Michael Crichton, dream on

I only met Michael Crichton once, when we fillmed a PBS show together with the late Octavia Butler. He struck me as a very pleasant fellow... along with being outrageously tall. Well-spoken and courteous. I quite liked him and was shocked and saddened by his recent passing.

I also had the historic opportunity to attend - standing room only - Crichton's famous, or infamous, speech before the AAAS, back in 1999, an hour that he spent defensively proclaiming (in effect) "I do not hate science!"

Certainly, I had my differences with Crichton, but they were entirely philosophical.

Take, for example, his contention that, even when 99% of qualified experts in a field agree about a scientific matter (e.g. global climate change), the phrase "scientific consensus" should be ruled meaningless. Indeed, Crichton maintained that any such a consensus of expert opinion should have no relevance at all, in the arena of public policy. In effect, technically trained boffins - even when they agree with near-unanimity - can be rightfully ignored, leaving technological policy matters to be decided, without reference to science, by 51% of uninformed politicians. A fascinating stance! And, because the one putting it forward was someone I respected, I gave it my full attention, trying hard to see this issue through Michael Crichton's eyes. (I admit, I ultimately failed.)

Likewise, as a fellow writer of science fiction explorations - and I dignify him, quite willingly, with the high encomium of "sci fi guy" - he had some authorial propensities that I found irksome, yet interesting from a broader perspective. For example, I had no problem with his utterly consistent theme of "there are Things Mankind Isn't Meant to Know." (TATMIMK)

Look, dire warnings are always welcome, and a few of Michael Crichton's were so vivid that they may even qualify as Self-Preventing Prophecies, so influential that they actually helped to gird vast numbers of people against the described failure mode. And I believe that there is no higher praise for any creator of scenarios about the future.

(I think we'll all be safer from sixgun-toting robots and velociraptors. Less tongue-in -cheek, some of the arguments about biological warfare spawned by The Andromeda Strain have had quite salutary effects.)

No, it wasn't his dour anti-technology perspective, but rather, the consistency - and, eventually, tiresome predictability - of his story arcs, that made me (with some regret) lose interest as the years went by. The characters who preached TATMIMK in every tale always faced a dire situation wrought by monumental technological hubris - some arrogant scientific ambition that usurped the prerogatives of Heaven - unleashing death and danger. In this, Michael Crichton was clearly the direct heir of Sophocles and Euripedes and a tradition going back thousands of years.

Alas, since every one of his scenarios involved secrecy that exacerbated the Big Mistake even more than hubris, it might have been nice to see Crichton explore how things might differ, had the same projects been pursued in the open, cleansed and criticized by the scrutiny of colleagues, peers, competitors, regulators and... well... wary authors like Michael Crichton.

Indeed, I took to ignoring the TATMIMK rants of his characters, and instead perceiving his scenarios in this light -- as explorations of what can happen when "progress" takes place without the benefit of criticism, which (I've long contended) is the only known antidote to error. As Edward Tenner points out, in WHY THINGS BITE BACK: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, it is perfectly true that bold endeavors often have unintended consequences. And if Crichtonian-style villains are ever put in charge of any real world projects, hiding their efforts from the public eye, then it is quite plausible those efforts will go badly wrong.

Of course, I do wish Crichton had shed light upon this variable, or let it even be mentioned (more than in passing) once in a while, since secrecy arguably is the key error-generator, rather than ambition, itself. But, then, we clearly disagreed about that.

Then, of course, there is the other thing he nearly always did. Putting everything back the way it was... except (of course) for the dead. Dinosaurs scream and charge, nanomachines run wild, diseases invade from space, magical spheres... do their magical sphere thing... but always, after the climactic scene, the world remains unchanged and society continues as a late 20th Century Republican version, perpetually flawed but stable as-is, with a tentative hope that it can stay that way, untouched by the mistakes that unfold in his books, forever.

Okay, I admit being fascinated by change in a different way than he was. I play with scenarios that might challenge the status quo, pondering how peoples and societies might transform, ever after... the way that we have changed so much, and often for the better.

Admittedly, there were advantages and benefits, to Crichton's near-universal recipe of hubris plus secrecy. It certainly did help drive dozens of plots, allowing the requisite mayhem to commence without delay. And boy did it lend itself to movies! And of course it helps to assume that civilization is too slow or stupid to be of any help, or at least not in time. Unimpeded and unbothered by civil institutions, due process, or the kinds of teams of smart and skilled professionals who might get the protagonists out of their jam.

Indeed, so entrancing are these plot situations, that one quells the urge to shout at the screen, during Jurassic Park, demanding "Why didn't you just make herbivores? Duh?" Of course, that would have been logical and sensible.

But it wouldn't have been as much fun. I admit it.

And that's the crux, after all. The world has now lost one of its prime fonts of delicious, scary fun.

