... to the free market of ideas: Michael Crichton and authorship. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I had the temerity to add a comment to the post Maxine links to. Again I remind readers: I am agnostic on this issue, perhaps because I think it worth taking this sort of thing into consideration: Evidence of sunspot involvement in climate change compelling.
My concerns with Mr. Crichton have much less to do with what science positions he was advocating than with the increasing role celebrity and media access play in our providing our commentators on complex issues. Expertise and experience are becoming less and less of a factor in gaining a public role on an issue. To his credit, Mr. C. at least was well-read in his various subjects of interest.
ReplyDeleteAnd exceedingly good point, Jim. Why do we care what actors and failed politicians have to say about these things. The thing I keep insisting on, probably to the point of tedium, is that there are standards of evidence and logic that I don't think are being met by many in the science community itself, starting with the idea that science has something to do with consensus.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree. Science and technology is as prone to orthodoxy and the comfort of ideology and group acceptance as anything else humans do. The need for gadflys, either in the field or as an educated outsider, is always there. The problem has always been separating informed, intelligent, well-researched counter-arguments from those more simply based on another ideology or different world view. (Or the hijacking of a decent argument by others for their own purposes.) We'll never solve that problem - and I wonder if we are getting worse at dealing with it these days.
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