01UndatedThey didn't understand what they were doing.I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
02UndatedI want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
03UndatedThis fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
04UndatedAlthough personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
05UndatedI would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
06UndatedStraight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way. That's a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist behaving as if it were not true.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
07UndatedIn the end, it became clear that all scientists were participants in a participatory universe which did not allow anyone to be a mere observer.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
08UndatedBooks aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
09UndatedI believe my life has a value, and i don't want to waste it thinking about clothing.I don't want to think about what i will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion?Michael Crichton / quote ↗
10UndatedEach person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
12UndatedIt's hard to decide who's truly brilliant; it's easier to see who's driven, which in the long run may be more important.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
13UndatedWell,” Harry said, “look at it this way: Suppose you were an intelligent bacterium floating in space, and you came upon one of our communication satellites, in orbit around the Earth. You would think, What a strange, alien object this is, let’s explore it. Suppose you opened it up and crawled inside. You would find it very interesting in there, with lots of huge things to puzzle over. But eventually you might climb into one of the fuel cells, and the hydrogen would kill you. And your last thought would be: This alien device was obviously made to test bacterial intelligence and to kill us if we make a false step.“Now, that would be correct from the standpoint of the dying bacterium. But that wouldn’t be correct at all from the standpoint of the beings who made the satellite. From our point of view, the communications satellite has nothing to do with intelligent bacteria. We don’t even know that there are intelligent bacteria out there. We’re just trying to communicate, and we’ve made what we consider a quite ordinary device to do it.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
14UndatedIf you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
15UndatedWhat makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
16UndatedSometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It’s bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
17Undated...we haven't had any accidents for months now...Everything on that island is perfectly fine.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
18UndatedAll human behavior has a reason. All behavior is solving a problem.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
19UndatedConsidering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
21UndatedThere's one problem with all psychological knowledge - nobody can apply it to themselves. People can be incredibly astute about the shortcomings of their friends, spouses, children. But they have no insight into themselves at all. The same people who are coldly clear-eyed about the world around them have nothing but fantasies about themselves. Psychological knowledge doesn't work if you look in a mirror. This bizarre fact is, as far as I know, unexplained.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
22UndatedLife is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
23UndatedIn a sense, he thought, all we consist of is memories. Our personalities are constructed from memories, our lives are organized around memories, our cultures are built upon the foundation of shared memories that we call history and science.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
24UndatedI believe the experiences reported in this book are reproducible by anyone who wishes to try. I went to Africa. You can go to Africa. You may have trouble arranging the time or the money, but everybody has trouble arranging something. I believe you can travel anywhere if you want to badly enough.And I believe the same is true of inner travel. You don't have to take my word about chakras or healing energy or auras. You can find about them for yourself if you want to. Don't take my word for it. Be as skeptical as you like.Find out for yourself.Michael Crichton / quote ↗
