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Michael Crighton is such a fucking hack
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Trike wrote: "Alain wrote: "So you don't think data from a NASA satellite which was sent up expressly for the purpose of collecting data on the climate is reliable? What's the matter? Peer-reviewed journal not '..."Wrong again: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/160...
Megan wrote: "I agree w/ Alain. We've been studying the climate for what? 100 years? And we think we know it all and can predict what's gonna happen? Stupid."We've actually been studying the climate for more than 500 years. We've been studying it systematically for over 125 years. We've been doing so in a concerted effort for 70 years. And we've found some really good evidence about how it works.
No scientist worthy of that appellation has ever made a definitive statement to the degree that we know with 100% certainty. What they offer is "if - then" statements. Many scientists believe, based on that evidence, that what is predicted will come to pass.
And here's the thing deniers keep forgetting: every single prediction made by global warming for the past 30-some years has come true.
Conservatives will try to convince you it's not happening, but the fact is this: the models actually work. And if they've been right for three decades, why do you think they're going to suddenly start being wrong now?
Megan wrote: "And I think that now they're thinking that it's not the Co2 levels that are causing it but the sun heating up and cooling off."
No, they don't think that.
The sun goes through eleven year cycles, from high output to low output. Every 22 years the sun's magnetic field reverses itself, which is why it gets hotter and cooler. The sun was hotter in the 1780s than today. It was hotter in the 1870s than today. It was hotter in the 1950s than today. Yet today the planet is hotter than it was in the 1780s, 1870s and 1950s.
Ergo, no correlation.
Volcanoes -- humans produce 100 times more CO2 emissions per year than volcanoes. Also, volcanic eruptions tend to cool the planet off. That's why we saw a modest dip in global temperatures after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991. After Tambora exploded, 1816 was called "The Year Without A Summer" because that eruption put so much dust and debris in the atmosphere that it decreased the sunlight getting to the ground significantly. The same thing happened after Krakatoa's 1883 violent eruption, with many of the paintings of blood-red sunsets (like Munch's "The Scream") reflecting the dust in the air.
You may believe that it's "arrogance" that we can affect the global climate, but the problem remains that no other possible candidate for global warming fits with the observed data. The only cause that matches up with the data going back 100,000 years is the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
Which is why oil companies have a vested interest in denying global warming is caused by humans.
Trike wrote: "Megan wrote: "I agree w/ Alain. We've been studying the climate for what? 100 years? And we think we know it all and can predict what's gonna happen? Stupid."We've actually been studying the clim..."
I am really tired of being insulted by Trike. I have tried my best to keep my tone respectful but I don't feel that has been reciprocated so I am going to drop out of this discussion. Thanks to the rest of you.
I guess Crichton is a little more than a hack, to read everyone's posts you would think they are debating something as important as theology or politics. If Crichton was able to get people to debate this much about his work it has to be worth a lot more than the original mention that his work was sh@&! I have always enjoyed his books, sphere included.
I love everything crichton's ever written, and I've learned about a lot of things from his books. and, yes, I did do my own research into it and he WASN'T full of shit. like, that eugenics started in america. that, while we are most definitely negatively impacting the environment, you shouldn't just swallow the "global warming" hype lock stock and barrel. and that patents are being issued for human genes...I could go on and on...trike- sorry if I overlooked it, but what medical mistakes did he make in the andromeda strain?
Hmmm, interesting discussion. There comes a point when science fiction becomes reality; both reality and science fiction are rolling forward continuously. Time was when Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov were pure science fiction writers. Now, many of their ideas have been realised.Last year, nothing travelled faster than light. This month there are serious questions about that.
I enjoy some of Crichton's writing, but to me, much of it seemed to have one eye on Hollywood. I have only read one Dan Brown book - Digital Fortress. I worked in IT for 30 years before attempting to become a writer, and the central IT premise of that book is just completely untenable to me.
