See what I mean about the two-cylinder engine upstairs? You just don't get it.
Crichton is not an authority on climate science, he is someone who questions authority, in particular the appropriateness of anointing "authorities" in any area of scientific inquiry.
Now go read the history of Galileo or something, learn a little bit about the nature of empirical science and its endless conflict with popular authority.
It is sad that you think I'm a religious zealot or a socialist for defending science
First of all, science doesn't need defending. Science is not a belief system. It's either a collection of plain facts that anyone can verify, explained by theories that anyone is free to challenge, any time, or it's nothing special at all. If science needs any defense, it's exactly the kind of defense Crichton offered up -- a defense of the proposition that all accepted wisdom and "common sense" and "consensus" should be continually challenged, continually forced to prove itself through experimental fact, because "common sense" and "consensus" are, more often than not, merely a way of going wrong with confidence. Just ask yourself how many centuries Aristotle's "consensus" ideas about matter and energy, or Galen's "common sense" ideas about medicine, held sway, without anyone bothering to do a few measurements to check up on things. You think the nature of man has changed since 1200 AD? We would not bullshit ourselves the way our stupid ancestors did? If so, I've got some mortgage-backed securities to sell you.
Secondly, you're not defending science, you're defending (at best) certain scientists, or (more likely) certain popular beliefs about scientific data and theories.
And you are, furthermore, defending those persons and beliefs blindly, on moral and ethical rather than scientific grounds. You're not saying Crichton is wrong on the facts (which would be a scientific argument), you're saying he's a bad man to challenge the prevailing theory -- which is no different from any bishop of the Middle Ages condemning a heretic who questions the latest bull from the Pope.
It seems some group of people is moving further from reality day by day.
Too true. I'd throw you a rope, but...well, I already have, and you mistook it for a snake. So now you're no longer a problem of interest. Bon voyage.
mz wrote:
Ah, you would be right if Crichton had been making a scientific argument, but he was not, he was just accusing the scientists of being part of a conspiracy.
The IPCC work is open and anybody can go read the papers they refer to. There's a big number of references. Sadly, the "sceptics" don't produce much research content, it's very much just rhetorics.
How the saying goes, they laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Bozo the clown too. Just because someone is "anti-establishment" does not make him right, or even righteous, in many cases they can be just plain wrong.
In fact, most of the time, they are. There are thousands of wackos in the usenet claiming there is a persecution and conspiracy going on that prevents their new all changing theory from being accepted.
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results would be the first steps to getting something, perhaps, gasp, authority and establishment here, published somewhere.
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results
Hmm. Neither of which has been done with current climate doomsayers. The physics and chemistry cannot be tested (in fact, is not even well understood), and there's no such thing as a replicable result.
Ergo, "climate change" is religion, not science.
(Sorry for feeding the troll. I know better.)
R Anderson wrote:
"Sadly, the "sceptics" don't produce much research content, it's very much just rhetorics." McIntyre much, mz?
Mann's "hockey stick" came out of a computer model that can fit a pattern out of data from a RNG. Just one big problem. Computer models, despite the verbal shorthand we modelers use, do not generate "data." They might take in data, but the output is pure math. As in, "made up, but hopefully pretty darn close." And if we screw up the equations going into it, then we get absolute crap coming out. Repeat-using source terms inappropriately (thus weighting them disproportionately compared to other inputs) is also decidedly "fudging the numbers." In short, Mann's work (on which the majority of the IPCC's publications are based) is 100% pure, weapons-grade Bolognium.
The instant that the IPCC report with a hockey-stick figure on the cover that conveniently ignored the historical record (Medieval Warm Period) was published , they became a political body. IE, not science. Was it a conspiracy? I tend to doubt it actually - but then you'd know that if you actually took the time to read Crichton's work on AGW instead of ignoring its arguments in favor of "common sense." All Crichton was asking was more physical-measurement raw, actual *data* in research, and less personality-driven computational mumbo-jumbo. Having been down that road in my career a time or two, I tend to agree with that request. As any proper scientist would - the world is what it is, and Mother Nature is the final arbiter. Anything else just ain't science.
mz wrote:
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results
Hmm. Neither of which has been done with current climate doomsayers. The physics and chemistry cannot be tested (in fact, is not even well understood), and there's no such thing as a replicable result.
Ergo, "climate change" is religion, not science.
You're wrong, there are a multitude of climate models, whose descriptions have been published, some are even open source. They are physics based as are the radiative transfer codes etc.
