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Monday, April 9, 2007
How did Michael Crichton become such a crank
For more fodder for the discussion of cranks, consider Michael Crichton. Uncommon Descent has just linked this 2003 lecture of his entitled "aliens cause global warming", in which Crichton links more weakly-justified scientific endeavors like SETI, with the debate of global warming (I'm sure he'd mention the Mars canard if it hadn't been three years ago too). And just look at this statement:
Now that's a hell of a statement. It's quite clear why UC likes this lecture and why they're linking it. After all, evolution represents consensus science, and Dave Scot in attacking global warming from an anti-consensus viewpoint is hitting two birds with one stone. But lets think about some other scientific consensuses (consensi?). Relativity is certainly a scientific consensus, as is the theory of quantum mechanics. Gravity is most definitely a consensus theory. So is germ theory. The consensus among scientists is that the genetic code is responsible for gene transcription and translation. Does one really need to continue? Basically Crichton is saying that one should never believe settled science. And he's not just offering healthy skepticism about the completeness of theories, he's saying that if something becomes consensus it should be specifically disbelieved. Now that's something else. As proof he provides a bizarre reversal of the Thomas Kuhn argument (surely he's read Kuhn?) in which the past examples of paradigm shifts means that one should never believe anything! I think Orac would also call this the Galileo Gambit (Crichton then goes on to compare Lomborg to Galileo), which is the idea that anyone who believes something that contradicts the reigning "authority" is immediately correct, just like Galileo. The rest is a bunch of cherry-picked quotes, some insanely bad analogies, straw men and non sequiters. Easily dismissable as denialist garbage. Crichton is clearly a smart guy. He understands some science quite well, well enough to write boiler-plate fiction with creative ideas about the implications of some science. But how did he get to this point about global warming? What made him lose it? This statement is almost completely insane, how did he get from there to here? Labels: general discussion, global warming denialism, Michael Crichton |
Denialism (n): the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.
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9 Comments:
The problem with Crichton is that he's nearly smart enough to do the job. He's absolutely right that science doesn't proceed because of consensus. Consensus exists because scientists have proceeded.
He is describing consensus that is arrived at by haggling and negotiating. We describe consensus that arises naturally as a result of getting data that shows who is right and who is wrong. Perhaps Crichton would be happier if scientists who were wrong held onto their wrong ideas. But most of us are able to ditch our ideas after someone has proved us wrong...
April 9, 2007 11:34 AM,
In all fairness, let's look at the paragraphs following Mark's selective quotation:
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. (all emphases added)
Based on this, it seems obvious that Crichton is arguing two things. First, that the "consensus view" is often wrong. In this he is pointing out the important role mavericks and skeptics play in scientific progress. Second, he is arguing that if there is indeed a genuine consensus, then no one feels the need to point it out.
I'd really like to hear Mark defend how this is not a case of selective quotation...
April 9, 2007 1:07 PM,
I actually explained how what followed was a bizarre inverse Kuhnian piece of nonsense. And that characterization that scientists only talk about consensus when they're trying to hide something is BS.
Look, I'm not going to reproduce his entire speech to avoid charges of selective quotation. I provided the link, explained why the section I examined was BS, and I stand by it. Nothing he said following those statements even made sense! It's just inane. Scientists don't talk about consensus? Is he kidding? He's never heard of a consensus conference or a consensus report except in the purely fictitious field of global warming?
His entire argument is denialist BS. It's referred to by some as the Galileo Gambit, or in my terminology, the changing the definition defense. You see, to avoid being a denialist, they change the definition of denialist to include every scientist that ever shifted a paradigm (hence the reference to Kuhn), so rather than being crackpots they're heroes! They bringing revolution in scientific thought! Except they're not.
The critical difference between these guys and those great skeptics of the past were those other skeptics actually had data rather than BS denialist arguments. I didn't include all of his subsequent arguments because it's bad scientific history, it's poor reasoning, and fundamentally unconvincing. If you were convinced by it, you need some work on your critical thinking skills and you need to go back and read the structure of scientific revolutions.
There's another saying about this, It was Carl Sagan who said, "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
April 9, 2007 2:02 PM,
I could name just as many examples where the consensus was overthrown pretty painlessly and swiftly once the data came to light (prions and peptic ulcers, to name two). Nobody's going to deny that science progresses by overthrowing consensus; in fact that's what we've been trying to drum into the conspiracy theorists' heads since day one!
