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by wumpus 1602 days ago
His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money.

"State of Fear" is a polemic against climate science.

If all you read was the comment I responded to, then it's no surprise that you don't think I provided enough information to criticize his books. Read his books, then read my criticism.
2 comments
neartheplain 1602 days ago
>His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money.

How unrealistic. Scientists like Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance would never do anything evil or untoward, such as using grant money to perform dangerous gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, demonstrably lying to the NIH about the scope of this research, and then misleading the public on the COVID-19 lab-origin theory while failing to disclose their financial and professional ties to the lab in question [0][1][2].

[0] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/25/one-perso...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak...

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vba616 1602 days ago
>it's no surprise that you don't think I provided enough information to criticize his books

I didn't say that.

My point is that your comment reinforces the point that is made by the much-quoted quote.

He said he knows show business. Calling his writing on climate science crap is consistent with the quote.

Can you see how your comment sounds paradoxical?

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wumpus 1602 days ago
No. It makes your comment seem a non-sequitor. Perhaps you could have worded it more clearly.
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vba616 1602 days ago
The original comment you made, which was downvoted (but I upvoted it) conveyed to me an emotion of angry refutation. (Which I'm not judging, so don't start about tone policing)

You seemed to be saying "don't pay attention to his quote because he's clueless about climate change", but the quote is about people who aren't, say, climate scientists, being gullible about the topic.

It's a self-referential quote. If you refuted it, does that mean that non climate scientists can judge climate science?

It seemed like an amusing paradox, and I guess I'm curious about your motivation.

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wumpus 1602 days ago
My motivation is that I'm a scientist (before and after a long Silicon Valley career) who is annoyed by writers who write a bunch of novels where the villains are scientists corrupted by their lust for grant money. It's a trite complaint that is used in politics to claim 100% of scientists are biased, and plays a big role in the pushback against environmental and climate science.

Thanks for the upvote.

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