The Science of Jurassic Park

Is the scenario of recreating dinosaurs from DNA which was the premise of Jurassic Park really plausible? In The Science of Jurassic Park and Lost World, authors Rob Desalle and David Lindley carefully assess the plausibility of Crichton's premises. I don't know the details of the science well enough to assess their assessment. But, my reaction to it was that it was reasonably fair. It was a good read and I would recommend. However, it misses the point.

First of all, in science fiction all you need is plausibility not actuality. The space travel science fiction of the 1950's and 1960's assumed space ships that did not exist at the time and still don't exist. However, the existence of such vehicles at some point in the future is plausible. Time travel science fiction assumes a capability to travel in time which may never be possible based on our current understanding. And yet we allow that as well.

Desalle and Lindley spend 240 pages to argue that the scenario of bringing back dinosaurs from DNA is not currently possible. It seems to me that if it takes 240 pages to argue that a single point is not possible, then it is still more plausible than space travel or time travel. Further, it is not possible given our current technology. There is no reason to assume that a breakthrough won't be made in the next 50 years that makes it possible. Compare this with time travel. All of our current understanding of time/space suggests that this will never be possible. And in the case of recreating dinosaurs from DNA the best we can say is that the technology is not there yet.

Why is Crichton being held to such a higher standard? I won't question the motives of Desalle and Lindley as their treatment seems to be reasonable fair. That is they do not reveal any obvious bias. But, in general, Crichton is a lightning rod for criticism. He takes an unflinching stand raising uncomfortable issues. And while it is difficult to counter his narrative arguments, it is much easier to attack his scientific argument. And that, as I said, misses the point.

We will see this again in his later book State of Fear which questions the Global Warming movement. But before I wade into those turbulent waters, I thought I should lay a little groundwork.

Pirate Lattitudes Revisited

I am a much better listener than I am a reader. That is to say that I read slowly but listening to a recorded book is completely effortless. I know people vary on this point because some I have talked to say that reading is effortless while listening is tedious. When I listen to a book I get a much better sense of story and am more likely to remember small details about the characters and the plot. However, when I read a book, I am much more likely to notice conceptual aspects such as the structure of the story and am more likely to relate the story to other stories I have read. I will notice deeper symbolism and philosophical issues when reading while missing character and plot development. I don't know why this is. But it is. Consequently, when studying a book I like to read it and listen to it often multiple times. If the book has been made into a movie, I like to see the movie as well.

The Andromeda Stain, which I need to post a bit more about, is a good example. I read the book, watched the movie, watched the mini-series remake, read the book again and watched the videos again. There is something in the back of my mind that has yet to coalesce about all this. So, I am holding off posting more until it does. In the meantime, I am trying to get a recording of it from the library and will probably watch the movies again. 

All this is to lead up to the point that when I read Pirate Latitudes, a while back, I suggested that the book may not have been finished. Characters were introduced somewhat heavyhandedly,  threads were dropped, and some of the action felt unmotivated. However, I just listened to a delightful recording from Recorded Books, narrated by John Bedford Lloyd that was free of these flaws. Or, at least, I didn't notice them. Perhaps because reading is more difficult for me I tend to be more critical. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that I am more critical makes reading more difficult. Who knows.

Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this recording and thought I should give both Crichton and the narrator their due.

What Is the Ethics of Technology?

Much of Crichton's work can be seen as writings on the ethics of technology. So, it bears explaining just what exactly the ethics of technology entails. First, ethics are a set of guidelines in an area of human activity that tell us appropriate ways to behave in order to find an appropriate balance between the well being of individuals and the need for harmony in society. Or, in very simple terms, what do people need to do in order to get on and get along. As ethical behavior becomes institutionalized and grounded in our grand narratives, it become morality.

The ethics of technology addresses those situations that arise as a result of new technologies. Recall from previous posts that technologies, in the large sense, are ways of bringing out reliable changes, or altering the future from its natural course. When we produce a new future, intentionally or unintentionally, we must take responsibility for it. Better yet, we should take responsibility before it happens and decide what a desirable out come would be.

