Michael Crichton on Bad Science
Michael Crichton has always kind of struck me as a pompous dork, an example writ large of “I’m a trained medical doctor, therefore I am qualified to mock the opinions of anyone churlish enough to disagree with me on any subject whatsoever” egotism. But the lecture he recently gave at Caltech is still pretty interesting: Aliens cause global warming.
January 5th, 2004 at 6:08 pm
This one got me thinking. If it’s all true, he makes a very good argument. Certainly I’m aware of the Drake equation and have always thought it pretty stupid (although I like SETI, but I consider it exploration not science). Are there any good objective refutations of global warming theory specifically? I have to admit to being on the other side of that argument with people, just assuming global warming to be established fact, but I’d like to feed my skepticism now.
January 6th, 2004 at 2:41 am
Crichton’s essay reminds me of the old joke: They laughed at Einstein, they laughed at Darwin… but they also laughed at Bobo the Clown. He appears in his essay to make the same mistake he rails against: attacking (or defending) a position using rhetoric and appeals to popularity instead of dealing with the data. Rather than discussing the science behind global warming or dealing with specific studies, he describes examples where P.R. superseded actual science and where the popular scientific opinion turned out to be wrong in the face of one or two definitive studies, and then insinuates (without discussing evidence) that the same situation is occuring with global warming research. The problem is, there are many (many many many) examples where so-called ‘consensus scientific opinion’ was correct and the study that appeared to overthrow it was flawed in some way. One could easily cite several of these studies and then use these examples to support global warming, producing an essay as equally valid as Crichtons. Despite what Crichton believes, in the end science does come down to a consensus opinion – you have to eventually produce evidence that will convince the scientific community. If the evidence comes around at the wrong time (i.e., without a supporting theoretical framework), is incomplete, or contradicts many other studies, it may face strong opposition… but it is this opposition that weeds out the many bad, poorly conducted, or just plain wrong theories. Good science eventually comes through, as Crichton himself acknowledges.
January 6th, 2004 at 9:56 am
Okay, guess I’ll weigh in on this again. I had an earlier post about global warming (after Bush and Co. started doing their editing of the EPA’s report) so I won’t repeat here.
I will say this, however, that although Crichton makes some good points global warming is not, I repeat not, just a computer model.
We have over 150 years worth of data on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. We’re up about 300 parts-per-million (roughly) since the start of the industrial revolution, much due to human sources (read fossil fuel consumption). The past 100 years have seen an average increase in global temperature of 0.2 – 0.6 degrees celsius. Studies all over the world traced atmospheric conditions back tens of thousands of years, etc..
The data is good, the interpretation is where the “politicizing” begins. But to liken Global warming with SETI isn’t legitimate, or to consider it a fringe science (it’s not).
January 7th, 2004 at 12:32 am
Ya, agree that Chrichton’s speech is just as much assertion as that of the guys he’s attacking, which why I wanted to read some hard science. But I guess there’s no clear source for that so the best answer is “go to the library, lazy-ass.”
I guess this reinforces my feeling that the language of science is well defined and anything that’s not actual science is just entertainment, even when it’s about science.
January 7th, 2004 at 11:59 am
As an interesting follow-up to this speech of a year ago, a NY Times article today discusses a new study on global warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Global-Warming.html?hp
The article does concede that “that there are many uncertainties in both climate forecasts and the computer models they used.”
January 8th, 2004 at 9:26 pm
2 points, and some opinions:
1. Try to define “average global temperature”. You can’t; it is simply impossible. Are we talking about average temperature in urban areas? Surface temperatures or atmospheric temperatures?
2. Sea surface temperature is known to fluctuate, and has a 3-degree variance in the last 3000 years. About 2000 years ago, it was much warmer than it is now. Around 300 AD, it plummeted, reaching a low. Gradually it warmed up, and in 1200 reached the highest value in the past 2000 years. Around 1750, it had cooled down to about the same value as it was in 300 AD, and scientists call this the “little ice age”. It is now warming again.
So it’s like this: The industrial revolution and high C02 emmisions is a recent phenonemon, there is no way human activity influenced the 3 degree variance in Sea Surface temperatures in the past 3000 years. Currently, the sea surface is slightly more than 2 degrees COLDER than it was 250 years ago. We are simply moving out of a cold cycle; there is no reason to presume that it is caused by human activity or that it is bad. And as a computer engineer, I am not inclined to trust the climate computer models.
