Bronze-level articleMichael Crichton

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Not just a river in Egypt

Denialism

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A dirty dozen gems
Michael Crichton giving a lecture on how to escape a pack of velociraptors.

Michael Crichton, M.D. (1942-2008) was a doctor, author, screenwriter, director, producer, and, when doing things unrelated to his expertise, anti-science propagator. He first came to public attention when his debut novel The Andromeda Strain became a best-seller when first published in 1969, and was made into a successful feature film in 1971.

Contents

[edit] Writing, television, and movies

Crichton's writings consisted mainly of novels of the science fiction, thriller/suspense, and medical fiction genres as well as a few non-fiction works, including a travelogue and a computer programming text. If you've been living under a rock for the last two decades, Crichton's most popular work is still Jurassic Park and its movie adaptation. He also produced the long-running medical drama ER.

[edit] Prey

Crichton helped to popularize a grey goo-style doomsday scenario in his 2003 novel Prey, causing Prince Charles to freak out.[1] Needless to say, the panic was unwarranted.[2]

[edit] State of Fear

Crichton became a darling of the anti-environmental movement with the publication of his 2004 State of Fear, which weaves together a variety of global warming conspiracy theories. An environmentalist group plots to manufacture a global warming "crisis" through acts of ecoterrorism, one of which, is, nonsensically, inducing a tsunami (no, they're not caused by global warming). The book also contains what is allegedly factual information on global warming, but really amounts to many of the old denialist chestnuts. These include the so-called "urban heat island effect,"[3] the myth of a "global cooling" consensus, cherry-picking weather stations, and claims that James Hansen's predictions were wrong by a margin of over 300%. Crichton also mines some denialist literature on older topics as well, parroting the DDT ban canard.

[edit] Global warming denial and policy

Many deniers mistook State of Fear for a work of non-fiction ("But look, it's got footnotes, and he's a doctor!") and Crichton was soon touted as an "expert" in denialist circles. James Inhofe invited Crichton as an adviser to the Environment and Public Works Senatorial Committee on one occasion.[4] George Bush met with him and apparently found him to be a valuable source of information.[5] The American Association of Petroleum Geologists gave him their 2006 Journalism Award (the year before they recanted their denialist position).[6]

[edit] External links

[edit] Commentary on State of Fear

[edit] Footnotes

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