itinerantsoul

I just finished State of Fear last night, at 3:30AM. I couldn't stop til it was done! Great read, but very interesting to me on the scientific front as well. I don't consider myself to be one of the 'sheep' who just accepts what's told to me through media and the like, but the references in this story, and the way things were explained so cogently are making me reexamine my own conclusions and I'm tempted to think that I really have been one of the sheep. I'm not an environmental crackpot but I do drive a hybrid, I have read The Legacy of Luna, and I like the books of John Robbins. Incidentally, if any of you haven't you should check out books by John Robbins, as he has copious footnotes and a huge bibliography of sources to back up his (non-fictional) books. Most of his writing is about the FDA, the meat and dairy industries, and the failure of our rich western diet, but he does get a little into environmental topics. Which brings me to my main point. I'm an intelligent person, and much of this is confusing me to no end. There are studies that support one side, then there are other studies that support the other side. Michael Crichton himself admits that many scientific studies are biased one way or the other to support the viewpoint of the body commissioning the work. So if these studies all conflict each other, how are we laymen supposed to make any sense out of it? The easiest thing is to just throw up your hands and decide to do just whatever suits our own personal agenda, but that's not right. The other alternative is to try to become a scientist. What, just so I can feel 100% confident in my stance when talking to (probably) some bullet-head who has chosen the side that supports his own agenda regardless of the truth? It sure is a lot harder road to travel to be one of the informed, not just a follower. Anyways, Crichton's book State of Fear is entertaining AND valuable if you want something to make you think about things (ow, brain hurts...).