An absolutely magnificent lecture by Michael Crichton. A "Must Read," IMO.
Aliens Cause Global Warming
By Michael Crichton
Caltech Michelin Lecture
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.
I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born
in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of
the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in
preparation for a nuclear attack.
It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I
believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind.
Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a
world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass
manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science
held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and
working relationships across national boundaries and political systems,
encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to
fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world
might not be a very good place, but science would make it better. And it
did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has
been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our
troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan,
feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also
expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and
superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be,
in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And
here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as
a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more
ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our
world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not
benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.
But let's look at how it came to pass.
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet
airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of
memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy
Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week
project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is
received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement
remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up
with the now-famous Drake equation:
N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
[where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction
with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting
life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction
where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates;
and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating
civilizations live.]
This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate
intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can
be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the
equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are
merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you
need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is
simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and
billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing.
Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has
nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the
creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and
therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is
defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The
belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief
that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief
that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There
is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty
years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no
evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.
One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the
subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the
NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE
NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he
titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books
titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called
"Rare Earth" theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone.
Again, there is no evidence either way.
Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among
astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were
harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study
without a subject," and it remains so to the present day. But scientists in general
have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or
with indifference. After all, what's the big deal? It's kind of fun. If people want to
look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI.
It wasn't worth the bother.
And of course, it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value.
Of course, extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But
that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly
for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings.
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of
outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new
claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening
of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And
soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.
Now let's jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter.
In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide
Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated
the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor. In 1979, the
Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear
War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse
consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes
involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to
estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.
Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a
report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon,"
which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and
cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a
large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight
below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for
weeks or even longer.
The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan
published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of
Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which
attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the
added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.
At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never
specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:
Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc
(The amount of tropospheric dust = # warheads x size warheads x warhead
detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x
Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle
endurance, and so on.)
The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake
equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS
study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime
scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the
remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much
smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind,
and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the
amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows
how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.
And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the
underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could
be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those
estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic.
According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear
exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees
Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest
volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere
between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by
10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any
ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute.
But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the
outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first
announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday
supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile
conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in
Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and
media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny
Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference,
there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The
formal papers in Science came months later.
This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold.
The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists' renderings
of the effect of nuclear winter.
I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is a tranquil
scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black
bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the
foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty
fish." Hard science if ever there was.
At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was
reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying
nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the
next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?
Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists
may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their
basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but
scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various
places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very
large group of scientists"
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise
of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an
extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its
tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of
scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is
already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on
something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with
consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary,
requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he
or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In
science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke
with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't
science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is
nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following
childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon
of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was
able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes
claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence.
The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary
techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his
management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him
from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the
start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and
twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of
the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and
ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of
thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra.
The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary
was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young
investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded
that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ
theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through
diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the
blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other
volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and
swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called
"Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus
continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social
factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because
it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until
the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took
years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit
together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the
continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental
drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great
names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were
spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what
any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and
smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory,
fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus
errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is
invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not
solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2.
Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would
never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject.
What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless
formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political
from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had
to be planned weeks or months in advance.
Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found
in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was
characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what
they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent.
Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of
science but who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And
Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology
is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such
comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever
made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their
views.
At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war.
If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too
closely? Who wanted to disagree?
Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb."
Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still
uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the
position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt
about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear
winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be
relevant.
END OF PART ONE |