The ethics of technology differs from traditional ethics in that in traditional ethics we may determine the ethical quality of an alternative based upon its consequences. However, in the case of new technologies we may not be able to determine consequences. For example, if a new technology were developed that allowed you to read minds would this be a good thing? We have no idea because we have no prior experience with such a thing.

In the ethics of technology we must consider possible consequences and we can do this through stories. Many of Crichton's works can be seen as cautionary tales in the ethics of technology. The Andromeda Stain, which was briefly discussed last week, asks "what if our explorations of space brought back a deadly microbial life form that we were not prepared to handle?" This is certainly a possible consequence. Jurassic Parks asks "what if science and technology were used strictly for profit making ventures?"  And in both the book and the movie we saw some possible consequences and their sequels.

This is a theme that runs through many, possibly most, of Crichton's works and we will return to it often.

The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain is a science fiction cautionary tale that proved to be a major turning point in Crichton's writing career and a harbinger of things to come. His unique style that seemed to coalesce in this book was unlike anything at the time and set the tone for many of his books to follow.

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of The Andromeda Strain was that it used science fiction to explore issues in the ethics of technology. In this story, a space probe picks up an alien microbe and brings it back to earth suggesting consequences of space exploration that were not being considered at the time. It is a very different life form from anything the scientists had seen before suggesting that if we do find other life in the universe it may not be cute little green men. It is far more likely that it would be a microbial form possibly a life threatening microbial form.

In the story, the government had created a secret laboratory for dealing with such events called Wildfire. Wildfire had all the latest technology but failed to control the microbe. Instead, the microbe just mutated into harmlessness suggesting that nature will go its way and all of our technology is powerless to stop it. These themes of unexpected consequences and the uselessness of our technology for dealing with them will become common themes in later books and brought to a crescendo in his masterpiece Jurassic Park. 

We also see one of Crichton's signature techniques in The Andromeda Strain. He provides ostensibly factual material sprinkled throughout the story to provide greater credibility to the story. This technique works in two ways. First, it serves to make the fantastic scenario in the story more believable. And as we believe the story, we cannot help to see how easily we believe things when they are presented as factual scientific information.

Most readers were first introduced to Crichton in The Andromeda Strain as it was his first best seller book. And it has held up well over time. Although space travel is not the focus that it was in the late 1960's, nothing has happened since then to make this book seem out of date. We still have space probes. We still run the risk of bringing back harmful micro organisms. And we are no more prepared to deal with such an eventuality today than we were in the late 1960's.

Five Patients: The Hospital Explained

Most of Crichton's work is fiction. However, he did write a few nonfiction, and Five Patients is the first of those. It is basically five case studies of patients at Massachusetts General Hospital that Crichton uses as a vehicle to introduce the reader to what actually goes on at a hospital and to make a few points regarding the state of medicine, health care and even insurance. It is not, in my opinion, a great read. But it is an important work to examine when looking at the evolution of Crichton's style.

Prior to this book, Crichton was writing primarily in the detective genre under the pen name of John Lange. A Case of Need written under the pen name of Jeffrey Hudson was a transition novel that combined a mystery with commentary on the medical profession as well as public policy issue. If Crichton had continued to write detective fiction, following in the trajectory established by his novels prior to Five Patients, he almost certainly would still have been a major author. His books were promising and he was beginning to take on larger social issues such as the issue of abortion in A Case of Need.

It is also interesting to note that if you consider the emerging trajectory which included A Case of New and Five patients  and later went on to include the long running TV series ER, we can see another path to success. The roots of ER show clearly in Five Patients where Crichton exposes the reader to the raw human dynamic side of life in the ER along with a heavy does of technical medicine.

At this point we see several themes emerging. Crichton offers a healthy dose of nonfiction science to inform the reader and bolster the credibility of what he is saying. And, he comments on public policy issues. In five patients, he takes on health insurance and the rising cost of health care. In fact, in the Afterward, he states "Hospitals are becoming so expensive that financial considerations will soon become the paramount determination of function." Yes, that was nearly forty year ago and rings eerily true considering our recent debates on health care.

