The science of Michael Crichton: an unauthorized exploration into the real science behind the fictional worlds of Michael Crichton PDF
Preview The science of Michael Crichton: an unauthorized exploration into the real science behind the fictional worlds of Michael Crichton
001 Table of Contents Other Titles in the Science of Pop Culture Series Title Page Copyright Page Introduction THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN A Matter of Taste A Crystalline Lifestyle Look, No Enzymes! Aliens in My Steak The Worst-Scenario Hypothesis An Acid Happy Ending References VIRTUAL REALITY AND MAN-MACHINE INTERFACE IN DISCLOSURE AND THE TERMINAL MAN References SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM NEANDERTHALS AND WENDOLS The Brute Emerges So Who Were the Neanderthals? Wendols, Neanderthals, and Us References PRIMATE BEHAVIOR AND MISBEHAVIOR IN MICHAEL CRICHTON’S CONGO WE STILL CAN’T CLONE DINOSAURS CRICHTON TRAVELS IN TIME A History of History The Plot Time Travel The Twin Slit Experiment Paradox The Technology Rules of the World ARTIFICIAL LIFE IN MICHAEL CRICHTON’S PREY References BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID: MICHAEL CRICHTON’S STATE OF FEAR SCIENCE COMES SECOND IN NEXT A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Real Transgenic Animals Critters That Glow and Next’s Genomic Advertising How Do They Do That? Look Who’s Talking: Two Apes and a Parrot Who Does More Than Ape Humans A Patently Evil Practice? Alex’s Adventures Through the Looking-Glass A Light at the End of the Yellow Brick Road Other Titles in the Science of Pop Culture Series The Science of Dune (January 2008) THIS PUBLICATION HAS NOT BEEN PREPARED, APPROVED, OR LICENSED BY ANY ENTITY THAT CREATED, PRODUCED, OR COLLABORATED ON MICHAEL CRICHTON’S BESTSELLING NOVELS. “Introduction” © Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D. “The Andromeda Strain” © 2008 by Sergio Pistoi, Ph.D. “Virtual Reality and Man-Machine Interface in Disclosure and The Terminal Man” © 2008 by Ray Kurzweil “Shock to the System” © 2008 by Steven Gulie “Neanderthals and Wendols” © 2008 by Ian Tattersall “Primate Behavior and Misbehavior in Michael Crichton’s Congo” © 2008 by Dario Maestripieri, Ph.D. “We Still Can’t Clone Dinosaurs” © 2008 by Sandy Becker “Crichton Travels in Time” © 2008 by Joel N. Shurkin “Artificial Life in Michael Crichton’s Prey” © 2008 by Larry Yaeger “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid: Michael Crichton’s State of Fear” © 2008 by David Lawrence “Science Comes Second in Next” © 2008 by Phillip Jones Additional Materials © 2008 by Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. BenBella Books, Inc. 6440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 503 Dallas, TX 75206 www.benbellabooks.comSend feedback to [email protected] Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The science of Michael Crichton : an unauthorized exploration into the real science behind the fictional worlds of Michael Crichton / edited by Kevin R. Grazier. p. cm. ISBN 1-933771-32-1 eISBN : 97-8-19352514-1 1. Crichton, Michael, 1942—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Science fiction, American--History and criticism. 3. Science in literature. I. Grazier, Kevin Robert, 1961- PS3553.R48Z78 2008 813’.54—dc22 2007041419 Proofreading by Emily Chauviere and Stacia Seaman Cover design by Laura Watkins Cover illustration by Ralph Voltz Text design and composition by John Reinhardt Book Design Printed by Bang Printing Distributed by Independent Publishers Group To order call (800) 888-4741I www.ipgbook.com For special sales contact Robyn White at [email protected] INTRODUCTION PERHAPS IT IS UNBECOMING TO GUSH, but I have to admit up front that I am a huge fan of Michael Crichton’s writing and have been for most of my life. I’ve never met the man but, then again, they say you should never meet your heroes. Like many of his readers I have been thrilled, terrified, stimulated, and certainly entertained by his novels. When a new Michael Crichton novel is released, I’m the first in line. Although movie adaptations rarely do his novels justice, Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park still rank among my all-time favorites. Further, I would highly recommend any/all of the candid essays and speech transcripts on his Web site (www.michaelcrichton.com) to anybody interested