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e7a7b7b
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Today we are surrounded by man and his creations. Man is inescapable, everywhere on the globe, and nature is a fantasy, a dream of the past, long gone.
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Michael Crichton |
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e2563cb
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Just tell us," Harding said, bent over the wound. "Darwin had no idea ..." "That life is so unbelievably complex," Malcolm said. "Nobody realizes it. I mean, a single fertilized egg has a hundred thousand genes, which act in a coordinated way, switching on and off at specific times, to transform that single cell into a complete living creature. That one cell starts to divide, but the subsequent cells are different. They specialize. Some are..
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Michael Crichton |
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61956ad
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behavior is always changing, all the time. Our planet is a dynamic, active environment. Weather is changing. The land is changing. Continents drift. Oceans rise and fall. Mountains thrust up and erode away. All the organisms on the planet are constantly adapting to those changes. The best organisms are the ones that can adapt most rapidly. That's why it's hard to see how a catastrophe that produces a large change could cause extinction, sin..
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Michael Crichton |
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9a299ba
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Because extinction has always been a great mystery. It's happened five major times on this planet, and not always because of an asteroid. Everyone's interested in the Cretaceous die-out that killed the dinosaurs, but there were die-outs at the end of the Jurassic and the Triassic as well. They were severe, but they were nothing compared to the Permian extinction, which killed ninety percent of all life on the planet, on the seas and on the ..
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Michael Crichton |
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36f804e
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there was no objective truth, only the truth that's established by power.
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Michael Crichton |
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932034e
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Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that's got..
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Michael Crichton |
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0ab7520
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But even more important," he said, "is the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call 'the edge of chaos.' We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the ..
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Michael Crichton |
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c0b7257
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By the early 1960's America had reluctantly come to realize that it possessed, as a nation, the most potent scientific complex in the history of the world. Eighty per cent of all scientific discoveries in the preceding three decades had been made by Americans. The United States had 75 per cent of the world's computers, and 90 per cent of the world's lasers. The United States had three and a half times as many scientists as the Soviet Union ..
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Michael Crichton |
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ea508d3
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The very concept of time travel makes no sense, since time doesn't flow. The fact that we think time passes is just an accident of our nervous systems--of the way things look to us. In reality, time doesn't pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren't separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn't a location, you can't travel to it.
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Michael Crichton |
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1d5963f
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I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them."
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Michael Crichton |
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9000d8b
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Save the Earth" and beneath that, "There's Nowhere Else to Go."
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Michael Crichton |
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6b400a3
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There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. --MARK TWAIN
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Michael Crichton |
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47ddc0d
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They want the Indians eliminated, and the lands opened up to white settlers, but they don't want anybody to get hurt in the process. That just ain't possible.
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Michael Crichton |
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3bd5bce
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for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And
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Michael Crichton |
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29248c6
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Alone, Malcolm unrolled the strip of paper that had come with the sample. It was a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal pad. In block printing, it said: I WAS RIGHT AND YOU WERE WRONG.
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Michael Crichton |
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adc97f8
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if you don't understand something, you can't approximate it. You're really just guessing.
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Michael Crichton |
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d02f668
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They just posture and pontificate. Nobody tests. Nobody does field research. Nobody dares to solve the problems--because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.
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Michael Crichton |
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c4e00cb
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It is an absurd expression of romantic hope.
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Michael Crichton |
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fc7920e
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I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.
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Michael Crichton |
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3fd1836
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Today, everybody expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time. Business meetings must be snappy, with bullet lists and animated graphics, so executives aren't bored. Malls and stores must be engaging, so they amuse as well as sell us. Politicians must have pleasing video personalities and tell us only what we want to hear. Schools must be careful not to bore young minds that expect the speed and complexity of te..
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Michael Crichton |
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a01157a
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Once again, vague terminology helped conceal what was really going on.
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Michael Crichton |
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b727dee
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Like our padded cell?" He poked the insulated walls. "It's like living in a vagina."
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Michael Crichton |
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2ee8744
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G.K. Chesterton said (in a somewhat different context), "If you believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything." That"
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Michael Crichton |
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010f19d
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cupping
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Michael Crichton |
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8b2a902
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Control de la mente. Vaya estupidez. Lo cierto era que todo el mundo tenia la mente controlada, y todo el mundo se congratulaba por ello. Los controladores de mente mas poderosos del mundo eran los padres, y eran ellos los que causaban mas danos. Los teoricos solian olvidar que nadie nacia convencional, neurotico o con prejuicios; estas cualidades requerian ayuda ajena. Naturalmente, los padres no tenian intencion de causar dano a sus hijos..
