Michael Crichton citations

Page 4

“Les Mangeurs de morts fut conçu à la suite d'un pari. En 1974, mon ami Kurt Villadsen se proposait de préparer un cours universitaire qu'il voulait intituler Les Grands Raseurs. Ce cours devait rassembler tous les textes considérés comme essentiels pour la civilisation occidentale, mais qu'en vérité personne ne lit plus à moins d'y être obligé, parce qu'ils sont très ennuyeux. Et le premier de ces grands raseurs, selon lui, serait le poème épique Beowulf.
Je contestai ce jugement, arguant que le Beowulf était un récit dramatique et exaltant - et que je pouvais le prouver. Je rentrai chez moi et me mis immédiatement à prendre des notes en vue de la rédaction de ce roman.”

“Mais assurément, le jeu que joue le livre avec ses bases factuelles se fait de plus en plus complexe à mesure qu'il se développe, jusqu'au moment où le texte devient assez difficile à évaluer. Je m'intéresse depuis longtemps à la vraisemblance, au détail qui nous fait prendre quelque chose pour réel, à celui qui nous fait comprendre qu'il s'agit d'une fiction. Mais je conclus finalement que dans Les Mangeurs de morts, j'avais poussé le jeu trop loin. Pendant que j'écrivais, j'avais l'impression que la réalité et la fiction étaient parfaitement délimitées; par exemple, l'un des traducteurs cité, Per Fraus-Dohus, signifie littéralement en latin « par tromperie-fourberie ». Mais au bout de quelques années, je ne pouvais plus distinguer avec certitude les passages vrais des passages inventés; à un certain stade, j'allai même un jour dans une bibliothèque universitaire pour essayer de retrouver certaines références de ma bibliographie, concluant finalement, après des heures de recherches frustrantes, que, malgré leur aspect convaincant, elles devaient être fictives. J'étais furieux d'avoir perdu mon temps, mais je ne pouvais m'en prendre qu'à moi. (…) En ces circonstances, je devrais peut-être préciser que les notes de cette postface sont authentiques. Le reste du roman, y compris l'introduction, le texte, les notes et la bibliographie, doit être considéré comme de la fiction.”

“To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: “These results are derived with the help of a computer model.” But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world—increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward.”

“"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."”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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."”

“I often think people are nervous, jittery in this media climate of what if, what if, maybe, perhaps, could be — when there is usually no sensible reason to feel nervous.
Like a bearded nut in robes on the sidewalk proclaiming the end of the world is near, the media is just doing what makes it feel good, not reporting hard facts. We need to start seeing the media as a bearded nut on the sidewalk, shouting out false fears. Its not sensible to listen to it.”

“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.”

“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."”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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."”

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

“In order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment.”

“Mere talk makes drama and spectacle unlikely — unless the talk becomes heated and excessive. So it becomes excessive. Not every show features the Crossfire-style food-fight, but it is a tendency on all shows.”

“The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepreneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations that all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research—or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.”

“Leland Weston: "Never take a position unless you are certain it can be defended any onslaught. That may sound like good advice to a general, but then, a courtroom is nothing more then a very civilized war."”

“This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right.”

“What is clear, however, is that on this issue [global warming], science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out.”

“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.”

“In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.”