someone, please fix the science

Would this book have read differently if it was part of the book club in January rather than in July? I guess it depends on which hemisphere you're in.

My impressions of the book echo what has already been said, cheese puffs and all. I felt it was predictable and weak as a thriller. I was very frustrated by the plot detours that were used to "educate" the reader on global warming/climate change/population manipulation/etc.

I was hoping someone (especially someone who has finished grad school and plays the "publish or perish" game) would have commented on the proposal at the end of the book that research funding be done differently. I had to write a grant last month as part of a class I was taking. It was such a frustrating ordeal. So when I read Morton's proposition of how he would like things to be run, Crichton had my attention. He said

"We need a new mechanism to fund research. Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that's got to change."

He then offers up a few suggestions to improve the way research is funded and results reported. Coming from clinical medicine, I am still learning the politics of science, but it definitely exists, and there does seem to be room for improvement.

Now, on to the environment. The claims made by the book didn't seem too far fetched, but they did at times contradict other reports about global warming. In a way I felt tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine (or maybe I was beginning to feel the effects of abrupt climate change). The take home message is that science can't prove anything. It even has a hard time disproving something. There always seems to be more than one side to the story, with both sides having data and statistics to support their theories. As has been mentioned in this blog before, recent data shows an upward trend in average global temperature. This may be caused or at least influenced by man. This may be a bad thing. I can't know at this point. But I don't like the effects that air pollution has on health or on the aesthetics of the landscape, these reasons, along with a desire for independence from foreign nations for much of or energy, give me cause to support research into alternative energy.

PS-Have any of you seen the Tesla car? Pretty sweet!