3 ms·

The only lessons to be learned from Jurassic Park are a) Michael Crichton is a better writer than people think b) Wow, this CGI thing is going to be huge! It'

by cwp 7y ago

The only lessons to be learned from Jurassic Park are a) Michael Crichton is a better writer than people think b) Wow, this CGI thing is going to be huge! It's fiction. It did well because it tapped into the zeitgeist and gave form to people's fears. It is not evidence that those fears are justified.

devoply 7y ago
Damn I thought it was a documentary.
moron4hire 7y ago
The original Jurassic Park only used CG for the weird animated DNA stand. There dinosaurs were animatronic.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  No: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-park-2014-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-pa...
- enkid 7y ago
  There were cgi dinos as well. Remember the First scene with the brontosauruses, or the stampede scene? Or the scene when the raptors jump on the Tyrannosaurus?
pvaldes 7y ago
> It is not evidence that those fears are justified. ... until now Crichton did not created his novel from zero. Was after talking with a lot of scientists, taking several scientific theories and facts, and using it (more or less embellished for literary and fiction purposes) to build the book. Only because it appears on Jurassic park does not mean that the subjacent idea is incorrect (neither the opposite of course). Gene drive or MGEs (comprising 50% of human genome, so there are probably plenty of it on mosquitoes also) aren't Crichton's ideas.
- cwp 7y ago
  > ... until now Nope, it's still not evidence. The fears may well be justified, but simply appealing to the fear itself is not a good-faith argument. If you think Jurassic Park was based on solid science, fine. It shouldn't be hard to marshal it to make your case.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    Maybe we are not discussing the same hypothesis. null hypothesis: "We can put genetic alterations in the environment and expect them not to propagate" or if you prefer: "Modified mosquitoes will never, ever escape and reproduce, because we are scientists, really smart, we know what we do, etc" (Modified mosquitoes escape and reproduce) Null Hypothesis is false, and Crichton is still a rich man. Next question.
    - cwp 7y ago
      I was discussing the comment I replied to - "Did no one watch Jurassic Park?" It's a good movie, but things that happen to imaginary scientists should not guide our decisions about real-world experiments. I think the hypothesis of the experiment was something like "these genetic modifications will prevent mosquitos from reproducing". We know that the mosquitos did reproduce because the scientists deliberately included other modifications that would be easy to detect, and monitored the mosquito population to see if those genes showed up. Contrary to your "we're so smart, we know what we're doing," caricature of the arrogant scientist, they made a hypothesis, carefully designed an experiment to disprove it, carefully gathered the data, and published a paper showing that their hypothesis was disproven. This is how science works. It doesn't mean that what they're trying to do is impossible, only that this approach didn't succeed.

by cwp 7y ago

devoply 7y ago

Damn I thought it was a documentary.

moron4hire 7y ago

The original Jurassic Park only used CG for the weird animated DNA stand. There dinosaurs were animatronic.

Robotbeat 7y ago
No: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-park-2014-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-pa...
enkid 7y ago
There were cgi dinos as well. Remember the First scene with the brontosauruses, or the stampede scene? Or the scene when the raptors jump on the Tyrannosaurus?

pvaldes 7y ago

> It is not evidence that those fears are justified. ... until now Crichton did not created his novel from zero. Was after talking with a lot of scientists, taking several scientific theories and facts, and using it (more or less embellished for literary and fiction purposes) to build the book. Only because it appears on Jurassic park does not mean that the subjacent idea is incorrect (neither the opposite of course). Gene drive or MGEs (comprising 50% of human genome, so there are probably plenty of it on mosquitoes also) aren't Crichton's ideas.

cwp 7y ago
> ... until now Nope, it's still not evidence. The fears may well be justified, but simply appealing to the fear itself is not a good-faith argument. If you think Jurassic Park was based on solid science, fine. It shouldn't be hard to marshal it to make your case.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Maybe we are not discussing the same hypothesis. null hypothesis: "We can put genetic alterations in the environment and expect them not to propagate" or if you prefer: "Modified mosquitoes will never, ever escape and reproduce, because we are scientists, really smart, we know what we do, etc" (Modified mosquitoes escape and reproduce) Null Hypothesis is false, and Crichton is still a rich man. Next question.
  - cwp 7y ago
    I was discussing the comment I replied to - "Did no one watch Jurassic Park?" It's a good movie, but things that happen to imaginary scientists should not guide our decisions about real-world experiments. I think the hypothesis of the experiment was something like "these genetic modifications will prevent mosquitos from reproducing". We know that the mosquitos did reproduce because the scientists deliberately included other modifications that would be easy to detect, and monitored the mosquito population to see if those genes showed up. Contrary to your "we're so smart, we know what we're doing," caricature of the arrogant scientist, they made a hypothesis, carefully designed an experiment to disprove it, carefully gathered the data, and published a paper showing that their hypothesis was disproven. This is how science works. It doesn't mean that what they're trying to do is impossible, only that this approach didn't succeed.