Crichton, science and controversy

Michael Crichton's novels don't just borrow from science. They argue with it. He wrapped thrillers in footnotes, reference lists and author's notes, and for most of his career that habit made his books feel startlingly real. Late in his career, it also put him at the center of two very public fights: one over climate science and one over gene patents.

This guide looks at how Crichton blended research with fiction, then lays out both debates, with his framing and his critics' responses side by side. No plot spoilers.

Fiction dressed as fact

In a 2004 Nature column, Philip Ball described Crichton as "well known for taking some strand of contemporary science, stretching it a little, and weaving it into the narrative of a thriller." Ball traced the pattern from microbiology in The Andromeda Strain (1969) to genetic engineering in Jurassic Park (1990) and nanotechnology in Prey (2002).

By the 2000s the research apparatus had grown. Crichton's official site says he modeled Next (2006) on the genome itself, mixing invented stories with fragments of real-world material. The site even keeps a list of what in the book is real, because many readers assumed the most outrageous parts were made up. The list includes the John Moore case over who controls a patient's cells. It also points out that one news item in the book, a report that blondes were becoming extinct, was itself a real-world fabrication: a story the BBC reported and the Washington Post debunked.

That mix is the fun of reading Crichton. It's also why readers, scientists and even senators ended up arguing about what was real.

State of Fear: the book's framing

State of Fear (2004) follows young lawyer Peter Evans as he is pulled into a plot in which environmental extremists engineer disasters to build support for action on global warming. The novel carries footnotes, an appendix with graphs and citations, and a closing nonfiction Author's Message.

Crichton was open about his intent. His official site quotes him saying he first decided not to write the book, then felt like a coward for keeping his opinion to himself. He said he had looked at the data and believed warming was real, but that it belonged low on the list of priorities, behind problems like disease and world hunger. He called climate research "dazzling" and modeling an "extraordinarily ambitious undertaking," but "simply not good enough to set policy on."

In the Author's Message, Crichton wrote that he had been "reading environmental texts for three years." Among his conclusions, he accepted that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing and that "human activity is the probable cause." He also wrote, "Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be man-made." He guessed that warming over the next century would be 0.812436 degrees Celsius, while stressing that nobody really knows, and he suspected that the main human effect would come from land use rather than the atmosphere.

State of Fear: the scientists' response

Climate scientists responded quickly and in detail.

• On Dec. 13, 2004, Gavin Schmidt reviewed the book at RealClimate, a blog run by climate scientists. Schmidt argued that local cooling at individual weather stations doesn't contradict a global warming trend, that the 1940–1970 cooling is closely matched once factors such as aerosols, volcanoes and natural variability are included, and that the book's account of James Hansen's 1988 projections as 300 percent too high was "misleading." The review also challenged the Author's Message, arguing that climate models differ by far less than the book's 400 percent figure. Schmidt allowed that some of the issues Crichton raised are "real and well appreciated," and called the book "more or less correct" about cooling in Antarctica's interior, while adding that local cooling doesn't contradict global warming.
• In Harvard Magazine, Harvard professors Michael B. McElroy and Daniel P. Schrag wrote that "State of Fear misrepresents science broadly," pointing to its treatment of temperature-data corrections and of Hansen's projections. They also granted that Crichton "is correct that skeptics play a very important role in the scientific community."
• In Nature, Philip Ball argued that Crichton had ignored or dismissed facts in the IPCC's summary that are plain even to casual readers. Ball also called it "commendable that Crichton went and looked at the scientific data for himself."

Crichton goes to Washington

On Sept. 28, 2005, Crichton testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Sen. James Inhofe, at a hearing on the role of science in environmental policy making. "The method says an assertion is valid and merits universal acceptance only if it can be independently verified," he told the senators. Drawing on his medical background, he held up the randomized double-blind study as the gold standard and said the protocols of climate science "appear considerably more relaxed." He closed by saying nothing in his remarks should be taken to imply "that we should not take climate change seriously."

Not everyone welcomed the witness list. Sen. Jim Jeffords asked "why are we having a hearing that features a fiction writer as our key witness?" Sen. Hillary Clinton said the hearing "will muddy the issues around sound science" and noted that Crichton's views "have not been peer reviewed."

Next and gene patents

Next grew out of a 2005 conference on genetics and law at the Salk Institute, where Crichton had once done postdoctoral work. According to his official site, he came away "surprised and outraged" by what he learned about the law and set aside his other work to write the book. In an author's note at the end of the novel, he called for an end to gene patents. Knowledge at Wharton summarized his argument: patents are meant for inventions, not things that exist in nature, and gene patents can slow research and raise the cost of tests. In a New York Times op-ed, quoted by Wharton, he wrote that companies "should not own the disease itself, or the gene that causes the disease."

The background was real. A 2005 study by Kyle Jensen and Fiona Murray, published in Science, found that 4,382 of the 23,688 genes listed in the National Center for Biotechnology Information's gene database, nearly 20% of human genes, were explicitly claimed as U.S. intellectual property. In 2007, Reps. Xavier Becerra and Dave Weldon introduced H.R. 977 to ban gene patents.

The other side had its own case. In March 2010, responding to a federal district court decision in the lawsuit against Myriad Genetics over its breast cancer gene patents, Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said isolated and purified DNA molecules are patentable "because they are fundamentally different from anything that occurs in nature." The statement added that patented DNA molecules had been "put to countless uses that have benefited society."

The Supreme Court took up the core question in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, decided June 13, 2013. The syllabus puts the main holding plainly: "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated." But the Court also held that synthetic cDNA can be patented, because it isn't naturally occurring. Both sides could point to part of the ruling.

A side controversy

Next also drew a complaint unrelated to science. On NPR in December 2006, New Republic columnist Michael Crowley, who had written a critical New Republic cover story about Crichton that March, said the novel included a character named Mick Crowley, portrayed as a child rapist, who shared roughly his age, his Yale background and his job as a Washington political writer. NPR said Crichton was traveling and not available for comment.

How to read these books today

• Treat the footnotes as part of the argument, not the final word. Check the cited sources and the critics' responses.
• For where climate science stands now, look to current assessments such as the IPCC's reports. The novel's research stops in 2004.
• For gene patents, the 2013 Myriad decision is the key legal update to everything in Next.
• Enjoy the thriller. Crichton was a gifted storyteller, and you can admire the craft whatever you make of the arguments.