BLOGPOST ARCHIVES #7: MICHAEL CRICHTON BLOGPOSTS
Blog posts about the importance of Michael Chrichton and his efforts to help science communication.
Michael Crichton, the author of, “Jurassic Park,” among many powerful and important works, was a towering presence in the history of the communication of science. In his initial academic career he spotted the disastrously bad form of communication developed by academics in the latter half of the last century. He tried to sound the alarm about this trend in 1975 with his short but brilliant piece of commentary titled, “Medical Obfuscation: Structure and Function.”
I have tried to call attention to that essay repeatedly (29, 88, 144) and finally wrote an entire article about it (176). But sadly, nothing has been learned from Crichton’s journey. I traded four months of emails with him in 2007, the year before he died. By then he had become tragically bitter and fed up with the science world.
Nobody seems to want to talk about this.
The man loved science, but similar to Mary Shelley, knew the dangers of blind, uncritical “scientism.” And by the way, if you don’t know the definition of that word, you really should -- as it takes its toll on our society.
Michael Crichton was a very smart man. Humanity learned very little from him.