Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

Post by blacksqr » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

noego wrote: post #77

blacksqr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We might be living in a very different country and world if the New York Times had refrained from speculating on topics like Whitewater, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Benghazi...

Should NYTimes also refrain from speculating on topics like climate change? Ie, until climate change actually happens, all mention of climate change should be omitted entirely from all newspapers?

Back in the old days, there was a clearly-defined place in a newspaper for speculation: the op-ed page. Got no problem with it there. The problem comes when you play shell games with news and speculation on the front page.

Post by NoodleIncident » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #79

NoodleIncident wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used the word "scientists" and that's probably my fault. I don't think it substantially changes the argument that Jusrassic Park is "fear mongering", though, especially in the context of the original article. The the corporation and its scientists are tied together in that they try to predict the future, which as Crichton kindly explains, is completely impossible. The corporation believes that investing money will…

Yes, there are antagonists in the novel Jurassic Park who are scientists, just as there are in State of Fear. It hardly generalizes to everything Michael Crichton has written though.

Again, the original topic was "fear-mongering", and I accidentally made a statement specific to "scientists". Not all fear-mongering is related to science, and not all scientists in his books are fear-mongered about. It was a mistake.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)