Enjoyment is a very personal thing, but a writer has to be able to get a reader to suspend belief and rationale, or to argue his/her case VERY tightly. At least, that's how it seems to me, both as a reader and a writer.
Try Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear, for some really hard Sci-Fi!
I think Crichton work is, overall, very good. I can honestly say that one major influence in my decision to study biology is Jurassic Park. Sure, he might have taken the science and bent it beyond recognition, but frankly, if anyone tried to write science-fiction today without doing that, I believe not many people would actually read the stuff. The entire point of science fiction, in my eyes, is the sense of wonder.
I've enjoyed every Crichton Book I've ever read (Andromeda Strain, Timeline, The State of Fear, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere). His science is plausible enough to reel this PhD Chemist in, even though on subsequent research it turns out the likelihood of actually doing something like in Jurassic Park is still low, being currently beset with a lot of insurmountable obstacles. But that aside, the guy knew how to build suspense and keep up action almost nonstop. I have a couple other novels on my to-be-read list (Next, Prey) that I'm looking forward to reading someday, hopefully soon.
Gerd wrote: "Trike wrote: "That doesn't excuse his blatant and wrong-headed attacks on REAL science, though ..."When and where did Crichton "attack" science?
That sounds as plausible to me as saying that D..."
Awesome. Perfect reply.
Ash wrote: "Marcia wrote: "After you read one of his books, why would you read another? I can't believe people like his shit, and they make movies out of it."Wow, ladylike.
"
LOL Ash!
Um... Just my own opinion here, but... I really like Mr. Crichton, he's one of my favorite authors. Sphere is one of my favorite books of all time, I don't see what's so bad about it. Sure the science might be off, but I didn't pick it up hoping for a textbook. I picked it up because I wanted an adventure, and that's what I got. I don't think he was looking to mess up anything scientifically, he was just writing a story. And that's all it is, really. It's just a story. I never understood why people get so mad... If I don't like a story, then I still respect it as a book, written to entertain. I don't know, maybe that's just me, but... I think all books, big or small, good or bad, should be respected for what they are, and not trashed just because there are some facts wrong. And I don't think you should call Mr. Crichton a "f***ing hack," as he is probably quite happy with his life, and it's not very nice to try and take away the success he rightfully earned by doing what he loves...
Trike wrote: "Megan wrote: "Maybe not to someone who really knows science and can nitpick about all the crap Crichton got wrong and focus on only that."The issue is that his books are largely ABOUT science. So..."
And you've read more than one of his books why?
I agree marcia. I have read 3 of his books and they were all boring. His characters are terrible. Jurassic park the movie was better than the book. Sphere was one of the worst books I have ever read. Congo .... I don't even know what to say about that one. He does have good ideas but someone else should write them. Please.
Given that he's dead, it's unlikely to be a continuing problem...Also, who insisted you continue to read his work if you don't like it? I'm not a major fan and stopped -- and didn't notice anyone complaining about it.
Why not try spelling his surname correctly and drop the foul langauge?
My main complaint is his characterization and dialogue. Those of you that like his books, have you read anything else? On this, he is a hack.He does have GREAT ideas and who cares is he is not accurate. Lots of great fiction is not accurate. I don't judge him there since I am not a scientist. I likely wouldn't care anyway it is fiction afterall.
Some people get too personal in their attacks, I wanted to focus on his ability as a writer. Not everyone that is successful is good FertileSpade.
Trike wrote: "Megan wrote: "I agree w/ Alain. We've been studying the climate for what? 100 years? And we think we know it all and can predict what's gonna happen? Stupid."We've actually been studying the clim..."
We actually saw a significant dip in temperatures after Pinatubo erupted. That is being downplayed by everyone.
Both sides of the argument, it's about money. Oil and coal companies want us to keep burning oil and coal. And most advocates of green tech just want to sell what they have or have invented - ethanol causes us to use more oil, not less, but they've been pushing that crap for years. Terrestrial solar will never be the answer, ever, but they keep making a lot of money off it.