My issue is this: Environmentalists want to destroy the global economy (that would be Kyoto treaty) to prevent the Earth from heating up by something like .6 degrees over the next hundred years, which is going to happen whether or not humanity even exists, let alone the Kyoto treaty. Then they are going to complain about the poor 3rd world countries and how we need more socialism to help those countries out of the poverty that Kyoto only made worse.
Also, Doc:
Chrichton is pointing out the similarities between global warming and SETI, and these similarities (mass marketing of consensus) exist only for a few other topics in the world of science. The problem here is not that there is a consensus, but that there are no experiments or data to back the consensus. Science has nothing to do with consensus; what is written in textbooks does. There are countless examples where consensus has been wrong, I suppose Mike only had room for 2.
Source: http://www.oism.org/pproject/
January 9th, 2004 at 2:19 am
Dan, the fundamental problem with Chrichtons essay is that rather than deal with the evidence, for or against, on global warming, he instead states that that global warming is similar to the SETI project and nuclear winter, successfully attacks both, and then claims that this proves global warming does not exist. Essentially, he pulls a bait and switch hoping that we either don’t notice or that we aren’t particularly familiar with how science works.
Science does have a lot to do with consensus, in that scientists advancing a hypothesis have to eventually convince their peers through experimental evidence that their hypothesis is correct. If the evidence is unconvincing, no consensus is achieved, the hypothesis is rejected by the scientific community, and is eventually forgotten about. Where science differs from the liberal arts and from theology is that if a convincing experiment or set of experiments overturns the currently accepted thinking on a subject, then the consensus will change and a new consensus will develop.
The thing is, there are many examples where the consensus has been right… far more than the few examples where consensus has been wrong. Evolution by natural selection, for example, is an example of a scientific consensus which has been demonstrated again and again… the theory that mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as bacterial symbiotes in early eukaryotes is another good example… and also an example where the scientific consensus changed rather rapidly from the older idea that mitochondria and eukaryotes were derived from cellular plastids due to new evidence. The genetic code, the germ theory of disease, transposons as genetic parasites, population fragmentation as a driving force behind speciation, HIV as the cause of AIDS… all of these are now consensus opinions in the scientific community. Interestingly, some concepts like evolution, speciation, and the viral cause of AIDS are still contested among certain segments of the general populace on ideological, political and religious grounds despite the huge body of supporting evidence. While I don’t want to imply that the scientific support for global warming is anywhere as thorough as it is for evolution, I find it interesting that in parallel to the opposition to evolution, the opposition to global warming is being driven primarily by politics and ideology and only secondarily by science. Make no mistake, however much the argument for global warming has been politicized, so too (if not more so) have the arguments against.
January 10th, 2004 at 2:16 am
Oh now comeon… he was kidding!
January 11th, 2004 at 10:12 am
Crichton’s point about consensus is not that consensuses (consensi?) are wrong, it is that consensus isn’t science. Science is a body of knowledge, consensus is merely agreement. The majority of people have agreed on many things over the years, sometimes they are right, sometimes they aren’t. When Erlich was asked to prove his point he went to consensus, not evidence and for good reason, his evidence was weak.
The Lomborg episode was truly disgraceful. Lomborg had read a book by economist Julian Simon that argued that things “were getting better all the time” particularly in regards to the environment. Since “everyone knew” that things were really getting worse Lomborg, a professional statistician, decided to prove Simon wrong. But he hit a snag, the evidence showed Simon was right. Lomborg, in an exemplary display of intellectual honesty, not only conceded that Simon was right but wrote his own book that essentially agreed with Simon.
Whether or not Lomborg’s statistical arguments are correct is fair game in a scientific journal, but after he showed the character to change his thinking in the face of facts he certainly didn’t deserve to have that character assassinated in Scientific American. Crichton was wrong about this, Lomborg wasn’t treated as a heretic, he was treated as something much worse – an apostate.
Simon and Lomborg could eventually agree because they both respected facts and logic which means they regard science as a body of knowledge. The alternative view of science as consensus means that you have to accept the majority view irrespective of facts and logic which leads you to denounce Simon for heresy and Lomborg for apostasy. That is the secular equivalent of joining a fundamentalist church and cursing Darwin for disagreeing with Genesis which “everybody knows” is the word of God.
