Agreeing with many of the other posts, Michael Crichton has quite the enticing language ethics when sharing with readers his story, perhaps in his words, "theory" of global warming. Putting many twists and turns in a long the way. Another interesting tactic he brings into his book is the conniving relationship between scientists and other business personel such as lawyers. I believe his main purpose is to make us realize the importance of questioning, the known from the unknown, or possibly the side that can out buy the weaker, less side; though at times in a rather far fetched manner.
A selection from the book that points this out is on page 102 when Evans and Balder are in a meeting where Balder is questioning Evans on his knowledge of global warming. "No, it is a theory" Balder said. Crichton is opening the idea that we should be questioning everything, trying to make the reader feel uneasy about the facts we know, and what could be missleading about them. Knowledge is ever changing, growing and developing; how can we be for certain with these new ideas that fact is not theory, or vice versa, theory is fact?
With all of the questioning Crichton has me thinking about, along with the characters, will bring for an interesting end to the book. Where will his winding road of questioning science in society take us?
I felt very uneasy about the selection you mentioned that starts on p. 102. The fact that Balder corrected Evans and used the term 'theory' made me want to do a historical comparison on other theories that have now been accepted as fact (even if they are still technically tagged with that word). For instance, gravity. Wouldn't it be great if a novel like "State of Fear" had been written about that? Granted, the implications of such a theory are much different than those global warming imposes, but it does serve to illustrate how even things like that were disbelieved hundreds of years ago.
ReplyDeleteScience will always be questioned, but more importantly, it will always be subject to politics as well, which this book lays out to an uncomfortable degree.
This quote inspired the same uneasy feeling when I read it. It does make you want to question many different theories in our world that we accept as fact. It leads one to the question: what is really real or true. It always amazed me how historical scientists developed theories that became fact during their time period because technology wasn't available. We look back on some of these findings or theories that have been discredited and think to ourselves...why/how in the world would he perceive the world in such a way. It makes one wonder maybe our perceptions of the world today are naive and in the future, these theories will also be discredited by scientists who will have even more advanced technology.
ReplyDeleteReading this made everything I learned in English class about 'knowing excellent literature when you see it' fly out the window. I KNOW it's formulaic, sexist, cliched, and, and, and. But with so many of us, it really got to me. To my gut, bypassing my mind. I can see why it got so much attention. And not cause he's the next William Faulkner.
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