Friday, March 29, AD 2024 9:13am

Quotes Suitable for Framing: Michael Crichton

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray [Gell-Mann]’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward–reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Michael Crichton

 

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Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2019 7:16am

If a journalist or a politician is saying something, then chances are you should believe the opposite. If the stupid and ignorant are by Darwin’s Law unfit to survive, one may hope that journalists and politicians soon die out.

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2019 7:25am

The only thing I get upset about with this effect is that people will randomly disregard it because it appeals to their prejudices– even when they have shortly before SAID that they know they’re being manipulated by the media!

Thus, folks who interact with a wide range of Millennials every day (myself and several others) will then go on to inform us about how Millennials “really” are, based on what the media shovels.
Likewise Masculinists, and Feminists, about the opposite sex, and folks who don’t game to people who do.

In fairness, some of those articles are so bad, or so biased, that they go beyond “wet stones cause rain” and into “wet stones are purple because avocados fly in the rain.” I wish I’d framed the story on buying currency in video games, it was so insanely wrong it hurt.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2019 8:02am
CAM
CAM
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2019 11:30am

Michael Crichton it would seem he died way before his time. On Michael Crichton speeches from where else ? Wikipedia:
Mediasaurus
The Decline of Conventional Media
A 1993 speech which predicted the decline of mainstream media delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 1993.
The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming
On January 25, 2005 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Crichton delivered a detailed explanation of why he criticized the consensus view on global warming. Using published UN data, he argued that claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; that reducing CO2 is vastly more difficult than is commonly presumed; and why societies are morally unjustified in spending vast sums on a speculative issue when people around the world are dying of starvation and disease.[
Environmentalism as Religion
This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Crichton explains his view that religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect.[89] The speech was delivered to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, California on September 15, 2003.
Complexity Theory and Environmental Management
In previous speeches, Crichton criticized environmental groups for failing to incorporate complexity theory. Here he explains in detail why complexity theory is essential to environmental management, using the history of Yellowstone Park as an example of what not to do. The speech was delivered to the Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy in Washington, D.C. on November 6, 2005.
Testimony before the United States Senate
Together with climate scientists, Crichton was invited to testify before the Senate in September 2005, as an expert witness on global warming.The speech was delivered to the Committee on Environment and Public Works in Washington, D.C.
Genetic Research and Legislative Needs
While writing Next, Crichton concluded that laws covering genetic research desperately needed to be revised, and spoke to congressional staff members about problems ahead. The speech was delivered to a group of legislative staffers in Washington, D.C. on September 14, 2006.
Caltech Michelin Lecture
“Aliens Cause Global Warming” January 17, 2003. In the spirit of his science fiction writing Crichton details research on nuclear winter and SETI Drake equations relative to global warming science.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 30, AD 2019 12:59am

“I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories” This line is a saver.

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