So, at this point there are two competing trajectories: detective fiction and medical fiction. Which way will he go? Well, since we already know about the success of the TV series ER it  appears that the detective fiction died out in favor of the medical fiction. But in reality a new trajectory would emerge beginning with a book published a year earlier. The book was his first major best seller and set the course for much of his later work. It was The Andromeda Strain and that is the book we will look at next.

What Is Technology?

Science and technology are constant themes in Crichton's work. In previous posts, I attempted to clarify what science is and some of the social problems that surround it. In this thread, I will attempt to clarify what technology is and some of the social and ethical problems surrounding it.

Technology is not what most people think that it is. So before attempting to define it, I want to dispel two common misconceptions regarding the nature of technology. First, many people think of technology as applied science. Science figures things out and technology applies that knowledge. This seriously misses the contributions of technology itself to those applications; and saying that technology is applied science is like saying that the culinary arts are just applied agriculture. The analogy is apt because, in both cases, necessary raw materials are produced by the former, but the later still has a lot of work to do.

Second, people often think of technology as the gadgets that populate and sometimes even define the modern world. Computers, DVD players, cell phones, the Internet, and so on are all examples of technology.

A few posts back, I stated "Science is, first and foremost, a process". While we tend to view the products of that process as science, science is the process and the products are the products. Similarly, technology is a process and we also tend to view the products of that process as technology. But, again, technology is the process and the products are the products.

So, what is technology? If we go back to the roots of the word we can get some insight into its nature. Technology comes from two ancient Greek words: techné and logos. Techné is a reliable process by which a desired result is produced. We can think of the word as meaning craft although our modern understanding of a craft is a bit less disciplined than techné. Logos is a rigorous understanding of an area of inquiry. So, biology (bios logos), for example, is a rigorous understanding of life. Technology is a rigorous understanding of how to produce desired results. Our modern word, engineering captures much of this. Unfortunately, our modern understanding of the word engineering is, perhaps, a little too disciplined for the concept of technology. Persuasive rhetoric is certain a body of knowledge about how to produce a desired result. But, few people would refer to it as persuasion engineering.

Nonetheless, technology is a body of knowledge about how to produce desired results. The focus of science is the things that make up the natural world. The focus of technology are the things that are not yet part of the natural (or social) world but could be.

A Case of Need

A Case of Need occupies an interesting transitional place in the works of Micheal Crichton, and, I have to confess, that, at this point, I have far more questions than answers. The premise of the book is that a young woman has died of a botched abortion and a doctor who performs illegal abortions is charged with the murder. The protagonist, another doctor and a friend of the one charged does not believe the charge is legitimate and sets out to find out what happened.

Even though the book is published under the name of Jeffery Hudson, it is not a major departure from the preceding books published under the pseudonym of John Lange. I am not sure, at this point, why Crichton decided to switch names. I will have to look into that. I heard him say, in an interview, that Jeffery Hudson was a dwarf, and he found that amusing since in real life Crichton was very tall. But that does not seem to be an adequate explanation. The book is a mystery, written in a noir style not unlike Grave Descend, and the protagonist is a doctor, as was the case in Zero Cool. Had this been the last John Lange book, it would have fit right in.

On the other hand, we see some indications of where Crichton will be going in the future. You can see the roots of ER in his unflinching, perhaps even cynical, look at the realities of life in the medical profession. He enhances the credibility of the story by providing abundant medical information. And he takes on a social cause. The book was published in 1968. Roe v. Wade was not until 1973. So illegal abortions were still, very much, a social issue.

I found the book to be a very enjoyable read. As I approached the end, I slowed down not wanting it to end. At the very it weakened a bit almost as though it had to be finished to meet a deadline of some kind. But, overall, it was a delightful book and I will revisit it from time to time in future posts.