At the Dangerous Edge of the Knowledge Quest

Michael Crichton

After graduating from the Harvard Medical School, Michael Crichton embarked on a career as a writer and filmmaker. Called "the father of the techno-thriller," his novels include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, Timeline, Prey, and State of Fear. He has also written four books of non-fiction, including Five Patients, Travels, and Jasper Johns. He is also the creator of the television series ER. He is the only person to have had, at the same time, the number one book, the number one movie, and the number one TV show in the United States.

Michael Crichton is the only person simultaneously to have a #1 novel, a #1 TV show, and a #1 movie. For almost three decades, he has been delighting critics and fans alike with books and films such as The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, Timeline, Jurassic Park, and Prey.

“The psychiatrist who talked to students who wanted to leave Harvard Medical School told me, ‘I always knew you would leave. You have too much fantasy….’”

In this compelling two-part dialogue, Michael begins by discussing the nature of science and the knowledge quest, and the dangerous, if often unintended, consequences at the edge of human discovery. From Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park, Crichton has often been read as a neo-Luddite: mess with nature, get your comeuppance. But his stance is much more subtle and complex, and, if anything, contra-Luddite. “The Luddite stance is not very useful in any way for today’s world.” Rather, we must do science (and hence “mess” with nature), but there is always danger at the edge of knowing, and the unintended consequences can be disastrous. As a character in Prey puts it, “Things never turn out the way you think they will….”

In a similar vein, Michael and Ken share a criticism of extreme postmodernism, anti-hierarchy notions, reality as merely or only constructed. They champion the need to check evidence as much as possible (including its interpretive moments, but not absolutizing interpretation as the extreme postmodernists do), and accordingly they voice an integral criticism of what Michael calls “the human tendency to one-sidedness.”

The main theme is simple: the universe is a mystery, but knowledge can be increased; yet the unintended—and sometimes intended—consequences of increased knowledge are… Jurassic Park, or Terminal Man, or Prey….