Connections - 4

     In Michael Crichton’s novel, Jurassic Park, there are a few interesting philosophical rants throughout that run as Crichton’s voice through the characters.  Ian Malcolm is a chaotician, a type of mathematician specifically dealing with chaos theory.  After being mauled by a dinosaur Malcolm is put or some fairly large doses of Morphine, these allow him to speak very freely and much more philosophically.

     Malcolm begins to rant about how the Dino-Island will eventually collapse into chaos because you cannot properly control living creatures that you know almost nothing about.  Through these rants Malcolm points out some interesting ways to look at our recent scientific path to discovery.  He points out that throughout recent history scientists have not been very responsible.  Modern scientists obtain their research from other scientists, which means that they had to do nearly nothing to obtain the information.  Scientists then proceed to conduct tests and so on until they make their next big discovery.  Doing all of this helps our scientific development move much faster than an alternative, but there are also side effects.  Because scientists don’t have to do very much to obtain the research they don’t develop the necessary discipline to appropriately use the scientific power that they harness.  Crichton writes “…science can teach us how to build a nuclear reactor, but not if we should build it or not…”, and this makes sense because scientists often justify their ability to create dangerous yet spectacular things with the fact that if they shouldn’t then why do they know how to.  This lack of discipline is similar to inherited wealth; the heir often does not understand what it took to obtain the money and thus abuse their ability and power.  This lack of discipline in science can easily lead to massive catastrophe and dramatic disaster. Crichton poses a good argument we are becoming to free with our scientific power and really should put more ethical standards on research, even if it means not making man eating dinosaurs.