Monday, December 10, 2007

Jurassic farce...


Ask yourselves this: is the ability to Make Up Stuff That Is Not True and write about it for popular entertainment an appropriate qualification for holding forth on issues of global importance? Michael Crichton thinks so, and unfortunately it would appear that he is right.

The ability to ignore glaring facts and remake reality in a more compliant image - so valuable when writing science-fiction novels - is among the skills required of a first-rate propagandist: just ask L. Ron Hubbard [1].

It didn't matter that Crichton's stories about reintroducing dinosaurs using DNA preserved in amber were full of the most appalling bilge, because they were clearly just stories (and not terribly good stories at that, although I admit that the first film was a lot of fun). It does, however, matter rather a lot that his new stories are just as full of nonsense and just as guilty of ignoring the facts; because his new stories are about real issues and not as apparently fictional.

Ryan Somma, who submitted this particular LOLquack, will tell you all about it.

Cheers, Ryan!

[1] Yes, that's right, he's dead: but that ought not to prevent him from answering, given his extraordinary abilities and complete lack of need for a body.