Nathan Myhrvold says we can stabilize the global climate for about $10 billion a year, using our enormous stockpiles of sulfur to do basically the same thing Pinatubo did. No one wants to try, because they'd rather sell trillion dollar solutions.
Marc-antoine wrote: "I guess Crichton is a little more than a hack, to read everyone's posts you would think they are debating something as important as theology or politics. If Crichton was able to get people to deba..."Hacks don't write what's probably the best Beowulf adaptation ever.
His biggest problem was he was writing near future science fiction, which people mistook for current day science fiction, and he was writing about interesting fields and those always change a lot. Some of it was stupid - the thing with T-Rex vision was always dumb, he did fix it in the next book but it was just super stupid - but a lot of the time science surpassed him in the time it took to go from manuscript to published work.
But the science itself was never the point. The point was always how we use the knowledge we gain, and how dangerously stupid we can be in our pursuit of glory and advancement.
What about his flat characters? Face it he is a overrated as an author. When his stuff is adapted to TV or screen it is better. I think that proves he is not a great author but a great idea guy.Another criticism is that his sci-fi is predictable and derivative and he appeals to people that have not read a lot of sci-fi.
If you have read great authors like Hemingway you should be able to separate the fact that you like Crichton from his ability to write good characters with believable dialogue.
And to those that claim using foul language is over the top ... is it mature to make fun of someones ability to spell a name? I get annoyed by language too but that is the internet! Don't post if it bugs you.
I have been reading a lot of classic literature and classic sci -fi lately and some of the stuff people love I don't understand but I feel that I have a sense of quality if you will. I see what you mean though about an author being entertaining but not great. That is how I feel about Grisham.
And some authors are great at plotting but bad at characters. Finding an author good at everything is hard!
I guess after it is all said and done, people make original posts like this one for this reason: Crichton was commercially successful but not great and many great writers are not commercially successful. We want to believe our culture can recognize greatness not reward mediocrity and then pretend they were great. It that sounds harsh I am sorry I don't mean to be. I just want to read good writing while I am entertained. There is plenty of stuff out there that is just entertaining. Life is too short. :)
Here's how to tell if he's a good writer. Try writing any one of his subjects yourself. Be honest to your own priciples but deliberately make it controversial. Add an element of "wha? that's impossible". Then make it move as fast as you possibly can. Criticise all you like, the guy found a money-making formula and made it work. Wish I could do that.
Jeremy wrote: "Crichton's not for everybody. I think you have to be careful when you're reading him and not take it too seriously, like some people did with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.Robert--I'm not so s..."
personally i quite enjoyed jurassic park, lost world, congo, andromeda strain, airframe. sphere in my opinion was a waste.
May he rest in peace. I enjoyed most of his books. Science fiction is only fiction after all and I don't think he tried to portray the science as fact but just enough to make it plausible like all good science fiction. I read his last book Micro which was only a rough draft of the beginning of the story and completed by another author. It was rubbish. Not a true reflection of his writing and just a money making exercise using his name. Shameful.
First of all the "intellectual" that started this conversation has no real basis for her statement. So Crichton bends science to fit in with his stories.... it's called science FICTION!
Alain wrote: "I am curious. If global warming is such a 'slam dunk', then why are climatologists associated with the IPCC falsifying data? And why are they so committed to stifling heretics (i.e. those who don't agree with them)?I thought the essence of the scientific method was skepticism.
But thanks for your long-winded condescension. "
Regardless of whether global warming is indeed happening, the emissions that are spewed into our air are unhealthy. Incidences of asthma, emphysema and other respiratory illnesses have increased due to pollution. I would think that even if one discounted global warming, they would want the air cleaned up just for health reasons.
Mr. wrote: "First of all the "intellectual" that started this conversation has no real basis for her statement. So Crichton bends science to fit in with his stories.... it's called science FICTION!"That's a cop-out. The "science" side of that equation is what is important, for that's what distinguishes the genre from the others.
