Re:Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)
by Diederich on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:11PM
(#20812740)
Yes, there are antagonists in the novel Jurassic Park who are scientists, just as there are in State of Fear.
It hardly generalizes to everything Michael Crichton has written though.
Re:Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)
by NoodleIncident on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @08:44PM
(#20815846)
Again, the original topic was "fear-mongering", and I accidentally made a statement specific to "scientists". Not all fear-mongering is related to science, and not all scientists in his books are fear-mongered about. It was a mistake.
The the corporation and its scientists are tied together in that they try to predict the future, which as Crichton kindly explains, is completely impossible. The corporation believes that investing money will lead to profits later, and the scientists it employs believe that their safety measures and female-only population will prevent things from going wrong.
The "good" scientists only react to events in the past and the present; observing the dinosaurs as they are, taking action against immediate threats, and reconstructing the series of events that led to the catastrophe. The chaos mathematician may as well be a self-insert in the context of this article; he spends half his time explaining to people that nothing can ever be predicted, with mathematical "proof".