Michael Crichton Quotes (121 quotes, page 2)

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)
Context: I 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.

“When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?”

Michael Crichton book State of Fear

Source: State of Fear

“Egypt imbued the view with a heavy sense of mystery and foreboding.”

Michael Crichton book Easy Go

Easy Go (1967)

“The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification — framing the debate in terms which ignore the real issues.”

Michael Crichton

"Mediasaurus: The decline of conventional media" - Speech at the National Press Club, Washington D.C. (7 April 1993)

“The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.”

Michael Crichton

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

“"I would give anything to know what you thought at the moment you died," Pierce said. His voice echoed in the tomb. The flame went out.”

Michael Crichton book Easy Go

Easy Go (1967)

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.”

Michael Crichton

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

“They passed a farmhouse, a simple shack surrounded by animals — a lazy burro, clucking chickens, a litter of pigs. The farmhouse stood alone in the desolate landscape. There was no sign of a living person anywhere. And then it was gone, lost in the swirling dust plume of the car.”

Michael Crichton book Zero Cool

Zero Cool, written under the pseudonym John Lange (1969)

“Being on the "Hold" is the technological equivalent of purgatory.”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“I tried to tell which was Randall, but I could not; in their gowns and masks, they all looked the same, impersonal, interchangeable. That was not true of course. One of those four men had responsibility for everything, for the contact of all sixteen workers present. And responsibility for the seventeenth person in that room, the man whose heart was stopped.”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.”

Michael Crichton

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

“Julia's original email says, "We have nothing to lose." But in the end they lost everything — their company, their lives, everything. And the ironic thing is, the procedure worked. The swarm actually solved the problem they had set for it.”

Michael Crichton Prey

Prey (2002)

“"You want to know about the last tomb? [Conway] asked Pierce. "I'll tell you." He tapped the white cranium. "That's the last tomb, man. Right there, and you're buried there all your life. You can't escape it."”

Michael Crichton book Easy Go

Easy Go (1967)

“In recent years, much has been said about the post-modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct.”

Michael Crichton

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

“I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it.”

Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

“Finally, I 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

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

“We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead.”

Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

“Sanderson laughed. "There's no problem," he said. "Yet. I've got a pretty tough old neck. I can keep it stuck out a while longer."”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”

Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

“As I went down to my car, [Peter Randall] said, "If you don't want to get involved I'll understand" I looked back at him. "You know damn well I'd have no choice." "I didn't," he said. "But I was hoping."”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“In a sense that is a part of the training: surgeons are lonely men.”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.”

Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

“You could not predict what would happen in a single instance, a single throw of the dice, a single pitch in the seventh inning, a single toss of the coin. But you could predict three out of five, four out of ten, seven out of sixteen, and to that extent chance governed everyone, all the time. Just as surely as two equals two.”

Michael Crichton book Odds On

Odds On (1966)

“Steve Jencks: The computer doesn't have any ideas. It only evaluates mine…”

Michael Crichton book Odds On

Odds On (1966)

“There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago? When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?”

Michael Crichton

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

“Carr was left with a ring, in the palm of his hand, a small gold circle, leading him nowhere.”

Michael Crichton book Scratch One

Scratch One, written under the pseudonym John Lange (1967)

“Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?”

Michael Crichton

"Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media" http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote01.html - Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, California (25 January 1999)

“The cabbie laughed. "All right, mister. A guy can tell when he's being kidded." Sometimes," Jencks said, "but only sometimes.”

Michael Crichton book Odds On

Odds On (1966)

“What 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 book The Lost World

The Lost World (1995)

“I smiled, remembering Art's line about doctors being illpolitical. He meant it the way you used words like illiterate. Art always said doctors not only held no political views, but also were incapable of them. "It's like the military," he had once said. "Political views are considered unprofessional."”

Michael Crichton book A Case of Need

A Case of Need (1968)

“In the conservative region far from the chaotic edge, individual elements coalesce slowly, showing no clear pattern.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Source: First Configuration, The Lost World (1995)