The Crimes of Michael Crichton

I was aware that Michael Crichton was guilty of many aesthetic and political atrocities, most notably 6th-rate novels and screenplays larded with laughably bad science, vicious misogyny, and less-than-prophetic xeonophobia. (His clueless, reactionary politics, of course, wouldn’t be an issue if his work was anything but a vehicle to express them.) But–and here I display perhaps more alienation from pop culture than is advisable–I was not aware of this:

For all his previous works as a writer (13 novels, 4 nonfiction books, numerous screenplays) and his prominent career in Hollywood as a writer, producer or director of 13 films and as the creator of the popular television series “ER,” little has yanked Mr. Crichton so deeply into political controversy as “State of Fear,” an environmental thriller that casts doubt on the widely held notion that human activities contribute to global warming.

ER? Wow, acting as a shill for junk science pales in comparison to that…