To me, the dispute seems not to be to be about whether the globe is warming up, but about whether we have caused this warming-up, about whether we can prevent and/or reverse it, and also about whether the activities of us puny humans can have a significant impact on the system at all. Ok, his might be excused as some "shorthand formulation". but he's making judgments of science and of scientists here, so I'd think that some precision would be in order.
Anyway... eugenics. Crichton describes eugenics as a form of politicized science, which caused people to be discriminated against, sterilized, and even killed in large numbers. It was bad.
About two thirds through his text, he cites another example of politicized science: Lysenkoism. Trofim Lysenko was a Russian biologist who speculated that aquired characteristics of plants (and presumably other organisms) could be inherited, and that soaking wheat grains in water and burying the wet seed in snow over the winter would improve crop yields. During the time from 1948 to 1964, criticism of Lysenko's theories was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union; academic critics were thrown in jail. As a consequence of such foolish behavior, many people died through famine. It was bad.
In the final quarter, then, he brings on global warming:
"Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with."
Oh, really? What happens to them? Are they jailed, or killed? Crichton doesn't say. Instead, he says:
"Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions."
What kind of extreme actions are taken? Are those actions comparable with those he cites, like letting peasants starve, sterilizing "feeble-minded" Californians, or killing Jews in concentration camps? He doesn't say. But:
"Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences."
Ah, some people are hurt. So it must be bad. But how are they hurt? Are they starved, jailed, killed? Does he refer to the critics again, or to some other people? Not a word about it...
I don't know whether or not human activities cause/prevent global warming. I believe that the jury's still out on that. But if, as Crichton writes, he really wishes that "knowledge is disinterested and honest", I think he should refrain from drawing the kind of comparisons he draws here. This text reads like scientizied politics. In fact, as a source of knowledge, it's indistinguishable from politicized science to me.