When science seeks consensus over reason and facts it ceases to be science and becomes an inquisition where heretics are sacrificed along with the truth.
January 11th, 2004 at 1:28 pm
Theres a bit more to science than simply collecting facts – facts have to be interpreted and theories have to built around those facts. Its nice to have that one clear study that explains everything, but usually each individual study only contributes a small part of the picture, and while the picture remains incomplete, there is considerable room for interpretation. Its at this level that we talk about scientific consensus… experts in the field all examining the same set of facts and coming to similar or different conclusions. After a while, enough evidence accumulates in support of one position that you no longer think in terms of the scientific consensus or the majority opinion, since the picture that was at first fragmented has become clear. No one ever talks about the scientific consensus on whether evolution occurs or not (unless, perhaps, you live in western Kansas), but there is still difference of opinion on the idea that prions cause disease, for example. In the latter case, there is a clear scientific consensus that prions do cause mad cow disease (and related brain diseases), however there are some valid arguments against this idea and question has yet to be decisively determined.
What I believe you are referring to when you talk about consensus leading to inquisitions and heresy is the arguing of scientific topics in the public arena where facts are irrelevant and rhetoric and ideology determine the outcome. Not really the same thing.
January 11th, 2004 at 2:18 pm
If Lomborg had been treated that way by James Carville or Pat Buchanan I would agree, but this was in Scientific American. Granted, it is not the highest caliber peer reviewed journal, but it never the less is highly regarded by educated laymen and is a primary source of information for many people.
Their cavalier treatment of a serious criticism of modern environmentalism and their resorting to the old standby “He’s not really one of us so we may condescendingly dismiss and insult him” is very much an argument not that consensus can find truth but rather that consensus is truth. This is closer to some primitive tribe saying “him not like us, him wrong, we hit him on head and eat him”.
Whatever you might say about the Scientific American article on Lomborg the last thing you can say is that the article was scientific sound. Science is the last field where some objectivity remains and I don’t want it to turn into “Hannity and Colmes” with the answers determined by Gallup and Zogby.
We may be arguing different things here. I would agree that the give and take of scientific argumentation has led to truth more often than a single brilliant experiment. Hell, I’ve been to engineering design reviews so wild and wooly that I thought it would end up in the parking lot but ultimately it was reasoning and facts that carried the day and resulted in agreement. It wasn’t majority rule.
January 11th, 2004 at 11:12 pm
Doc, I agree that in the end, good science wins. While there are numerous examples where the consensus is correct, many of these examples have a histroy where at some time a scientist who was branded a heretic or mocked. Evolution and the Scopes Monkey Trial, Galileo and the Pope, etc.
I’m not sure Michael intended to pull a bait and switch on us (right, he doesn’t prove global warming doesn’t exist) but I think he just wanted to make a point. Either way, it is up to the readers (or listeners) to go find out for themselves and not just take his word for it.
January 12th, 2004 at 6:07 pm
The biggest tragedy of the whole “Lomborg affair” is that his supporters have turned it into a personal attack on Lomborg. While the critics have been called “fundamentalist greens” and compared to attack dogs, the worst that was said about Lomborg was that he wrote a lousy book, ignored data that did not support his claims, and was not an expert on ANY of the subjects he wrote about. These are all valid topics for book reviews.
February 16th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
We have over 150 years worth of data on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
> In the LONG history of the world, that’s miniscule.
We’re up about 300 parts-per-million (roughly) since the start of the industrial revolution,
>”about” “roughly” – There’s some good science! Apparently VERY roughly since we have no actual parts-per million measurements anywhere near the begining of the industrial revolution
much due to human sources (read fossil fuel consumption).
> Purely a suppostion without basis in fact, because that is impossible to discern or measure.
The past 100 years have seen an average increase in global temperature of 0.2 – 0.6 degrees celsius.
> 100 years? – We have acurate records dating back 100 years? Which (even if true) can be accounted for by any number of random reasons OTHER THAN global warming –
Studies all over the world traced atmospheric conditions back tens of thousands of years, etc..
> “traced atmospheric conditions back tens of thousands of years” – apparently traveling back in time?
The data is good,
>An illogical and laughable conclusion based on your own assumptions.