"The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief. They can't control the climate.
The reality is, they run from the storms." - State Of Fear, p 563
That's the message from the latest Michael Crichton book, State Of Fear.
It's an interesting read. I can usually blast through a Crichton book in about a day. They're fun reads that have an interesting scientific premise that has been spun into a crazy adventure.
Not so with State Of Fear. In fact, the plot really doesn't kick in until the last hundred pages and even that is littered with mini-lectures that make the Left Behind series seem like a narrative tour de force in comparison.
The majority of the book is a polemic against pseudo-science and media manipulation. The subject that gets the most attention is environmentalism in its many facets. It's interesting because Crichton actually uses references and has a VERY extensive bibliography (approx. 23 pages) to back up the various and sundry claims in his book.
While it is interesting, I think I'd rather he had written a non-fiction treatise on media manipulation and why the current state of environmentalism is heading down the wrong path than to have tried to couch all of the scientific data in the middle of a thriller novel. Granted, the story did illuminate the points he was making with his data. It just slowed the pace of the narrative down significantly.
He does have some very good ideas for what the proper method for managing climates and wilderness resources should be, as well as ideas for how to divorce the actual scientific data from funding and political machinations. I'm not holding my breath for them to be implemented any time soon.
I'm sure the book will make a lot of people angry. The amusing part of the book is that Crichton argues his points with a character in the book who makes many of the knee-jerk, 'common-knowledge' claims that he is trying to refute. He wants people to look at the actual scientific papers and research, not the latest article from J.P. Honeywagon in the science section of the local newspaper. If you can refute the claims and back them with real science and not just common sense and popular wisdom, then he seems willing to concede the point. Just don't you dare claim anything without references!
So... it was a different book than I'd expected to read. That's not a bad thing. It just packed more of a punch than I expected and really made me think, which hurts these days. I definately have a few books I want to check out of the local library to explore pseudo-science and its ramifications on popular groupthink now.
"I have more respect for people who change their views after aquiring new information than for those who cling to views they held thirty years ago. The world changes. Idealogues and zealots don't."
- Michael Crichton, State Of Fear - p. 571
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