Be first, be loud - and you win

The modern news cycle has led to a truth in message management: namely, it doesn't matter if what you say is correct - you have to say it loudly, with conviction, and -most importantly- first. The current administration appears to have not only grasped this tactic, but mastered it.

Spin any malarkey you want, the news will have to play catch up - and by the time they do, you've already won the war of ideas.

This is likely news to no one. But I just had to point out a posting on the New York Times that debunks an earlier use of this tactic. Mostly because it is so richly deserved.

The target of this debunking? Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear.

Now, I like a number of Crichton's novels; the Andromeda Strain, Eaters of the Dead, Jurassic Park, and Timeline. All good fun, all are loosely based on Crichton's tried and true formula, find a story hook rooted in science and go to town.

In State of Fear, Crichton basically counterpunches all environmental science, using whatever he can find that sounds credible. His loudest refrain was a study on Antarctica that had observed a cooling effect on one of the continent's peninsulas, as well as the thickening of the glacier. Out of context, this appears to fly in the face of global warming. "Earth getting warmer? How come Antarctica is getting cooler?"

Except the study didn't say that Antarctica is getting cooler, they pointed to data that a majority of the continent had cooled - and noted that the rest of the continent was, in fact warming. Their conclusion was that more research needed to be done, and not "Global warming is a hoax!" as Crichton would have you believe.

Enter the NYT editorial "Cold, Hard Facts," penned by one of the authors of the study, Peter Doran:

Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

...I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.

Counterpunching is fun (I say this from experience) and it can make a good novel - but Crichton's misuse of the one study that supported his plot, and his complete dismissal of the literally thousands of independent observations that support the theory of Global Warming, was irresponsible. The fact that this novel becomes some people's sole interaction with the issue just compounds the fact. Crichton has leveraged his fame into audiences with the President to discuss the issue, which (while unlikely to have swayed the president) lends his work credibility that this scientific dilettante just doesn't deserve.

The guy's a fiction writer. Novelists are, to use Ursula's Le Guin's phrase, "in the business of telling lies." It is presented as fact to make a good story, not because it is fact. Crichton doesn't have to answer to anyone - he just has to move product.

I'm glad that the truth comes out eventually, but once again - it's in the fine print - long after the fact.

Updated
There are more and better criticisms out there. Here are just a few:

• Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion
  By Gavin Schmidt December 13, 2004
• Distort Reform
  By Gavin Schmidt February 1, 2005
• Checking Crichton's footnotes
  By Chris Mooney February 6, 2005