Re: Michael Crichton dies

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> I doubt that Michael Crichton was against science and I certainly deny 
> that
> he demonstrates it in his work. The only thing he did was promoting
> criticism of science, which is always a good thing.

Oh no. The worst is State of Fear, where he made clear he seriously believed 
that almost all climatologists worldwide, thousands of people, were part of 
a conspiracy to keep the whole world population in a, well, state of fear! 
And there are people out there who _eat this up_!

As if scientists could keep a secret! :-)

> Don't forget he had a degree in medicine, an applied science.

That does, unfortunately, not mean that he had any idea about the scientific 
method, let alone any knowledge about matters outside of medicine. Indeed, 
his knowledge of dinosaurs had large holes, his knowledge of climatology was 
more like a net, his knowledge of chaos theory seems to have consisted 
almost only of misunderstandings -- and yet he wrote about all those topics 
as if he had understood them. That's simply not defensible from a scientific 
point of view.

> Anyway, out of respect for Michael Crichton, I don't think this thread is
> the place to discuss the importance of his work, nor is it the place to
> criticize it.

Now _this_ is an unscientific attitude. Why should we stop criticizing 
someone's ideas just because that someone happens to have recently died? Is 
there any defensible reason for that? Isn't it an ad hominem argument, sort 
of?

It's not as if we suddenly started criticizing _now_ and hadn't said 
anything during Crichton's lifetime.