Alain wrote: "I am really tired of being insulted by Trike. I have tried my best to keep my tone respectful but I don't feel that has been reciprocated so I am going to drop out of this discussion. Thanks to the rest of you."If you actually thought anything I wrote was terribly insulting to you personally, you should probably stay off of other forums.
Also: the Wall Street Journal is owned by the same guy who owns Fox News. They spin the news the same way: in favor of the giant corporations and the rest of the 1%. Don't take my word for it, look it up.
If you think that *anything* Rupert Murdoch has to say is legit, then you're being hoodwinked. There's a reason why his entire News Corp empire is coming under fire in 7 different countries for its blatant law-breaking.
Gerd wrote: "Trike wrote: "That doesn't excuse his blatant and wrong-headed attacks on REAL science, though ..."When and where did Crichton "attack" science?
That sounds as plausible to me as saying that Dan Brown is falsifying history for his novels- after all they are only writers."
Crichton attacked science when he declared that global warming science was nothing more than "snake oil." Search those terms and you'll find the article.
For some reason people seem to think Crichton knew what he was talking about. He did not. He gets basic science wrong in every one of this books. So people hold up his anti-global warming essay as a worthy counter-factual argument when it is not. We are making laws based on what he said.
Recently North Carolina outlawed global warming and any measurements based on currently-accepted science. That's the ridiculously idiotic level this discussion has come to, in large part because of people like Crichton.
As I've said numerous times already, if you like Crichton, fine. Not a big deal. But you can't hold up his writing as an example of good science fiction because it's not. It's actually really bad science fiction, and that's because it's really bad science. What got him on my personal shit list was his outside-the-novel attacks on science.
Good luck to your kids if they live near a beach. Or if they like to, you know, eat.
Trike wrote: "Gerd wrote: "Trike wrote: "That doesn't excuse his blatant and wrong-headed attacks on REAL science, though ..."When and where did Crichton "attack" science?
That sounds as plausible to me as say..."
For a long time - a very, very, very long time - global warming "science" was nothing but snake oil. It's only been about 5 years since real scientific evidence, as opposed to falsified crap and blatant misinterpretations of NASA data, has been available to support the idea that the climate is changing. So when Crichton said that, he was telling the truth.
There is still no evidence that climate change is caused by man, only that it is actually happening. There are strong hypotheses supporting the idea that we are causing it, but no proof.
Most of the so-called solutions to the problem are very much akin to the original snake oil - they are going to make someone a lot of money, but they will never actually fix anything. The most prominent spokesperson for the green movement has been shown to be a fraud many times over. We're investing in hybrid vehicles that ultimately use more energy than the fossil fuel powered ones they replace. We continue to push ethanol even though it results in us using more oil than if we just burned oil. And on, and on.
Meanwhile, people with real solutions, like Gates and Myhrvold, are ignored when possible, and mocked when they draw attention to themselves.
When the solutions offered would only have real impact if they were combined with a shift to a global agrarian economy, we're being sold snake oil. Plain and simple.
I loved the sphere. I just loved part where he encourages you to think that maybe an alien life form can be something different than what has been done before in so many books/movies. Like most of the books some more than other. Sphere was one of my favourites
No author can hit it out of the park every time but Crichton's batting average was better than most. His earliest works had an intensity that made them true page turners. Once they became screenplays they often lost their edge (Grisham anyone?). Long before the movie made its appearance The Lost World kept me up for a couple nights - trapped in a Hospital room - devouring every page. Flawed science maybe but why ruin a good yarn with just a bunch of facts and stats. Infotainment anyone?
He is a really good author. Who can write about 'Quantum Theory' in a novel and pull it off? What he has done in 'Timeline' is great. I loved the book. And Sphere is wonderful too. It seemed as if the whole knowledge of the world was condensed in that little book. And I love other books too. He is one of my favorite authors!!!!