If you have the data, you win; that's the way it is. There may be resistance within the community for various reasons, but that's why you continue to gather evidence until you can beat your opponents over the head with it. Then you can gloat and stroke your Nobel.
Thing is, it does not follow that every consensus-challenging idea is going to necessarily overthrow its predecessors. The ones that have the evidence will win out; the ones that don't will fade away. The anti-AGW camp doesn't have any evidence that hasn't been demolished a thousand times over. Crichton's distortions have been thoroughly beaten down, and he, like Milloy, has been reduced to whining about "conspiracies" instead of ponying up the evidence. That alone should tell you volumes. Instead of doing more research and gathering more data, the AGW deniers, like the IDers, have retreated to whimpering about irrelevancies to sympathetic audiences. Where's the anti-GW research these days?
April 9, 2007 2:10 PM,
The ultimate game of all Denialists is to convince everyone that their ideas are correct, that HIV does not cause AIDS, that manmade global warming is not occurring, that intelligent design is the best theory to account for life on Earth. They even talk about a not to distant time in the future where their ideas will be the consensus.
My question is: if in the unlikely case that they actually achieved their aims would they still quote Crichton?
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
Science is a process that achieves consensus through doing experiments, producing evidence and trying to convince other scientists that your ideas explain the data better than any other hypothesis.
Compare this to pseudoscientists that write books directed to lay-audiences and attempt to get their theories into testbooks for high school students.
April 9, 2007 6:32 PM,
Does anyone know what the heck he means by this:
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Does Crichton, like, want to patent scientific consensus and get paid every time someone mentions it or something?
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
At which point, by Crichton's argument, it suddenly became wrong. Sort of an inverse postmodernism then?
April 10, 2007 6:04 AM,
Re anonymous
1. The scientific consensus is that vitamin C does not cure cancer. According to Crichton, Linus Pauling must be right in claiming that vitamin C does cure cancer.
2. The scientific consensus is that HIV causes AIDS. According to Crichton, Peter Duesberg must be right in claiming that HIV does not cause AIDS
3. The scientific consensus is that the earch is not being visited by extraterrestrials. According to Crichton, J. Allen Hynek must be right in claiming that the earth is being visited by extraterrestrials.
4. The scientific consensus is that PK, ESP, and cold fusion are non-existent phenomena. According to Crichton, Brian Josephson must be right in claiming that they are real phenomena.
April 10, 2007 1:38 PM,
Apparently you over educated alarmists haven't really read many other articles regarding the rush to judgement over the global warming issue by politicians and zealots. Crichton is correct that science, in its purist form, does not demand consensus for truth, only cold, analysis of the data. There is much in the way of misrepresentation by Al Gore and John Kerry and others in their attempt to foist a liberal,centralized governance in the form of global environmentalism, on the rest of us. Read the dissenting science journals and other books and sources by recognized physicists and scientist before you all implode with self righteous and snobbish missionary zeal. Don
April 12, 2007 4:57 PM,
There is a big difference between being a skeptic and being a crank Don.
Crichton made terrible arguments in this speech which is, I think, now a crank classic.
He also has willfully misrepresented data to make his point.
Yeah, it's probably possible to disagree on the interpretation of the facts, and I have seen some examples of it. This is not one of them.
And what's with all this talk from non-scientists about how we don't use consensus, do they really think we're just making this up as a new word? Consensus is the evaluation of cold hard data and figuring out what it all means. Scientists do it in a variety of circumstances, from determining proper classifications, standardizing methods, determining treatments for diseases, etc. Science innovates through lots of people attacking problems differently. Then one day, when progress has been made, we have to get together and figure out what everybody else striking out in their own direction has accomplished.
We call these little meetings a consensus conference, they hammer out interpretations of various methods, sets of data, results etc. They often result in consensus reports or consensus papers, which are published, with peer review in various journals on various topics.
To act like consensus is some kind of dirty word or invented by the IPCC, you're drinking the kool aid. These were crank arguments, not any kind of legitimate disagreement with the science.
April 12, 2007 5:27 PM,
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