in the state of science today. Many of his postings are true eye- openers, particularly for the non-scientist. On the other hand, having, in fact, read all the content posted on his Web site, I know that he and I would vehemently disagree on several topics—whether one of the courses I teach at UCLA, the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, is even worthy of being classified as a science class, for example. I expect he would argue that my class belongs in the “Pseudo-Scientific Philosophy Courses” section of the university catalog. Okay then, so maybe “hero” was a slight overstatement. Still, not only have I thoroughly enjoyed Crichton’s works, they’ve spoken to me in very different ways over the span of both my life and career—often in pertinent and timely fashions. In the mid-1970s, when I was a high school student and scientistwannabe growing up in the blue-collar suburbs of Detroit, I discovered the movie—and later the book—The Andromeda Strain. That story gave me my first multiple epiphany! For the first time in fiction I saw scientists as real, flawed, people, not simple caricatures. Moreover, although I had been a science fiction fan from very early on, and as much as I credit the original Star Trek for its role in starting me on the road to a career in science, the whole Trek universe and its “can’t we all just get along” view of the future, had a . . . sanitized . . . feel to it. Andromeda Strain said very clearly that, as Humans venture into space, we might encounter monsters more horrible than those with sharp teeth, acid blood, or laser blasters, and they may very well be microscopic. Stephen King once said, “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.” Anybody who has seen a horror movie within the past three decades has witnessed all manners of gruesome and bloody dispatch. Are any of Jason’s murders truly any worse than having all the blood in your body clot over the span of a few seconds? Imagine having a massive heart attack, a massive stroke, and terminal atherosclerosis simultaneously. So, then, from Andromeda Strain I also learned—something the early horror author H. P. Lovecraft relied upon long ago, and what many horror writers of today seem to have forgotten—that a truly terrifying work of fiction engages in a way that makes the reader’s mind do the work, more than the mere anticipation of the “gross-out.” If you took a poll among scientists, irrespective of discipline, to find what initially attracted them to science, I would bet good money that two responses would overwhelmingly outnumber all others: space and dinosaurs. I managed to squeeze in a reading of Jurassic Park during Christmas break while still a graduate student at Purdue University. Coincidentally, I had just TAed an undergraduate course on dinosaurs the previous semester. With undergraduate degrees in computer science and physics in hand, I was looking forward to a career in the Earth and planetary sciences and excited about the prospect of doing interdisciplinary research. It seemed to me at the time that real progress in science is made when the techniques of multiple disciplines are brought to bear on a problem. At the same time, I was not looking forward to several years as a poor graduate student. Enter Jurassic Park—a multidisciplinary mixture of supercomputing, genetic sequencing, chaos, and, yes, dinosaurs. A graduate student in the sciences must derive motivation from multiple sources, big and small, to endure the long haul. It is no exaggeration that, for me, the inherent coolness of the novel Jurassic Park—as well as the fact that it addressed so many topics I found interesting—was one of many such nudges. In fact, there is a well-written two-and-a-half-page chapter in Jurassic Park entitled “Destroying the Planet” which I still read aloud to many of my college classes to this day. As a mid-career scientist, I still find Michael Crichton’s writings as pertinent to my life as ever, and find that they often echo my own sentiments—which likely explains why I’m the first person in line at the bookstore when he writes a new novel. Putting aside, for the moment, Crichton’s specific critiques— technological and sociological—of global warming (which are amply covered in this volume), State of Fear provides excellent commentary on several aspects of
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