Table Of Content001
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.
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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-
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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
