A baffling choice

Everyone seems to be outraged by something these days. Muslims are outraged by the Danish cartoons satirizing the prophet Mohammad. Democrats are upset because Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a lawyer while quail hunting in South Texas, and the White House press corps is livid because they got beat on the story by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Now it’s my turn to vent.

I have a bone to pick with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which recently announced it is honoring novelist Michael Crichton with its annual journalism award.

You heard me right. The AAPG, a group of distinguished science professionals, is giving a journalism award to a science fiction writer.

Excuse me, but isn’t that like the Society of Professional Journalists giving a geology award to a landscape designer?

Don’t get me wrong. I like Crichton’s work and have been reading his novels since “The Andromeda Strain,” one of his first, when I was in college. Several, including “Jurassic Park,” have been made into popular movies that did great at the box office. Crichton’s best-sellers are well-written and entertaining, but they are a product of the writer’s imagination - fiction, not fact.

The novelist’s recent work, “State of Fear,” which debunks the theory of global warming, appears to be a key reason for the award. A spokesman for the AAPG admits that the book is fiction, but adds, “It has the absolute ring of truth.”

Perhaps so, but as a work of fiction, Crichton’s book has not undergone peer review by the scientific community. No work of fiction has to withstand this sort of scrutiny. Certainly trained geologists understand how scientific inquiry works, and a novel doesn’t qualify as either science or journalism.

The late Carl Sagan was a scientist who wrote non-fiction and fiction, but he kept the two clearly separated. I don’t recall ever hearing Sagan referred to as a journalist though.

I wonder if Crichton, a physician, is puzzled by the AAPG’s characterization of him as a journalist. If so, I haven’t read that he won’t accept the award.

Peter Benchley, whose 1974 novel “Jaws” was made into a blockbuster movie directed by Steven Spielberg, died Feb. 11 at his home in Princeton, NJ. His widow, Wendy Benchley, who was married to the author for 41 years, commented that “Peter kept telling people [that “Jaws”] was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than [“Godfather” author] Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia.”

At a time when politicians freely use the term “junk science” to apply to theories and findings with which they disagree, I don’t think it’s wise for an organization of science professionals to give the impression that a work of fiction or its author exemplifies good journalistic standards simply because the group’s leadership agrees with the views it expresses.

As much as we might enjoy the works of Herman Wouk, Graham Greene, or William Faulkner, these outstanding writers were not journalists. Neither is Michael Crichton.OGFJ