This is a non-book review because I haven’t read this book. Skimmed parts, read several reviews of, but that’s it. That said, what Crichton did here was, if you ask me, unethical, and frankly, with this book I’ve pretty much had it with his ‘science bad’ schtick.

Now, clearly State of Fear is fiction, and as such Crichton can write whatever he wants. The plot of State of Fear revolves around the theme, which is a position held by the author, that global warming is grossly overstated. Good so far.

The problem lies in that Crichton claims that his position is verifiable by the majority of climatological research, and then throws a nice long bibliography at the reader to prove so. The problem is, Crichton cherry picked his science to support his claim. Worse still, he omitted data from some studies to misrepresent their accuracy.

So, basically, Crichton abuses his image as a respected ‘scientific’ science fiction author to promote a claim that he apparently can’t back up without fudging.

Now, if this was a debate over something relatively inconsequential, like where the term ::indian summer:: comes from, pfft, big deal. However, when the stakes are as huge as they are with global warming (almost certainly in lives and money both) Crichton’s irresponsibility is truly astounding.

Bottom line is Crichton pisses me off, and I certainly won’t be buying or borrowing any more of his books; I’ve got better stuff to read.

If you want to read more about Crichton scientific dishonesty, and some of it from actual climatologists or meterologists, here’s stuff to check out: