ENG 215

This paper will analyze ethos, pathos, and logos, the classical principles of argument, in Michael Crichton’s work entitled “Environmentalism as Religion Run Amok.” Crichton’s work provides his position and ideas that environmentalism is a religion to many people. The authority Crichton took was logical. The reader was not bombarded with outside sources as it was Crichton’s position that logic be used in order to see the flaws in environmentalism being treated as a religion. In this case, Crichton’s claim that one should seek scientific proof to scientific mattes such as those which environmentalism explores is what logically makes sense. Crichton uses logos, or appealing to one’s logical sense, to simplify the process of examining his claim. First Crichton makes a claim that will shock many readers, “Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism” (Crichton 2004/2007, para.4). He then shares with the reader the relationship he sees between religion and facts by writing, “One of the defining features of religion is that beliefs are not troubled by facts, because they have nothing to do with them” (Crichton 2004/2007, para. 18). Most readers will see this as a logical statement that they agree with. This leaves the reader with the logical question of, what does religion have to do with environmentalism? It is when the reader asks this question that Crichton has made his first point: religion has nothing to do with environmentalism. Reader are then forced to ask themselves whether they are faithfully believing what is being told to them or if they are demanding sufficient scientific proof of the information they are being given. Based on Crichton’s writing, it would stand to reason, or logic, that if scientific information is not being demanded by people and instead simply being accepted with