Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:pyBTmzXP0DkJ:www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html+chriton+aliens&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

by gaika • 18 years ago

53 51 18 years ago

209.85.173.104

bprater• 18 years ago

I had always wondered how that whole global warming thing happened.

aston• 18 years ago

Oddly enough, I was at this speech. I left with a lot more respect for Crichton as a scientific thinker, and I almost read the book he was publicizing at the time, Prey.

Prrometheus3• 18 years ago

Being a libertarian is good practice for developing this kind of skepticism, as governments often use specious statistics to support their current agenda. Second-hand smoke is one such area, as Crichton mentions. Anti-drug campaigns are also horrible for pulling numbers out of thin air.

davidw• 18 years ago

It's also good to be skeptical of libertarians denying externalities:-)

jcl2• 18 years ago

He makes some good points, but I think he exaggerates his evidence. In particular, while the Drake equation and TTAPS equation both have unknown terms, at least some of the TTAPS equation terms can be estimated through observation and experimentation -- a far cry from "none of the variables can be determined. None at all." Insisting that a line of inquiry be abandoned simply because it is difficult to measure exact values seems contrary to the investigative spirit of science. Of course, Crichton is correct that we should not be drawing firm conclusions from fuzzy numbers.

Likewise, just because many scientists share a consensus about something doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong; scientists share a consensus on the ineffectiveness of Laetrile, the relative harmlessness of aspartame, and the unlikelihood of cell phones causing cancer. These things are hard to prove absolutely, and may even be incorrect in specific circumstances, but in absence of better evidence, a consensus is the best we can have.

I found this juxtaposition funny:

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. [...evidence of pellagra as dietary problem...] They continued to deny it until the 1920s.

Also this one:

When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. [...] Speeches contained on this site are the property of Michael Crichton and may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without express permission.

jfornear3• 18 years ago

I keep hearing people/journalists say scientists share a consensus, but a simple google query "global warming climatologist" gives you:

1. Climatologists (scientists who study climate) have analyzed the global warming that has occurred since the late 1800's.

A small number of scientists argue that the increase in greenhouse gases has not made a measurable difference in the temperature. They say that natural processes could have caused global warming. Those processes include increases in the energy emitted (given off) by the sun.

http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html

(I know I picked quotes carefully, but that is irrelevant to my argument.)

2. Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

This evidence is enough to support this very simple statement: Not all climatologists share a consensus that Global Warming is a man-made phenomenon.

Nevertheless, I am sorry to hear about the Crichton's loss. My dad had cancer and I can relate to the hardships.

DaniFong10• 18 years ago

A consensus needn't have every single person on board. It need only have most, and the prevailing arguments.

Has anyone mentioned what such 'major mechanisms' and global temperature trends Timothy Ball is talking about? It is at least fair to ask what physical effects or which models they're referring to. The climate models that, for example, the IPCC works with, are all out in the open. Here's what the radiative forcing factors are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Radiative-forcings.svg

Crichton talks about the over-reliance on 'models' to understand the climate. What else are we supposed to do? Science relies on models, without which we can't predict anything. If we agree that high levels of global warming are bad, then prudence dictates that we look into seeing if it might actually happen, why, and how we might prevent it. It's too highly nonlinear to prove out analytically: computer models, carefully constructed, and verified piecemeal by experiment, are the best we can do. The physics is easy to understand: carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, letting visible light in, and reflecting infrared back. This warms the earth. I haven't yet heard a single plausible possibility floated for why carbon dioxide wouldn't increase temperatures. It is only fair to ask these skeptics, who make bolder claims than we, that they argue using scientific tools that are as good, or better. Claiming that "Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science," and then pointing towards our over-reliance on computer models, simply won't do.

Here are sourced statements from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ball that Tim Ball has made. They are false claims!

"Water vapor is effectively ignored in the computer models. Yes, that's right. The climate models used as the basis for the entire global warming argument do not include the effect of clouds."[6] -- This is trivially shown to be false if you look at the climate models in use. "Since 1940 and from 1940 until 1980, even the surface record shows cooling. The argument is that there has been warming since then but, in fact, almost all of that is due to what is called the “urban heat island” effect – that is, that the weather stations are around the edge of cities and the cities expanded out and distorted the record."[7] -- meteorological surveys include regularly sampled far flung regions, and the weather on the entire planet is observed by satellites on the infrared spectrum.

yters5• 18 years ago

Consensus based arguments worry me, especially if the consensing experts use them.

SapphireSun2• 18 years ago

Other people in this thread make other very good points, but I think this one needs to be said.

If I have a single unknown variable in an equation, and I have no way of estimating it, or knowing its variability, or anything, then anything I put down will most likely be wrong and will likely be off by several orders of magnitude.