Modernism Part 13: Michael Crichton vs Science

Thanks for the comments. What a small but intelligent - and skeptically (!) interesting - group.

Now onward...

A CASE STUDY OF ANTI-MODERNISTS: Michael Crichton 
and Margaret Atwood:
The far-left and far-right, united vs modern science

In the last section I discussed a schism within speculative fiction, a gulf between fantasy and science fiction . I suggested that it really isn't about magic vs. spaceships. Rather, it is much more about whether or not the author believes that progress - however unlikely - is possible.

Ah, but not everybody visits the "science fiction and fantasy" section of the local book store. So shall I illustrate this divide by shining light outside the genre ghetto? At writers who are vastly more famous than I (a miserable sci fi scribbler) ever will be.

Let me choose two authors who have gone to sometimes frantic lengths in order not to let their books be labeled science fiction. Two "mainstream" writers who engage in relentless, passionate polemic, both on the pages of their novels and in public life, using fantastic fictional extrapolations to preach about the real world.

One of them sermonizes from the "left" and the other from the "right". And yet, their boiled-down messages are strikingly similar. Both authors express white-hot loathing of the modernist agenda, as well as any thought of human-wrought improvability.

In January 2003, Michael Crichton, author of famous book/movies ranging from The Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park visited Caltech, one of the world’s pinnacle scientific institutions - (and my alma mater) - to deliver a speech deriding the condition of modern science.

In “Aliens Cause Global Warming” the author of WestWorld and Timeline proceeded to lay out what has become his standard address -- an indictment against the credibility of researchers who spread scientific “myths and superstitions.” His favorite example is the widespread consensus among a large majority of prestigious working scientists that we should be worried about environmental degradation and global climate change.

“In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefitted from permitting these demons to escape free. “

Crichton goes on also to berate astronomers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project for foisting upon a gullible public the so-called “Drake Equation” -- a way of making back-of-the-envelope estimates about the possible number of detectable, technology-using civilizations in our galaxy.

“This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated.”

In fact, I quite agree with Crichton about the Drake Equation, having criticized it extensively elsewhere. But where I see it as a flawed but harmless bit of speculative fluff, with some fine pedagogical uses, Crichton portrays the vagueness of this “equation” as some kind of scientific Original Sin. Without pointing to a single way that the Drake Equation has actually harmed science, Crichton seems to be saying that scientists can never let their hair down, have a couple of beers and indulge in some fun, arm-waving conjecture.

Of course, this is very odd, since Michael Crichton made his living by performing entertaining, science-fictional gedankenexperiments. True, his novels are properly labeled as novels and the Drake Equation has too-often been treated with more reverence than a what-if thought experiment deserves. Still, Crichton’s double standard is showing.

Crichton’s examples of bad science range from second-hand smoke to Nuclear Winter and world deforestation. Since all of his examples are chosen from a list of enemies-of-the-right, it might have been honest to avow his political agenda openly at the start. His core argument could be re-stated: that science in general has been polluted, even taken-over, by malignant memes of the left.

(For more on Crichton and climate change: See: Real Climate: Michael Crichton's State of Confusion  and Real Climate Part II: Return of Science.)

Ironically, left-wing activists would gladly compile an equally lengthy list of erroneous or biased ‘scientific studies’ that have leaned the other way, at behest of corporate or aristocratic or neoconservative interests.

If you try, it’s trivial to pick and choose anecdotes and examples of dogma-driven excess, from any perspective. Given what may be at stake -- either billions of dollars or else a perceived world-in-peril -- it would be surprising if human subjectivity and bias did not sometimes bias outcomes.

This is, in fact the critical discovery of science. That we often perceive what we expect or want to perceive, often at variance with what is objectively true. The Cro Magnon genius of trumping objective evidence with subjective belief. The original and only true form of magic.

How has science dealt with this quandary? By encouraging open enquiry and vigorous reciprocal accountability. And by enticing younger researchers to take risks and challenge portions of the edifice that may be weak, with substantial status awaiting those who do succeed in toppling a paradigm, some time.

I have generalized this with a catchy acronym-aphorism - CITOKATE ... or... Criticism is the Only Known Antidote to Error. A practicing scientist knows this, in his or her bones, even as the Cro Magnon ego inevitably tugs in the other direction, murmuring to each of us that we are 100% correct and that critics are all vile fools. Yes, that tug is overwhelming. Which makes even the partial success of scientific training - at making some egotists welcome criticism - all the more wondrous, almost a miracle.

The lesson for everyday life? If none of us are likely to catch our own mistakes, we can hope that others will catch them for us. And yes, even when eagerly rebellious, snotty graduate students do the catching. (Even Nobelists relearn this lesson, the hard way. There is no privileged safety from criticism, in science, though some Cro Magnon professors and laureates certainly do try.)

...on to Part 14 with more about Crichton... and then Atwood!...

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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