Indeed. He's absolutely correct in pointing out how "junk science" and the Luddite-for-political-convenience bunch use fear of the unknown to reap influence and funding. Just look at the hatchet job they did on Bjorn Lomborg when he had the audacity to back up his assertion that the environmentalist movement was crying wolf on a great many topics with actual facts instead of mere assertions.
It's all the more ironic that Crichton's own novel Preyascribes near-magical powers to nanotech, feeding into the very fears of the "grey goo" naysayers that one might expect Crichton, given his views in this piece, might very well want to avoid inflating. And, yes, as an SF writer myself I know the difference between a thesis and entertaining fiction -- but there's a vast difference between dramatic license and having a plot that relies on bullshit just to hold itself together....
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-07-13 04:57 pm (UTC)It's all the more ironic that Crichton's own novel Prey ascribes near-magical powers to nanotech, feeding into the very fears of the "grey goo" naysayers that one might expect Crichton, given his views in this piece, might very well want to avoid inflating. And, yes, as an SF writer myself I know the difference between a thesis and entertaining fiction -- but there's a vast difference between dramatic license and having a plot that relies on bullshit just to hold itself together....