Jul 21, 2008 04:44 PM
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Arguably the science fiction writer who's achieved the most mainstream success in the past few decades is Michael Crichton, whose works include the Andromeda Strain, Westworld and (most famously) Jurassic Park. So it's too bad Crichton achieved his success by being an evil luddite, writes Star Dragon author Mike Brotherton.
A common theme in Crichton's work is that science is evil, and tampering with the forces of nature will get your face bitten off, writes Brotherton on his blog:
The theme of much of Crichton’s work is that of Frankenstein: playing god brings destruction. This is the message of Jurassic Park and Prey, for starters. There are related themes in books like Sphere, which indicates that there are things that humankind is better off not knowing... When a writer devotes so much time to pointing out the great arrogance and hubris of scientists and how it always brings doom, well, I think that sucks. We don’t have enough positive examples of scientists in books and movies.
And yet in the course of criticizing science, Crichton makes fundamental scientific errors, Brotherton points out. Most amusingly, he thinks "chaos theory" means every complex system will automatically break down — which means the space shuttle shouldn't be able to fly. And of course, Crichton has been lecturing whoever will listen about the "hoax" of global warming, disparaging the work of real climate scientists.
Brotherton links to a fascinating deconstruction of the bad science in Crichton's global warming hoax book, State Of Fear, at RealClimate.org: Crichton dredges up the myth that all scientists believed in the 1970s we were on the verge of an ice age. And in an appendix, Crichton compares the study of global warming to the 19th century academic study of eugenics: both were supported by foundations and had academic support, so ipso facto they must be equally valid. Right? Meanwhile, over at Nanotechnology Now, Chris Phoenix deconstructs the weird science in Crichton's fear-nanotechnology opus Prey, including the idea that atoms can pass through glass. (In which case, lightbulbs wouldn't work all that well.)
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
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