The greenhouse effect and global warming from adding CO2 really is expected from the first brush physics analysis knowing it absorbs infrared but not sunlight, and that's from Tyndall and Arrhenius and so on, from the century before the last. From there on the models and other contributing observations and independent lines of analysis (paleoclimate, volcanic transients for calibration etc etc) have just added and refined.
Interesting now that Crichton is portrayed as encouraging collecting more data (I'm all for that), I thought he said global warming is a religion.
I wish too that the models were even more open and easily replicable.
You're not making a coherent point or a believable stand. Not even Rand. First he states that IPCC is mostly okay (it just refers to a lot of research) and global warming is real, it's just not worth doing anything about. Then now he says Crichton was a reasonable voice, calling global warming a religion. (Inhofe's, who called global warming a hoax, star witness) A quick change of mind then? What new evidence caused this?
I find anthropogenic global warming very likely in the light of current best scientific evidence. If more evidence to the contrary pops up, I'll change my assessment.
I find Crichton a bad excuse for not believing the science about global warming. There is a huge amount of openly published literature, any researcher can find flaws in that and publish, if it has merit, people will read it and cite it. If it's just plain wrong, people will laugh. You don't have to be anti-establishment to be Galileo. You have to be right too.
Note: The comment system is functional, but timing out when returning a response page. If you have submitted a comment, DON'T RESUBMIT IT IF/WHEN IT HANGS UP AND GIVES YOU A "500" PAGE. Simply click your browser "Back" button to the post page, and then refresh to see your comment.
About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on November 5, 2008 11:40 AM.
Voice of insanity rather. It must require complete ignorance or weird thought processes to see the IPCC as an unscientific conspiracy.
Hey watermelon troll, how about a little decency. The man died.
It must require complete ignorance or weird thought processes to see the IPCC as an unscientific conspiracy.
I can easily imagine you'd think so. Religious zealots always demonize deviation from orthodoxy. Four hundred years ago you'd have wanted Crichton burned at the stake.
On the other hand, good empirical scientists -- and Crichton certainly had that training, while you self-evidently have not, or perhaps have found that the mental demands of its application exceed the safety limits on your cranial circuitry -- recognize that authority of any stature and consensus no matter how broad are not even faintly equivalent to the truth, and hence treasure dissent and individuality.
Interesting, Carl - Crichton is an authority on climate science, since he had medical training, but then again, authority is not even faintly equivalent to truth in the next sentence.
As for me being a socialist since I am against Crichton's anti-science rants, that's just sad. And claiming me to be religious too.
Truth is a function of nature - humans can construct models to describe it that are more or less accurate.
It is sad that you think I'm a religious zealot or a socialist for defending science against people like Crichton, who thought the research results were just religious propaganda.
It seems some group of people is moving further from reality day by day.
I haven't read a Crichton book, though these excerpts seem interesting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/12/14/michael-crichtons-poison_e_36309.html
Of course they don't tell of the merit of his claims on the climate science front, there's other evidence there.
Crichton is an authority on climate science...
See what I mean about the two-cylinder engine upstairs? You just don't get it.
Crichton is not an authority on climate science, he is someone who questions authority, in particular the appropriateness of anointing "authorities" in any area of scientific inquiry.
Now go read the history of Galileo or something, learn a little bit about the nature of empirical science and its endless conflict with popular authority.
It is sad that you think I'm a religious zealot or a socialist for defending science
First of all, science doesn't need defending. Science is not a belief system. It's either a collection of plain facts that anyone can verify, explained by theories that anyone is free to challenge, any time, or it's nothing special at all. If science needs any defense, it's exactly the kind of defense Crichton offered up -- a defense of the proposition that all accepted wisdom and "common sense" and "consensus" should be continually challenged, continually forced to prove itself through experimental fact, because "common sense" and "consensus" are, more often than not, merely a way of going wrong with confidence. Just ask yourself how many centuries Aristotle's "consensus" ideas about matter and energy, or Galen's "common sense" ideas about medicine, held sway, without anyone bothering to do a few measurements to check up on things. You think the nature of man has changed since 1200 AD? We would not bullshit ourselves the way our stupid ancestors did? If so, I've got some mortgage-backed securities to sell you.
Secondly, you're not defending science, you're defending (at best) certain scientists, or (more likely) certain popular beliefs about scientific data and theories.