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Michael Crichton |
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597ca16
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If nothing else, school teaches that there is an answer to every question; only in the real world do young people discover that many aspects of life are uncertain, mysterious, and even unknowable. If you have a chance to play in nature, if you are sprayed by a beetle, if the color of a butterfly's wing comes off on your fingers, if you watch a caterpillar spin its cocoon-- you come away with a sense of mystery and uncertainty. The more you ..
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books
insects
knowledge
learning
life
nature
plants
school
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Michael Crichton |
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f1faeb7
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Fifth hgg
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Michael Crichton |
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406d151
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your eyes or changing the subject. You were forced to deal with that person's behavior. The experience was, in the end, a loss of certain illusions. The world was not how you wanted it to be. The world was how it was.
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Michael Crichton |
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ca79f5e
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These Americans played with fire. Hydrogen bombs, megapower lasers, killer drones, shrunken micro-people...Americans were demon-raisers. Americans awakened technological demons they couldn't control, yet they seemed to enjoy the power.
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Michael Crichton |
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ca2b429
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Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing,
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Michael Crichton |
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7fd2253
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Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once
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Michael Crichton |
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7dd731d
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And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear.
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Michael Crichton |
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b288441
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Hey!" Eddie said. The baby [T-Rex] lunged forward, and clamped its jaws around the ankle of his boot. He pulled his foot away, dragging the baby, which held its grip tightly. "Hey! Let go!" Eddie lifted his leg up, shook it back and forth, but the baby refused to let go. He pulled for a moment longer, then stopped. Now the baby just lay there on the ground, breathing shallowly, jaws still locked around Eddie's boot. "Jeez," Eddie said. Ed..
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jurassic-park
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Michael Crichton |
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25380cb
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Saben lo que estan haciendo. Hay maquinas por doquier. Antes servian al hombre, pero ahora empiezan a dominarle. Muy sutilmente, pero pronto lo lograran. -Harry Benson-
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Michael Crichton |
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42b09bf
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Control de la mente. Vaya estupidez. Lo cierto era que todo el mundo tenia la mente controlada, y todo el mundo se congratulaba por ello. Los controladores de mente mas poderosos del mundo eran los padres, y eran ellos los que causaban mas danos. Los teoricos solian olvidar que nadie nacia convencional, neurotico o con prejuicios; estas cualidades requerian ayuda ajena. Naturalmente, los padres no tenian intencion de causar dano a sus hijos..
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Michael Crichton |
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3612d1d
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obsequious
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Michael Crichton |
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8eadd0e
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In general, people who aren't in touch with their emotions tend to think their emotions are unimportant.
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Michael Crichton |
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87d0efe
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w'khyran qltu lhrGr: lmTr brd. fDHk thm ql: kyf ymkn 'n ykwn lmTr brdan?! 'nt lbrd w'nt lt`ys! 'm lmTr flys brdan wl t`ysan.
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Michael Crichton |
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293b328
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That is a transgenic animal. If he escapes he may transmit his genes to other parrots.
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Michael Crichton |
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4976312
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Sometimes agents were so influenced by one another that they lost track of their goal and did something else instead. In that sense, the program was very childlike, unpredictable and easily distracted. As one programmer put it - trying to program distributed intelligence is like telling a five year old kid to go to his room and change his clothes. He may do that, but he is equally likely to do something else and never return.
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Michael Crichton |
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ae4761f
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Isla Nublar, Hammond explained, was not a true island. Rather, it was a seamount, a volcanic upthrusting of rock from the ocean floor. "Its volcanic origins can be seen all over the island," Hammond said. "There are steam vents in many places, and the ground is often hot underfoot. Because of this, and also because of prevailing currents, Isla Nublar lies in a foggy area."
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Michael Crichton |
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78f4854
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Straight 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 ab..
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Michael Crichton |
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726cdbd
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The gene," Dr. Narcejac-Boileau said, "is associated with social dominance and strong control over other people. We have isolated it in sports leaders, CEOs, and heads of state. We believe the gene is found in all dictators throughout history."
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Michael Crichton |
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14796f1
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Herger said to me, "Be thankful, for you are fortunate." I inquired the source of my fortune. Herger said in reply, "If you have the fear of high places, then this day you shall overcome it; and so you shall have faced a great challenge; and so you shall be adjudged a hero."
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Michael Crichton |