Thursday, March 22, 2007

Hip-checking Michael Crichton

Back in February 2005, Chris Mooney wrote an excellent essay for Ideas about Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear." The protagonist of that fiction, if you recall, was an MIT professor of geoenvironmental engineering who argued that global warming was not caused by humans; and the novel was heavily footnoted with actual scientific citations supposedly backing up the denialist professor's claims. Well, Mooney called up some of the scientists footnoted in the book, and they told him that Crichton was twisting their words and distorting their findings.

Gotcha! Right? Alas, as NYU media and culture professor Stephen Duncombe argues in his fine new book "Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy," debunking the other guy's false claims just isn't good enough. "Truth and power belong to those who tell the better story," he writes.

As The New Republic reports on The Plank, its political blog, yesterday Al Gore told a pretty good story before Congress -- and simultaneously got in a jab at Crichton. Hoping to spur action on legislation to fight climate change, Gore told a House panel:

The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says, "You have to intervene here," you don't say, "Well, I read a science fiction novel that says this isn't important."

"Hmm," gloats The Plank's Michael Crowley. "I wonder what that might have been a reference to."

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 03:42 PM

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