Michael Crichton's (State of Fear) Real footnotes or flawed?

Question

I read the book and every time I mention the book to Global warming fanatics. They just go crazy with expletives and say it’s not very truthful. Are all the footnotes made up? Are all the scientific journals and data he uses made up? I looked up a lot of it and it seems to be correct but its hard to get a fair and balanced answer from the Global warming fanatics because they just loose it. By the way, Its a good read no materwhat you think of the data.

Answer 1

Michael Crichton, like myself, is a lifetime liberal. Anyone who bothers to read his books would no that he has no conservative agenda and I doubt if anyone can prove he is being paid by Oil companies. He genuinely believed in the CO2 global warming theory when he went into writing his book.

The story of how he wrote this book is as interesting as the book itself. I highly recommend you go to his talks or check out his lectures on youtube. He ended up writing a book that was critical of what the global warming movement was doing after finding out that it was all based on bad science.

In ten years, whether we listen to the alarmists or not, I'm sure well look back at his period with something of a wiser vision. My only hope is that it doesn't forever discredit scientific research and reason and be replaced by "belief" because they could point to this time as evidence that reason and science is phoney.

Answer 2

Your question reminds me of the treatment of Al Gore by global warming skeptics. They just go crazy with expletives and say he and his movie are not very truthful.

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on the science or footnotes. As Crichton is a science fiction writer, I don't put a lot of credence in his ability to analyze data accurately. I think that a conspiracy theory novel makes for a better story than a global warming story like The Day After Tomorrow, which became absurd in its attempt at entertainment. Global warming science just doesn't make for a good story.

What pisses me off about Crichton is that he's treated like an expert. Bush actually invited him to the White House to discuss global warming because of this book. Funny that Bush at the time claimed to agree almost entirely with Crichton, but since 2005 has admitted that global warming is primarly caused by humans.

In the end I feel the same way about Crichton as I do about Gore. They're just messengers and not even expert messengers at that, so I don't really care about their opinions. I examine the science myself and make my own determinations. Sure there are a small fraction of scientific papers that you could find to build a case against man-made global warming, but the vast majority of scientific papers conclude otherwise, as shown in the IPCC report.

Answer 3

Thank you for the reference. I have not read the book, but I will get a copy and read it.

I think that a very good exercise in this area is to try to fugure out from the peer reviewed scientific literature how much human activity contributes to Global Warming and how much natural sources contribute to Global Warming.

The data appears to be rather conflicting. Depending on which sources I use I get very different numbers.

Answer 4

Have not read the book. Haven't read any Michael Crichton. I tend to stay away from pop-authors...but I have heard some talk about the back story in his development of State of Fear. Supposedly, he was going to write a novel that came down on the side of AGW alarmists, but the more and more he researched, the flimsier he found the AGW science. Hence the book he ended up writing.

That says quite a lot about someone who tries to make the idea of genetically rejuvenating dinosaurs seem feasible. What was he thinking? "Gee, I could never get my reading public to buy this!"

Anyway, now that you might consider this novel "un-pop", I just might give it a read.

Answer 5

I have no idea what sort of papers he cites in the book, since I've never bothered to read it. But I suspect that if he cites any peer reviewed publications at all (which is somewhat unlikely) he misrepresents what was actually said in the report to fit his story. If you'd like to read a short rebuttal of the whole book you can check it out here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

RealClimate is a blog run by fifteen climate scientists, so you can lay to rest any doubts you may have about the site's credibility.

I might pick it up sometime just to read it as a work of fiction. But I would hardly read and think I was getting a scientifically valid, unbiased look at the issue. Since I don't usually get my information on scientific theories from fiction writers.

Answer 6

Here are some good discussions of Crichton's "science", calm and without expletives:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74#more-74
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=76
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/2/1/162744/5081

Bottom line: Yes, the footnotes are real, but the science behind them has been proven wrong.

For Mike - the accepted number is 90% man made, including a number of things, burning fossil fuels, land use, etc. Short and (very) long versions of the peer reviewed data here:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 7

The consensus among CLIMATE scientists is that it is real. Michael Crichton is not a climatologist, and to the best of my knowledge has no credentials in that field at all. I still wonder why some people think we should just ignore it when dealing with it, even if it "isn't real", is a SMART idea just in case we find out later that it IS real.

Answer 8

Nothing is made up. He used the same data as
the "global warming" crowd uses, or as I like to think of them, the "SKY IS FALLING" idiots.

They even dropped some date from abut two hundred years ago because it didn't fit their much-loved "hockey stick" temp chart.

The warming enthusiasts will use every storm, every weather anomaly, to tell you that the sky is falling.

PS At this point, expect them to change data
or anything else to make their case.
I think if the temperature started going
down tomorrow they wouldn't tell you.

Answer 9

You have to gage how real it is by how upset the proponents of global warming get. Since they are cursing it fanatically it's probably very accurate.

Answer 10

In my experience, it is the skeptic's who turn to character assassination, and questionable replies when confronted with evidence, arguments. I have not read the book, perhaps you could provide a couple of those facts?