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Originally Posted by docbungle
I've never read a Chrichton book, but I think attacking him for his subject matter is just plain goofy, at least if you're going to hold him accountable for politicians taking his fiction seriously. How can you possibly hold him accountable for that? He's an author, for Christ's sake. He writes fiction. People believe what they want to believe, and that is not, nor has it ever been, a fiction writer's responsibility. Their only responsibility is to their publisher and agent, so long as the "fiction" tag is printed on the spine of their book.
It sounds to me like you guys (well, Host, at least) are implying he shouldn't be able to write what he chooses to write (the slander bit notwithstanding).
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docbungle, the author Chricton, became the "man of science".... the scientific researcher who
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.....[But he] never figured that he would be offering lawmakers an opinion on how they should legislate.
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....but he is reported to have done exactly that....testifying before a senate committee on the environment, as a "scientist"....an "expert" witness.
This isn't about a writer of fiction...it's about an unqualified, thin skinned writer of fiction, gladly being used....for his "credentials", by politicians who cannot be discerned from the fossil fuel industry lobbyists who "own" them. Politicians who see no "Fear mongering" when it comes to their demonization of the news media as "liberal", or the pre-emptive military attacks against foreign nations, because of their own perceived threats of "terror", or the elevation of an incompetent president to judge, jury, and executioner, free to "render" whomever he chooses.....because we..."are at war"!
Politicians who resort to shilling Crichton's celebrity to conceal the shallowness of their own anti-global warming crisis argument, in the face of the vast majority of the world's scientists, because of "the consequences" of possible over reacting to the potential threat, even as they dismiss the possibility that over reacting to the "terror threat", and the "liberal media bias", is of any far reaching consequence.
Hell....we have folks on this forum who post the belief that the US military has been the "victim" of main stream press reporting about it's performance in Iraq, people who believe that the NY Times and CNN are "so liberal", that folks must seek more "accurate" news accounts from Newsbusters.org or from frontpagemag.com or from tcsdaily.com ....
.....would these partisan propaganda sites have any credibility if not for the demonization of traditional news gathering outlets by the CNP and it's shill, Bozell....and from endorsement's of foxnew's Dick Cheney?
Don't like the "news reporting"? Just make up your own bullshit....repeat it over and over....shill it via a Chrichton, rely on the lobbyists (from Exxon) who "own" you to pay a PR firm to create a "news" site like tcsdaily.comor pay Lincoln Group to pay "journalists" to do it for you.....install a fake reporter in the white house press corps, and call on him in a televised press conference to divert attention away from a serious question by a "real" reporter....
...Sen. James Inhofe maintains that scientific opinion on the global warming threat is "fear mongering", but the GWOT caused affronts to our future economic wellbeing, to our soldiers physical and mental helath, and to Iraq and Afghanistan, the upset of the former power balance against Iran, by it's contiguous neighbors, ......to our constitutional protections against our government's malfeasance, and to the standing of the US in the international community, are of no particular consequence.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/bo...rssnyt&emc=rss
Michael Crichton, Novelist, Becomes Senate Witness
By MICHAEL K. JANOFSKY
Published: September 29, 2005
......For all his previous works as a writer (13 novels, 4 nonfiction books, numerous screenplays) and his prominent career in Hollywood as a writer, producer or director of 13 films and as the creator of the popular television series "ER," little has yanked Mr. Crichton so deeply into political controversy as "State of Fear," an environmental thriller that casts doubt on the widely held notion that human activities contribute to global warming.
It has become a hugely divisive policy issue in recent years, gaining a new urgency, perhaps, by the recent hurricanes that slammed into the Gulf Coast. Many prominent scientists, no friends of Mr. Crichton, to be sure, believe that man-made greenhouse gases are causing the earth to warm and are urging lawmakers to pass new regulations that govern carbon dioxide emissions.
But after considerable study of his own, leading to "State of Fear," Mr. Crichton has concluded that the science is mixed at best, and that lawmakers should take that into consideration when they decide what they might do about it.
His is an unpopular and contrary stance when measured against the judgment of groups like the National Academy of Sciences. But it was not those organizations that asked Mr. Crichton to Washington to counsel Congress on how to consider diverse scientific opinion when making policy. It was the committee chairman, Senator James M. Inhofe, a plainspoken Oklahoma Republican who has unabashedly pronounced global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
In Mr. Crichton, a Harvard medical school graduate who never practiced medicine, he had found a kindred spirit - and a star witness for his committee.
"I'm excited about this hearing," Mr. Inhofe said, nodding toward Mr. Crichton as the proceedings began. "I think I've read most of his books; I think I've read them all. I enjoyed most 'State of Fear' and made it required reading for this committee."
Over the next two hours, Mr. Crichton and four other witnesses offered their thoughts, Mr. Crichton hewing to his firm belief that lawmakers should examine more closely "whether the methodology of climate science is sufficiently rigorous to yield a reliable result.".....
.....Still, he retains enough of his scientific background to thrust himself into the debate, insisting that the environmental movement "did a fabulous job in the first 10 years, a pretty good job in the second 10 years and a lousy job in the last 10 years."
As a result, he said, its influence on policy needs to be reined in, at least until alternative views are given equal airing and fair consideration by independent reviewers. Only then, he said, can policy makers make informed decisions.
But he never figured that he would be offering lawmakers an opinion on how they should legislate. His years of writing have taken on a pattern, he said. Research. Write. Move on.....
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