Wow. Such hatred and bad spelling. If you don't like an author you usually just move on. I found that Michael Crichtons book were great due to the amount of research he obviously put in on each one of them. He had a lot of science and history in his books so you learnt a fair bit while being entertained. Not to say all his science was a hundred per cent correct. But thats the risk he took for writing about so many incredibly different topics, from disease to underwater exploration and then to prehistoric fauna. I think your hate is a little misguided, but hey, that's just my opinion. This is an open forum after all.
Is there a way to block members who use bad language? This is supposed to be a family friendly website!
Bad science fiction because it doesn't use proven science? I would love to see examples of science fiction books that are both interesting and involve only using science that has been proven. As for his writing, his books are very plot driven and full oc action which makes character exploration not important to the story.
His earlier books like The Great Train Robbery, Sphere, Congo, Jurassic Park and Lost World I loved reading! His later works I found pretty boring! What I liked was his diverse topics in each book and they transported you to different worlds with ease!
Trike wrote: "Vanessa wrote: "*Michael Chrichton. And again, if you don't like a book or an author then why post about it? I find it amusing lol."
*Crichton
Bad reviews are just as valuable as good ones."
Bad reviews *can* be valuable if they have some specifics such as "The characters were one dimensional and the dialogue felt forced." But simply complaining that you don't get why other people like the story is not valuable.
Marcia wrote: "After you read one of his books, why would you read another? I can't believe people like his shit, and they make movies out of it."You're an idiot.
Marcia wrote: "After you read one of his books, why would you read another? I can't believe people like his shit, and they make movies out of it."Just because YOU don't like something doesn't mean that everybody else has to share YOUR opinion of it. You may not like his books, but other people may prefer his writing and that's up to their own personal preferences and I don't think it's your place to get on here and criticize (whether you intended it to come off that way or not) those who do like his work by saying "I can't believe people like his shit," simply because YOU as in individual happen to not like his work.
Alan you're a jackass Michael Crichton was a doctor before he was a writer and did very thorough research... Andromeda Strain terrified the shit out of me it was way ahead of it's time for 1969 and I actually had the pleasure of meeting him years ago at a benifit for him in LA, very nice, smart and genuine man who went before him time and if you dare to nit pick anything I say I will have you taken off goodreads, jackass!!
So Crichton is a Hack? Fine. I say we need more Hacks and fewer Writers anyway... I'll take Hacks like Crichton, Isaac Asimov, Steven King, Andre Norton & co. over Writers like Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, J.D. Salinger & co. any day.
Crichton deserved his fortune and fame. Through his books, movies and television shows he entertained millions.
Nothing like demonizing those who disagree with you. "petty, greedy, selfish and, yes, *stupid* people", "empty-headed ditz". Well done, sir.
This is what I dislike most about liberals. They all seem to share the same penchant for demonizing those who disagree with them and ascribe to them evil intentions.
And of course it's not like the climatologists and Al Gore et. al. have a financial stake in this. They are all doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and are getting paid minimum wage, right? Because profit is evil.
Mind elaborating on the ties between Fox News and oil companies? Last time I checked the oil business was legal, and they advertise on ALL the networks, including CNN and MSNBC.
Sorry. You are incorrect. The leaked memo urged Fox News coverage to stress that global warming is still a debate. To some of us, it is.
I do care. And I care that for years we gave massive subsidies to agribusiness for growing corn to produce ethanol. And I care that we give subsidies to those same companies to grow and overcharge us for sugar.
I read most of my news on the Wall Street Journal but thanks for trying to pigeon hole and stereotype me. I don't watch TV news because it has no depth. And I don't have cable in Afghanistan.
Please don't try to guess anything about me. You just make yourself look petty and so far you haven't gotten anything right. You'll notice that I haven't cast aspersions about your character or motives, tempting though it may be.