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Crichton at least does his homework.

actually he makes it up as he goes along
thats why its marketed as fiction

That wasn't my impression. He has a scientific background, and he has appaerently read a lot about animal behaviour.
If he's making it up, he's a genius.

He seems to be extrapolating from paleontological discoveries such as the discoveries of carefully- tended nests of dino eggs.

One of the most interesting scenes is one in which the t. rexes act defensively to protect their nest, driving away the human intruders instead of killing them.

Another is one in which a t.rex carries an injured human in his jaws to the nest without killing him, in order to feed him to the babies.

And another is of the t.rex carrying its own baby in its jaws the way crocodiles do.

Other behaviors of the beasts in the book are based on
studies of living animals (including mammalian predators and prey).

Anyway, I found these parts fascinating.

My complaint with Crichton, at least in his earlier books, is that he could come up with a great premise and then seemingly lose interest in the idea about 3/4 of the way through and come up with a cop-out ending. The Andromeda Strain and Congo come to mind as examples.

He has gotten over that as he grew older and his novels seem much tighter now. But, of course, they are still novels.

and the fact that the Mosquito didn't evolve until after the age of the dinosaurs means what
the rest is just based on the Habits of Lizards and reptiles
its not scientific
its mimicry

he does tell a good story though

A lot of novelists do a prodigious amount of research to make their story fit into historical/scientific facts. I researched my butt off writing a historical novel.

Problem is - the author can’t annotate what is established fact, supposition or dramatic invention without killing the main purpose of a novel, which is to entertain. So I tend to be a bit leery of quoting novels as sources. Could be that the info is good, could be it isn’t.

I just realized that Crichton's method is exactly parallel to that of applying behavior/ideas of contemporary peoples to
the study of prehistoric people.

i am in favor of it.

It's one thing to discover a neat nest of dino eggs and to report it and put it in a museum, and another to try to
extrapolate the behavior that went along with the making of the nest and other parenting behaviors.

It's also kind of like speculating about the construction of the pyramids....

or why the North American megafauna died out, etc.

stan wrote:I just realized that Crichton's method is exactly parallel to that of applying behavior/ideas of contemporary peoples to
the study of prehistoric people.

i am in favor of it.

It's one thing to discover a neat nest of dino eggs and to report it and put it in a museum, and another to try to
extrapolate the behavior that went along with the making of the nest and other parenting behaviors.

It's also kind of like speculating about the construction of the pyramids....

or why the North American megafauna died out, etc.

stan -

i absolutely agree with you in the sense that one looks at evidence,

proposes a theory,

and then seeks more evidence for the theory.

however,

there is a potentially fatal trap here

called anthropomorhpism,

or, worse, yet,

paleo-anthropomorhpism.

simply put,

if you are not open to evidence of ANY sort,

but are seeking only the portion of evidence to

prove your theory,

then you are hopelessly fucked.

unfortunately this happens all too often,

and leads to some of the kind of crap which has

taken up way too much time on this forum.

what i've noticed about the really great thinkers

is that they NOTICE small pieces of evidence

which most of us take for granted (i.e., don't notice) because of

our habitual anthropomorphism.

my opinion only.


j

oldarchystudent wrote:A lot of novelists do a prodigious amount of research to make their story fit into historical/scientific facts. I researched my butt off writing a historical novel.

Problem is - the author can’t annotate what is established fact, supposition or dramatic invention without killing the main purpose of a novel, which is to entertain. So I tend to be a bit leery of quoting novels as sources. Could be that the info is good, could be it isn’t.

Oas, I tried that too a few years ago. I started with my ancestor that first arrived in America after the Battle of Culloden.

I soon realized that, while I thought it was great, nobody else would.

Beagle wrote:

oldarchystudent wrote:A lot of novelists do a prodigious amount of research to make their story fit into historical/scientific facts. I researched my butt off writing a historical novel.

Problem is - the author can’t annotate what is established fact, supposition or dramatic invention without killing the main purpose of a novel, which is to entertain. So I tend to be a bit leery of quoting novels as sources. Could be that the info is good, could be it isn’t.

Oas, I tried that too a few years ago. I started with my ancestor that first arrived in America after the Battle of Culloden.

I soon realized that, while I thought it was great, nobody else would.

Keep trying. I haven't got mine published yet either. I try for a while and then give up, try again a few years later, give up, rewrite, try again.....

Someday.....

Cheers

Jim

john wrote:

f you are not open to evidence of ANY sort,

but are seeking only the portion of evidence to

prove your theory,

then you are hopelessly fucked.

I think I understand you, but I wonder if you could give an example or two?