Topic: Aliens Cause Global Warming:

[Pandora]

A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton

January 17, 2003

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming.

Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do.

    Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.

... As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.

Do read the whole thing; although it is lengthy, it is quite interesting.

I found this lecture through a Kevin Baker post on the subject of AGW and Michael Crichton.  There's a nine minute vid of a related discussion between the latter and Charlie Rose at this link as well.

[Libertas]

Slamming SETI.  

The Drake equation (and its fugly chirren!) can mean anything.  Oh, like the variables that go into the AGW/warmist/cooling/change religion too?!  Yeah, AGW is Drake/SETI on steroids to the power of infinity!  Consensus is merely the peer pressure the illegitimate scientists employ to bully their skeptics, and yes skeptics are inherently REQUIRED to prove a scientific reality or debunk a scientific hoax!

Science has almost been completely made into the willing bitch of politicians and their agenda, without government funding of any kind perhaps science would get back to the realm of the real and leave fantasyland to the amateurs...until that dependence is obliterated we will continue to have trillions of taxpayers funds and future wealth and prosperity sacrificed on the altar of the insanity.