What Is Science?

One of the recurrent themes in Michael Crichton's work is our unchallenged belief in Science as a source of answers. To be fair to both Crichton and to Science, I should say that Crichton does not have a problem with Science itself as much as he has a problem with our misunderstandings and misuses of Science. So, this post will begin an attempt to explain the phenomenon of science as well as Crichton's concerns about it.

Some time around the 6th century BCE we began to look away from supernatural explanations of natural phenomena and toward natural explanations. Before this there were stories about Zeus and Apollo. After this there were questions like what are things made of, what are they, and why do they behave the way they do. People who asked these questions were called "natural philosophers" because their focus was the natural world. Contrast this, for example, with "moral philosophers" whose focus was on how people should behave. Note also, that questions of how people should behave is completely out of scope for natural philosophers.

Natural philosophy toddled on for over two millenia before it got two important boosts. Francis Bacon wrote The New Organon which updated the methods of Aristotle, and Isaac Newton discovered gravity. Bacon's method added a new level of rigor to natural philosophy and Newton showed how powerful it was for gathering knowledge.

Over time natural philosophers began to focus less on the larger ideas (how the heavens works) and more on the smaller ideas (what are the different kinds of rocks and plants). The word "scientist" was not actually used until the mid 19th century to distinguish between those people who contemplated the large ideas (natural philosophers) and those who focused on the details (scientists).

Nonetheless, in the past two hundred years science has been amazingly productive leading people to believe that science 1) is infallible and 2) can answer any question. These two beliefs are untrue and it is important to distinguish between was is true and what is untrue about science. That is a theme that crops up over and over again in Crichton's works and it is the theme we will take up next.

John Lange

Before he was famous and before he had decided to eke out a living as a professional writer, Crichton wrote pulp detective fiction under the pen name of John Lange. These works are a little hard to come by as most used copies are collectors items and quite pricey. However, two of them were republished by Hard Case Crime. These two were Zero Cool published originally in 1969 and Grave Descend originally published in 1970. I ordered them and had a opportunity to read Zero Cool over the past week. The thing that struck me most about Zero Cool was the astonishingly poor quality of the writing.

I teach a course in writing and can attest to the fact that first time writers often make some very predictable mistakes. Events and actions are often unmotivated. Characters are non believable. Dialog is cliched. That sort of thing. Zero Cool reads like an undergraduate writing assignment. How could this be?

I should be clear that I am not attacking Crichton's writing ability. Indeed, I use Jurassic Park as an example of consummate writing technique. And, I started reading Grave Descend which is markedly better and published only a year later. In addition, Zero Cool is not his first published novel. I don't have the numbers handy, but it is more like the fourth or fifth. So, what would explain this lapse in writing skill?

I am going to speculate. This is a somewhat wild speculation and hopefully, later, I can accumulate evidence to support or refute it. I think Crichton was trying to write like Dashiell Hammet and doing a horrible job of it. Before I give my evidence for that wild speculation, let me point out that we know, from later works, that Crichton liked taking on writing challenges. Books like Eaters of the Dead, The Great Train Robbery, Travels, and Electronic Life are very different than his usual fare of cautionary science fiction. So, it is not out of the realm of possibility that he would try a Hammet pastiche.

Hammet's most famous work is The Maltese Falcon in which the lives of an odd cast of characters revolve around an elusive object (a statue of a falcon) rumored to be encrusted with priceless jewels. It is a fiction noir version of the Holy Grail. In Zero Cool we have an odd cast of characters whose lives revolve around the pursuit of a similar priceless object the Emerald of Cortez.

The dialog in Zero Cool is often the clipped repartee characteristic of fiction noir peppered with cynical, hard boiled remarks. Only it doesn't quite measure up to the masters. It sounds more like a twelve year old standing in front of a mirror with his t-shirt sleeves rolled up, eyes squinting to look tough, and a pencil hanging out the corner of his mouth to represent a cigarette saying words like doll and dame and don't be a fool.

The characters are also very weak. There are thugs, gangsters, villains, tough guys and mysterious walk-ons. All unbelievable except in the mind of a twelve year old Sam Spade wanna be.

I have to admit that I had to force my way through Zero Cool and was quite disappointed in the writing. I thought he had just not hit his stride yet. I could not understand how somebody who would get so good at this later could start off so poorly. But, when I started Grave Descend and saw the marked improvement, I decide that it wasn't just poor writing as much as it must have been an experiment.

Some Background

I have been reading, listening to recorded books, and watching movies in an attempt to get my arms around the vast quantity of Crichton's work. I am making good progress but there is still a lot to do especially if I want to study it in depth. So, I thought I would sprinkle in a few posts on background issues that are key to understanding what MC has done. Over the next few weeks or months, I will toss in posts to address the following questions:

1) What is Science?
2) What is Technology?
3) What is the relationship between Science and Technology?
4) What is the Ethics of Technology?
5) What do we mean when we say something is True?
6) Why do most people disregard the Truth?
7) Why are Writing and Storytelling becoming increasingly more important?

Understanding the answers to these questions is key to understanding Micheal Crichton. And hopefully, it will peak your interest enough to keep you reading.

Some Initial Observations

I have been reading, listening to recorded books and watching movies that MC wrote, produced or was in some way involved trying to get a net over his body of work. A few initial themes have emerged. I will sharpen this focus over time but wanted to document my initial impressions.

First, MC likes to blur the lines of fact and fiction. He explicitly states this in the appendix to Eaters of the Dead and refers to other modern efforts along the same lines. There are probably references to this idea elsewhere so I will keep an eye open for them.

Second, people do not consider the consequences of technology. The protagonist in Prey says something along these lines and this is a key element in the ethics of technology which I will discuss in due course. It is also the theme in several works including Westworld, Jurassic Park and Prey.

Third, people tend to flock to one side of an issue without giving adequate consideration of other sides. We can see this on the issue of sexual harassment in Disclosure and on the issue of global warming in State of Fear.

Fourth, MC seems to be attracted to projects because they look like the might be fun, challenging, interesting or lucrative. The variety of works he has done attests to this without pointing to specific works.

Finally, the fractal metaphor used in Jurassic Park where a pattern becomes clear over time is not limited to Jurassic Park. It is an oft used theme and, I suppose, it is exactly what I am doing here as well.