They are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should.

I recently read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and one thing that cannot escape the notice of anyone who reads this novel, or watches the films for that matter, is that although the majority of the characters are scientists and businessmen, they aren’t really that smart.

From the very beginning, before we even know of the park’s existence (although the title is a bit of a giveaway) we see scientists and doctors blatantly ignoring the reality in front of them and making careless assumptions and decisions. One of the most noticeable instances of this is when Guitierrez (a doctor who finds a half-eaten unusual lizard on a beach in Costa Rica) sends off the lizard remains to be analysed. Both he and the scientists at the lab make mistakes that lead to the find being greatly misunderstood. When he gets the report back “Guitierrez made two assumptions based on the memo”, he assumes that they have confirmed that the animal found was a Basilisk, when in fact this had not been stated and in fact the scientists had not yet even attempted to identify the lizard, and he assumes that the animal does not carry any communicable diseases. Although from the scientists’ tests this seems to be true, the lab technician did not mention the bloods relation to cobra venom which seems reckless considering that he is aware that the lizard has been biting children. This is once again evidence of carelessness in the scientific world. Throughout the whole of the first novel and into the second we see the scientists making rash decisions about the strange lizards and making assumptions based on what they expect to see, rather than realizing the truth.

Once we reach Isla Nublar we see that it is not just the outside scientists who suffer from this carelessness. Hammond, Wu and Nedry all seem to greatly suffer from overconfidence in their plans and yet, within minutes of arriving at the island, the outside experts immediately recognize the problems with the island. For instance, Ellie Sattler, a plant expert, notices that deadly ferns have been placed by the poolside, not with the intention of poisoning guests to the park but rather for their attractive appearance. This shows that even at the level closest to the guests, the creators of the island have been incredibly careless and uneducated. Dr. Wu also does not seem to quite understand the dangers of the animals he has helped to create and as Ian Malcolm states “… Doctor Wu does not even know the names of the things he is creating. He cannot be bothered with such details as what the thing is called, let alone what it is.”. This lack of knowledge is one of the main influences of the errors that occur at the park because the doctor is not aware that splicing the DNA of an amphibian with the DNA of a dinosaur could allow them to breed and even when a palaeontologist makes this connection clear, he still does not seem to realise how that could happen, exposing his ignorance on the subject. The doctor’s refusal to believe the truth is also shown when he is confronted with the reality that some of the animals have escaped the island. He believes that the problems of the island can be “Nothing as basic, or as serious, as the possibility of an animal escaping. Wu found it offensive to think that anyone would believe him capable of contributing to a system where such a thing could happen.”

Lastly, the carelessness and ignorance of the scientists throughout the novel manifests itself in a sexist view of the opinions of women. From the very beginning we see a doctor refuse to believe the young child Tina’s description and the lab technicians refuse to believe their colleague Alice when she correctly identifies the lizard as a dinosaur. Later we also see Ellie’s views being casually dismissed and at one point, entirely unrelated to the subject of conversation, Ian Malcolm says “”You’re extremely pretty, Dr. Sattler,” he said. “I could look at your legs all day…”. This emphasises that although Ian Malcolm seems to one of the more sensible of the group, he still dismisses a woman’s opinion and immediately focuses in on her appearance instead.

The book and movie franchise as a whole has an interesting gender balance because, although there are very few main female characters, those present are often scientists and businesswomen and can often be seen to have more common sense than some of the main male characters. In the first novel we have Ellie Sattler who seems to be a rather accomplished study of Jurassic plant life and as already mentioned, she is often dismissed even though she seems to have a better grasp of the danger than the creator of the island and Dr. Wu. In the newest film, one of the main characters, Claire, is seen to be an important figure head at the park. This is interesting because, although it is changing now, woman in action films are often not portrayed to be smart or powerful, if they are featured prominently at all and as the novel was written in 1990, this is of particular note. Further to this, in the movie adaptation of the first book, they somewhat switched the children’s characters and the young girl Lex, takes on the boy, Tim’s, role of computer whiz and saves the day by getting the computer system online.

In conclusion, we see that Jurassic Park goes against the idea that scientists can be all knowing and that science is always for the greater good. It exposes the flaws in scientific thinking, and particularly in the carelessness that is sometimes present in new discovery. In some part it also deals with this is in reference to gender bias.