Let me give an example. You are playing a first person shooter and you are told that you are going to pick how much ammo you'll need for the entire game at the beginning of the game and that if you pick too much "bad things will happen". How do you possibly decide? You can estimate based on other games you played, but if you look at all of them, you'll realize that they all need very different amounts! The number you pick when you start the game will be completely arbitrary and will have VERY different effects on the gameplay.

Let me give another example, you are playing the stock market on a day trading scheme. You want to know if you'll profit, so you look on google finance and see a chart that is trending very slightly up but with a lot of variability. You say, well it looks like it is going up RIGHT NOW! Indeed you execute the trade and then you realize this: You have no idea when the end of the spike is. You have no idea when to pull out, and indeed the time you do will have a heavy financial impact.To paraphrase from the show House MD, there is a right answer. You may have no way of knowing what the right answer is, but you'll still be wrong if you're wrong.

This is the point that the guy was trying to make. When you know nothing, the only thing you can do is manipulate the equation to suit your perception. In the end you will only deceive yourself.

dejb5• 18 years ago

> If I have a single unknown variable in an equation, and I have no way of estimating it, or knowing its variability, or anything, then anything I put down will most likely be wrong and will likely be off by several orders of magnitude.

Actually if you know nothing about the variable then you will almost certainly be off by an infinite number of orders of magnitude (log(infinity) = infinity). Saying that you might be wrong by several orders of magnitude implies that you do know quite a bit about the range of the variable.

By definition most judgements are based on incomplete information. Otherwise no judgement is needed. So the argument that an action should or should not be taken because the evidence is not 100% complete is spurious.

jcl2• 18 years ago

Yes, I agree that a single, pure unknown will render a formula useless. But are there any pure unknowns in the TTAPS formula? It's hard to say, looking at the article, because Crichton trails off with "etc.".

But are the unknowns as bad as Crichton suggests? Almost certainly not. The very first value is "number of warheads". This number can certainly be estimated... There are probably people in the U.S. whose entire job is estimating this number. The numbers given in non-proliferation treaties are likely not more than an order of magnitude off. Likewise, we can probably estimate the "size of warhead" and "height of detonation". I don't know how well the others can be estimated; they appear to be physically based, so perhaps small-scale experimentation would yield reasonable values and probabilities.

But Crichton insists none of these numbers can be known at all -- that how much smoke a city gives off when it burns is every bit as unknowable as the probability that a planet will generate intelligent life. I think he may be exaggerating a little.

Tichy• 18 years ago

I faintly remember discussing another Crichton article of the same gist on HN?

While I did not make it to the end, I feel there are two strategies at work in this article:

A) Talk so much that your opponent loses the ability to focus and becomes vulnerable for injection of any meme you slip into the speech.

B) Draw random analogies and take advantage of the flaw of the human brain, that is "addicted" to drawing analogies if there are none.

Because ultimately he says "look, there were false things that were believed by a lot of people. Global warming is believed by a lot of people, therefore it must be false". That is simply a logic error. I wonder if Crichton was aware of that (and since he was intelligent, I suppose he was), because if so, I consider the article a disgusting, dishonest attempt at manipulation.

dejb5• 18 years ago

As most good story tellers are he was surely a skilled manipulator of human thought and emotion.

Prrometheus3• 18 years ago

Ya'll are a smart crowd. What do you say to the argument that being skeptical about anthropogenic Global Warming is like being skeptical about gravity or evolution?

1gor• 18 years ago

I say it is a silly argument.

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

this is really depressing. are all of you asleep at the wheel? this essay is NOT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING. global warming is only the latest in a long line of scientific studies that have become corrupted due to the influence of politics. The details of the current case are not important. Whether or not anthropogenic global warming is true is not important. What is important is the way scientists are behaving. If scientists are reduced to squabbling children as soon as there is some blood in the water what hope does the rest of humanity have?

This essay is one of genuine concern over the direction of humanity. And as the best hope we have for a rational future, concern over the direction of science.

olavk• 18 years ago

He does take sides in the debate though, by framing Lomborg vs. Scientific American as Galileo vs. The Church. Since we know Galileo was right, the reader is of course supposed to assume that Lomborg will also turn out to be right in the face of blind dogma. Therefore Crichton doesn't have to address the actual criticism towards Lomborg.

However if Lomborgs book is indeed bad science, then the strong rebuttal from scientfic circles is fair.

By the whole framing of the issue Crichton imples that it is SA and the "consensus" which is politicized. However Lomborg is himself a political figure (advisor for the right-wing Danish goverment in environmental matters). That does not make him wrong, but it implies we have to look at the actual content of the rebuttal to determine who has the better case.

Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming

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