TANSTAAFL
• Jun. 8, 2007 - State of Fear
TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!)
State of Fear is a book by Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park) that I have just finished. I was never super interested in Crichton's books. I read some if not all of Andromeda Strain and like most saw Jurassic Park but it unfortunately, like in State of Fear, showed confusion with age of the earth and evilution. I never have liked ER and actually do not enjoy most modern writers that others seem to flock to or do only in a casual manner such as the guy who writes the note in a bottle books, or Grisham, etc. I had a friend who read Congo and Drums along the Congo at the same time. He said that the non-Crichton Drums was much better so, I've sort of avoided Crichton as a whole. However, I had been wanting to read it because (unlike most of Crichton's books) this book seemed to get little acclaim. This, made me curious. Usually, or often, I've found when the press does not acclaim something by a famous author it actually might be good. This was the case with State of Fear. A basic premise of the book which I think is very true is that governments in general in order to try and control the general populace (or as John D. Rockefeller and the elites called them, the maggots), it was necessary to keep the general public in a state of fear. He shows how this has been done in the name of Climate Change. Interestingly to me this book is very, very up to date even though it's about 4 years old. In order to try and control the population the latest fear needs to be shown to be a "crisis" or "catastrophe". In order to get people's attention the crisis has to be immediate and huge and relatively unknown and uncontrollable.
I really enjoyed this book because Crichton has a way of disturbing the status quo that often is wrong because Science has been and is being politicized.
I really enjoyed this in the book:
- While a novel, Crichton does an excellent, excellent job of footnoting and obviously did much serious reading and research as witnessed by the extensive Bibliography
- The pace is fast and somewhat believable
- The appendix on Eugenics is wonderful and accurate and a forgotten part of history
- Graphs and scientific support are within the text
Things I did not like:
- It, like many modern day novels, reads like a movie script (after all Crichton did write the crummy TV series ER).
- The book is filled with conversation which really takes up a lot of space.
However, I would say that this is a very good read. It points out the dangers of politicization of Science and how what might be commonly believed by nearly all and acclaimed to be consensus amongst the "majority" of scientists might very well be wrong and actually manipulated by the press and government and powerful people with evil intent. I believe this is essentially true in the area of climate change. Crichton also addresses false bugaboos besides global warming such as DDT is dangerous, there were never any cannibals, primitive man and living is best, Western societies are bad for the earth, and so on.
There is a fairly good synopsis of the book at Wikipedia and a shallow and insipid rebuttal at the Pew Institute (one of the types of institutes similar to those negatively addressed in the book). Crichton's summation of Eugenics in the Appendix is just excellent. I am amazed that someone as bright as Crichton still believes in the myth of evolution after viewing the evil fruits of that myth with Eugenics and Galton.
I highly recommend this book. It will hopefully make everyone think a little more before accepting common "scientific" facts. Some possible myths that I see in Science right now beyond the myth of global warming and evilution are:
- We are in danger of running out of oil
- Ethanol can actually be a solution to our energy problems
- Nuclear power is evil and dangerous
- Pesticides are evil
- We can feed the world organically
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