Re:Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
by Tichy on Thursday November 06, 2008 @04:21AM
(#355511)
I faintly remember discussing another Crichton article of the same gist on HN?
While I did not make it to the end, I feel there are two strategies at work in this article:
A) Talk so much that your opponent loses the ability to focus and becomes vulnerable for injection of any meme you slip into the speech.
B) Draw random analogies and take advantage of the flaw of the human brain, that is "addicted" to drawing analogies if there are none.
Because ultimately he says "look, there were false things that were believed by a lot of people. Global warming is believed by a lot of people, therefore it must be false". That is simply a logic error. I wonder if Crichton was aware of that (and since he was intelligent, I suppose he was), because if so, I consider the article a disgusting, dishonest attempt at manipulation.
While I did not make it to the end, I feel there are two strategies at work in this article:
A) Talk so much that your opponent loses the ability to focus and becomes vulnerable for injection of any meme you slip into the speech.
B) Draw random analogies and take advantage of the flaw of the human brain, that is "addicted" to drawing analogies if there are none.
Because ultimately he says "look, there were false things that were believed by a lot of people. Global warming is believed by a lot of people, therefore it must be false". That is simply a logic error. I wonder if Crichton was aware of that (and since he was intelligent, I suppose he was), because if so, I consider the article a disgusting, dishonest attempt at manipulation.