-Ian Malcom's dialog to the Dr.Hammond who built the Jurassic Park, from the book by Michael Crichton


Dr. Hammond said, "My colleagues and I determined, several years ago, that it was possible to clone the
DNA of an extinct animal, and to grow it. That seemed to us a wonderful idea, it was a kind of time travel-the only time travel in the world. Bring them back alive, so to speak. And since it was so exciting, and since it
was possible to do it, we decided to go forward. We got this island, and we proceeded. It was all very simple."

"Simple?" Malcolm said. Somehow he found the energy to sit up in the bed. "Simple? You're a bigger fool than I thought you were. And I thought you were a very substantial fool."

Ellie said, "Dr. Malcolm," and tried to ease him back down. But Malcolm would have none of it. He pointed toward the radio, the shouts and the cries. "What is that, going on out there?" he said. "That's your simple idea. Simple. You create new life forms, about which you know nothing at all. Your Dr. 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. You create many of them in a very short time, you never learn anything about them, yet you expect them to do your bidding, because you made them and you therefore think you own them; you
forget that they are alive, they have an intelligence of their own, and they may not do your bidding, and you forget how little you know about them, how incompetent you are to do the things that you so frivolously
call simple.... Dear God . . ."

He sank back, coughing. "You know what's wrong with scientific power?" Malcolm said. "It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are. It never fails."

Hammond said, "What is he talking about?"

Harding made a sign, indicating delirium. Malcolm cocked his eye. "I will tell you what I am talking about," he said. "Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it."

"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-richquick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify-it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast."

"And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the
buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary."

Hammond said, "Do you know what he is talking about?"
Ellie nodded.
"I haven't a clue," Hammond said.

"I'll make it simple," Malcolm said. "A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and
who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple."

"It was simple," Hammond insisted.
"Then why did it go wrong?"

- Taken from the book God Debris by Scott Adams

Real or Imaginary, that distinction
lies in your perceptions, not in the universe. Your
inability to see other possibilities and your lack of vocabulary
are your brain’s limits, not the universe’s.”
“There has to be a difference between real and imagined
things,” I countered. “My truck is real. The Easter Bunny is
imagined. Those are different.”
“As you sit here, your truck exists for you only in your
memory, a place in your mind. The Easter Bunny lives in the
same place. They are equal.”
“Yes, but I can go out and drive my truck. I can’t pet
the Easter Bunny.”
“Was the rain from this morning real?”
“Of course.”
“But you can’t see or touch that rain now, can you?”
“No.”
“Like the Easter Bunny, the past exists only in your
mind,” he said. “Likewise, the future exists only in your
mind because it has not happened.”
“But I can find evidence of the past. I can check with the
weather people and confirm that it rained this morning.”
“And when you get that confirmation, it would instantly
become the past itself. So in effect, you would be using the
past to confirm something else from
the past. And if you repeat the process a thousand times,
with a thousand different pieces of evidence, together they
would still be nothing but impressions of the past supporting
other impressions of the past.”

“On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

                                                                                             -       Douglas Adams

Oh! So you think man is the most successful creature on earth?

Well, is that even a question! Of, Course man is!

Why would you say that? If you define success as being the most numerous, then I guess we are far behind most of the organisms.

We are the most intelligent creature on earth.

What gives you the authority to choose intelligence as the criteria to measure success? If smell were to be the criteria, then a dog would surpass you.

Okay may be you are right about intelligence, but I say, we can destroy all life if we want to. Set off all the nuclear bombs or so. No other animal can do that.

Well if a virus infects all the phytoplankton in the ocean, there would be no one to produce oxygen. It would be as devastating to life as the nuclear bomb. That makes the phytoplankton or the virus as successful as you. Both hold the fate of life in its hands, as much as man does. On the contrary, if all the humans were to be killed, nothing bad would happen to life on earth except for the few parasites that depend on us.

Okay, let me put it in another way. I can kill any animal in the world. I am at the top of the food chain, even though I may not want to eat it after I kill.

True. Given the right circumstances, for instance a gun, you could kill any animal. But I would equally argue, given the circumstances, a lion could kill you too. Moving along your definition for success; if a mouse happens to push a brick from a ten storied building with you underneath would make the mouse the most successful animal in the world.

Alright then, if not humans then who is? Someone has to be at the top place.

The question is more like asking someone where a circle starts and ends. If every step is completely necessary for a process, how can you classify one as more important than the other? Which do you think is more important, the heart, brain or the artery that feeds the brain; when you will die instantly if I take out any of these?