Practice Essay: Crichton, the capricious stickler.

Prompt: Tell us about a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, magazines, or newspapers. Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed or add a category of your own.

In December of 2004, while browsing through a local bookstore, I came across a novel (which would have looked like a thick, white book to an apathetic passer-by) that went by the name State of Fear, succeeding the name ‘Michael Crichton’ written in humongous red letters. I quickly scanned the back of the book, eyes darting from side to side. I had deep reverence for Michael Crichton (pronounced Cry-ton). His classics Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Timeline, Sphere, among others, had not only been all time best-selling Novels but also all time Blockbuster Movies, which had managed to capture the imagination of the world. I quickly made the payment and settled down to read the book.

Till fall of 2004, “Global Warming” had been one of the many scientific terms that were 'just words' to me. Owing to the propaganda fueled by Environmental and Media Agencies alike, although I had managed to store those 2 words in my memory, I never really knew what to interpret from them, despite having the "general idea", like 70 million others. State of Fear explains just that and its surrounding issues. Alongside the discussion on Global Warming, the book constitutes a riveting plot involving a couple of MIT Scientists who try to save the world from a deadly man-triggered Tsunami attack. This book sparked off my interest in Global Warming, and following Van Der Meis's advice "God is in the Details", I read various environmental articles, ranging from those published on NASA’s Website to those in The Washington Post. In the aftermath of reading this book, I often found myself sitting in silence and pondering over the present state of the world, a world where science and politics were often mixed and muddled up, to the advantage of the latter. Interference of Politics with Scientific Research has led to the death of millions in the past. Politized Science is Dangerous. Period.

Michael Crichton is one of the few Science Fiction Authors (more commonly known as “SciFi Writers”) who have a perfect mix of scientific facts and storyline in their written works. Michael Crichton made me fall in love with Science, particularly Environmental Sciences, and Genetics.

- AG, 14/04/06

Ref.: Why Politized Science is Dangerous - Michael Crichton, Pg 575, State of Fear.