Unbelievable fiction
In telling us "how to read a novel", John Sutherland in the Guardian
Review (2 September 2006) shows an admirable willingness to avoid the
usual literary snobbery about science fiction, suggesting that among
other things it can have a pedagogical value. That's certainly true of
the brand of sci-fi pioneered by the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and
Isaac Asimov, which took pride in the accuracy of its science. Often,
however, sci-fi writers might appropriate just enough real science to
make that aspect of the plot vaguely plausible - which is entirely
proper for a work of fiction, but not always the most reliable way to
learn about science. Even that, however, can encourage the reader to
find out more, as Sutherland says.
Sadly, however, he chooses to use the books of Michael Crichton to
illustrate his point. Now, Crichton likes to let it be known that he
does his homework, and certainly his use of genetic engineering in
Jurassic Park is perfectly reasonable for a sci-fi thriller: that's to
say, he stretches the facts, but not unduly, and one has to be a bit
of a pedant to object to his reconstituted T. rexes. But Crichton has
now seemingly succumbed to the malaise that threatens many pretty
smart and successful people, in that they forget the limitations of
that smartness. In Prey, Crichton made entertaining use of the
eccentric vision of nanotechnology presented by Eric Drexler
(self-replicating rogue nanobots), supplemented with some ideas from
swarm intelligence, but one's heart sank when it became clear at the
end of the book that in fact Crichton believed this was what nanotech
was really all about. (I admit that I'm being generous about the
definition of `entertaining' here - I read the book for professional
purposes, you understand, and was naively shocked by what passes for
characterisation and dialogue in this airport genre. But that's just a
bit of literary snobbishness of my own.)
The situation is far worse, however, in Crichton's climate-change
thriller State of Fear, which portrays anthropogenic climate change as
a massive scam. Crichton wants us to buy into this as a serious point
of view - one, you understand, that he has come to himself after
examining the scientific literature on the subject.
I've written about this elsewhere. But Sutherland's comments present a
new perspective. He seems to accept a worrying degree of ignorance on
the part of the reader, such that we are assumed to be totally in the
dark about whether Crichton or his `critics' (the entire scientific
community, aside from the predictable likes of Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick
Michaels, Richard Lindzen and, er, about two or three others) are
correct. "No one knows the accuracy of what Crichton knows, or thinks
he knows", says Sutherland. Well, we could do worse than consult the
latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
composed of the world's top climate scientists, which flatly
contradicts Crichton's claims. Perhaps in the literary world one
person's opinion is as good as another's, but thankfully science
doesn't work that way. Sutherland's suggestion that readers of State
of Fear will end up knowing more about the subject is wishful
thinking: misinformation is the precise opposite of information.
It isn't clear whether or not he thinks we should be impressed by the
fact that Crichton testified in 2005 before a US senate committee on
climate change, but in fact this showed in truly chilling fashion how
hard some US politicians find it to distinguish fact from fiction.
(That State of Fear was given an award for `journalism' by the
American Association of Petroleum Geologists earlier this year was
more nakedly cynical.)
Yes, fiction can teach us facts, but not when it is written by authors
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