And you are, furthermore, defending those persons and beliefs blindly, on moral and ethical rather than scientific grounds. You're not saying Crichton is wrong on the facts (which would be a scientific argument), you're saying he's a bad man to challenge the prevailing theory -- which is no different from any bishop of the Middle Ages condemning a heretic who questions the latest bull from the Pope.
It seems some group of people is moving further from reality day by day.
Too true. I'd throw you a rope, but...well, I already have, and you mistook it for a snake. So now you're no longer a problem of interest. Bon voyage.
Ah, you would be right if Crichton had been making a scientific argument, but he was not, he was just accusing the scientists of being part of a conspiracy.
The IPCC work is open and anybody can go read the papers they refer to. There's a big number of references. Sadly, the "sceptics" don't produce much research content, it's very much just rhetorics.
How the saying goes, they laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Bozo the clown too. Just because someone is "anti-establishment" does not make him right, or even righteous, in many cases they can be just plain wrong.
In fact, most of the time, they are. There are thousands of wackos in the usenet claiming there is a persecution and conspiracy going on that prevents their new all changing theory from being accepted.
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results would be the first steps to getting something, perhaps, gasp, authority and establishment here, published somewhere.
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results
Hmm. Neither of which has been done with current climate doomsayers. The physics and chemistry cannot be tested (in fact, is not even well understood), and there's no such thing as a replicable result.
Ergo, "climate change" is religion, not science.
(Sorry for feeding the troll. I know better.)
"Sadly, the "sceptics" don't produce much research content, it's very much just rhetorics." McIntyre much, mz?
Mann's "hockey stick" came out of a computer model that can fit a pattern out of data from a RNG. Just one big problem. Computer models, despite the verbal shorthand we modelers use, do not generate "data." They might take in data, but the output is pure math. As in, "made up, but hopefully pretty darn close." And if we screw up the equations going into it, then we get absolute crap coming out. Repeat-using source terms inappropriately (thus weighting them disproportionately compared to other inputs) is also decidedly "fudging the numbers." In short, Mann's work (on which the majority of the IPCC's publications are based) is 100% pure, weapons-grade Bolognium.
The instant that the IPCC report with a hockey-stick figure on the cover that conveniently ignored the historical record (Medieval Warm Period) was published , they became a political body. IE, not science. Was it a conspiracy? I tend to doubt it actually - but then you'd know that if you actually took the time to read Crichton's work on AGW instead of ignoring its arguments in favor of "common sense." All Crichton was asking was more physical-measurement raw, actual *data* in research, and less personality-driven computational mumbo-jumbo. Having been down that road in my career a time or two, I tend to agree with that request. As any proper scientist would - the world is what it is, and Mother Nature is the final arbiter. Anything else just ain't science.
Grounding your ideas in well tested physics and having reasonably replicable results
Hmm. Neither of which has been done with current climate doomsayers. The physics and chemistry cannot be tested (in fact, is not even well understood), and there's no such thing as a replicable result.
Ergo, "climate change" is religion, not science.
You're wrong, there are a multitude of climate models, whose descriptions have been published, some are even open source. They are physics based as are the radiative transfer codes etc.
The greenhouse effect and global warming from adding CO2 really is expected from the first brush physics analysis knowing it absorbs infrared but not sunlight, and that's from Tyndall and Arrhenius and so on, from the century before the last. From there on the models and other contributing observations and independent lines of analysis (paleoclimate, volcanic transients for calibration etc etc) have just added and refined.
Interesting now that Crichton is portrayed as encouraging collecting more data (I'm all for that), I thought he said global warming is a religion.
I wish too that the models were even more open and easily replicable.
You're not making a coherent point or a believable stand. Not even Rand. First he states that IPCC is mostly okay (it just refers to a lot of research) and global warming is real, it's just not worth doing anything about. Then now he says Crichton was a reasonable voice, calling global warming a religion. (Inhofe's, who called global warming a hoax, star witness) A quick change of mind then? What new evidence caused this?
I find anthropogenic global warming very likely in the light of current best scientific evidence. If more evidence to the contrary pops up, I'll change my assessment.
I find Crichton a bad excuse for not believing the science about global warming. There is a huge amount of openly published literature, any researcher can find flaws in that and publish, if it has merit, people will read it and cite it. If it's just plain wrong, people will laugh. You don't have to be anti-establishment to be Galileo. You have to be right too.
Carl, that was bang on.
It's too bad that he's gone.