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Crichton's essay here is pretty good. I agree with some but not all of it:
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
Notably, I disagree with his attack on "consensus", his idea that simulations and guesses are flat-out useless, and his implication that global warming is unfounded.
In more detail:
Basically: sure, consensus isn't a guarantee of truth. But what else do you have? It is even more ludicrous for an outsider to side with the "dissenters" than it would be for them to side with the consensus.
So should we simply refuse to think or act about any even marginally controversial scientific result? No! If you don't have perfect information, it's better to act on the information you have than to pretend you have no information at all.
So, in a case like global warming, for example, clearly "the public" and the politicians should take "the consensus view" to heart. Maybe someday the scientific community will change its mind, and "the public" will say, "wait a minute, we have to rethink our policies in light of new evidence?". Tough. It's more efficient than waiting 300 years before doing anything. Imagine behaving like that in business.
Also, his list of times when "the consensus" is wrong doesn't really prove his point that an outsider shouldn't trust the consensus; for that, you need to compare this with the amount of times "the consensus" was right. Which is much, much larger. Statistically, I bet it would come out that you should put a high degree of confidence in the consensus.
Therefore, in my opinion, this sort of "but what if it's wrong!" argument only implies that the scientific community should avoid persecuting disbelievers; it doesn't imply that that the rest of the world should ignore the scientific community's consensus.
"Doc", a commentator on http://www.lies.com/wp/2004/01/05/michael-crichton-on-bad-science/, explains my views on "consensus" pretty well.
Crichton\u2019s essay reminds me of the old joke: They laughed at Einstein, they laughed at Darwin\u2026 but they also laughed at Bobo the Clown. He appears in his essay to make the same mistake he rails against: attacking (or defending) a position using rhetoric and appeals to popularity instead of dealing with the data. Rather than discussing the science behind global warming or dealing with specific studies, he describes examples where P.R. superseded actual science and where the popular scientific opinion turned out to be wrong in the face of one or two definitive studies, and then insinuates (without discussing evidence) that the same situation is occuring with global warming research. The problem is, there are many (many many many) examples where so-called \u2018consensus scientific opinion\u2019 was correct and the study that appeared to overthrow it was flawed in some way. One could easily cite several of these studies and then use these examples to support global warming, producing an essay as equally valid as Crichtons. Despite what Crichton believes, in the end science does come down to a consensus opinion - you have to eventually produce evidence that will convince the scientific community. If the evidence comes around at the wrong time (i.e., without a supporting theoretical framework), is incomplete, or contradicts many other studies, it may face strong opposition\u2026 but it is this opposition that weeds out the many bad, poorly conducted, or just plain wrong theories. Good science eventually comes through, as Crichton himself acknowledges.
.....
Theres a bit more to science than simply collecting facts - facts have to be interpreted and theories have to built around those facts. Its nice to have that one clear study that explains everything, but usually each individual study only contributes a small part of the picture, and while the picture remains incomplete, there is considerable room for interpretation. Its at this level that we talk about scientific consensus\u2026 experts in the field all examining the same set of facts and coming to similar or different conclusions. After a while, enough evidence accumulates in support of one position that you no longer think in terms of the scientific consensus or the majority opinion, since the picture that was at first fragmented has become clear.
Crichton seems to seek after an ideal where only unquestionable truths rise to the level of Good Science. A monotonic progression from ignorance to knowledge. Speculation? That shouldn't even be published.
This ideal is achieved only in the nobelest field of inquiry; mathematics.
But science? Theories can never be proved, only disproved. Speculation is the bread of science (and data -- the butter). Science doesn't just accumulate data for decades and then suddenly plop out an unquestioned theory, fully formed. Science is an iterative process between better models and more data.
I'd like to take him to task particularly with SETI. To me, the motivation for SETI is a good example of a model inspiring the search for data. Yeah, in one sense it's pretty lame to have an equation with unmeasurable variables. But such equations are really just stating what people are already thinking in more precise, mathematical language. If you look at such equations as simply a language for stating the models that are in people's heads (and a superior language at that), then you see that they do have some use. Critchon's implied alternative seems to be to pretend that the radio silence we see around isn't something in need of explanation (simply because we cannot phrase our reasons for being surprised at this fact in terms acceptably measurable), seems like not a very good one to me.
Obviously, it doesn't make sense to say, "Everyone agrees with global warming; therefore it's probably wrong!". Crichton has actual reasons for disagreeing with global warming, but he doesn't present them in this essay. For now, just note that this essay doesn't even attempt to present arguments against global warming specifically.
