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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself.

For example?

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Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming to be based on scientific data, the book misrepresents studies, cherry-picks data, and cites outlier opinions to undermine the overwhelming consensus on human-caused climate change. The novel’s presentation has been criticized for promoting misinformation and distorting the complexities of climate science to fit a skeptical narrative.

that actually makes sense that he'd write that book if he's going around talking about gell-mann in interviews

Thanks. I read the book and feel he’ll be proven largely correct. Won’t relitigate here but I very much appreciate your reply.

It was one of his worst books but not due to his evaluation of the science world. Just way too heavy-handed. He usually had a far lighter touch.

That isn't actually an example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described, but just an example of the cherry picking of data and selective interpretation. The Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described it, refers to how people will not read a source with skepticism when they are not familiar with it's subject matter, even when they have read an inaccurate article from the same source about subject matter that they are familiar with enough to spot the inaccuracies.

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