Michael Crichton Family Fiction Non Fiction Directed Movies

Crichton was raised in Roslyn, Long Island and attended Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude in anthropologyAnthropology (from the Greek word ANTHROPOLOGIA consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo . It is holistic in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times, and with all dimensions of humanity. Central to anthropology is the concept of. He went on to teach anthropology at CambridgeThis article is about Cambridge, England; see also other places called Cambridge. The city of Cambridge is an old English University town and the regional centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. It lies approximately 50 miles (80 km) north of London and i in England, later returning to Massachusetts to gain an M.D. degree from Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is a prestigious American medical school located in the Longwood Medical Area section of Boston, Massachusetts. The school was established in 1782, and was moved from Cambridg. While in medical school, he wrote novels under the pen names John Lange, Jeffrey Hudson (under which pseudonym A Case of Need won the 1969 Edgar AwardThe Edgar Allen Poe Awards (popularly called the Edgars , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film and theatre published or produced in t) and Michael Douglas.

His best known works are The Andromeda StrainThe Andromeda Strain is a book (BooksEnthsiast.com) written in 1968 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin which causes rapid, fatal clotting of the blood. The book was the basis for a 1971 ( 1969For other uses, see Number 1969. For the movie, see 1969 (movie). Events January January 1 Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World January 5 The Derry Riots leave over 100 people i) and Jurassic ParkJurassic Park is a book written by Michael Crichton and published in 1990, which was later turned into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg. Written as a cautionary tale on unconsidered biological tinkering (in much the same spirit as Mary Shelley's Frank ( 1990), and he also is the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER. But he has written many other books based on scientific themes.

Among his non-fiction works is Travels , which contains autobiographical episodes.

1 Family

Father: John Henderson Crichton
Mother: Zula Miller Crichton
Brother: Douglass Crichton
Daughter: Taylor Crichton
Ex-wives:
- Joan Radam (1965-1970)
- Kathy St. Johns (1978-1980)
- Suzanne Childs.
Current wife: Anne-Marie Martin

2 Fiction

1966 Odds On - written as John Lange
1967 Scratch One - written as John Lange
1968 Easy Go - written as John Lange
1968 A Case of Need - written as Jeffery Hudson
1969 Venom Business - written as John Lange
1969 Zero Cool - written as John Lange
1969 The Andromeda Strain
1970 Grave Descend - written as John Lange
1970 Drug of Choice - written as John Lange
1970 Dealing - written with his brother Douglass Crichton as Michael Douglas
1972 Binary - written as John Lange
1972 The Terminal Man
1975 The Great Train Robbery
1976 Eaters of the Dead
1980 Congo
1987 Sphere
1990 Jurassic Park
1992 Rising Sun
1993 Disclosure
1995 The Lost World
1996 Airframe
1999 Timeline
2002 Prey

3 Non-Fiction

1970 Five Patients
1977 Jasper Johns
1983 Electronic Life
1988 Travels

4 Directed Movies

1972 Pursuit (a TV movie)
1973 Westworld
1978 Coma
1979 The Great Train Robbery
1981 Looker
1984 Runaway
1989 Physical Evidence

5 Screenplay

1973 Extreme Close Up
1996 Twister - co-written with his wife Anne-Marie Martin

6 Films based on work by Michael Crichton

1971 The Andromeda Strain
1972 Dealing
1972 The Carey Treatment (A Case of Need)
1972 The Terminal Man
1979 The Great Train Robbery
1993 Rising Sun
1993 Jurassic Park
1994 Disclosure
1995 Congo
1997
1998 Sphere
1999 The 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead)
2001 Jurassic Park III
2003 Timeline

7 TV Series

1994- ER

8 Awards

Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award, 1969 (A Case of Need) -- as Jeffrey Hudson
Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 (Five Patients)
Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award, 1980 ( The Great Train Robbery)

9 Ideas

9.1 "Aliens Cause Global Warming"

In 2003 he gave a controversial lecture about the concept of scientific consensus—which he entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming." [1] Crichton castigates the scientific establishment for:

holding on to established notions, long after definitive, reproducible observations had proved these notions wrong
refusing to examine new research which overturns existing theories

However, Crichton's expertise to discuss these points is not particularly obvious, and many of his examples are poor. He examines the Drake equation—which is about the chances of finding extraterrestrial civilisations—which has nothing to do with the two points above. Nuclear winter has never occurred, obviously, and so cannot possibly have been refuted by "definitive, reproducible observations" as he claims. Within the nuclear winter section, Crichton examines an equation for the effects and asserts that "none of the variables can be determined. None at all". Which is odd, because the quantities involved as things such as warhead size, warhead yield and detonation height. All of these can be given reasonable guesses to explore different scenarios.

Other examples he examines are puerperal fever, pellagra, and continental drift as examples of traditionalists holding onto a " scientific consensus" instead of doing real science. But again, Crichton's views are rather one sided. Continental drift was vigourously debated. One of the main problems with Wegener's theory was that he believed that the continents "plowed" through the rocks of the ocean basins. Most geologists did not believe that this could be possible. They were right. Only the accumulation of new evidence and theory made Wegeners hypothesis tenable.

Crichton recounts the claims about second-hand smoke, about which a Federal judge ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information.". But yet again, this is a bizarre example to pick: although tobacco companies vigourosuly denied the effects of second hand smoke, the dangers are now well recognised.

He recounts dire predictions about the environment which never came to pass due to technological advances no one had foreseen. For example, in the 1960s Paul R. Ehrlich predicted mass starvation by the 1970s. When that didn't happen, he again predicted mass starvation for ten years later; that didn't happen either. He similarly twits Carl Sagan for predicting ecological disaster from the Kuwaiti oil fires (based on computer models of the nuclear winter scenario), and complimenting Sagan's rival on global warming, retired scientist Fred Singer, who predicted wind would sweep away the smoke. When Singer's prediction came to pass, nuclear winter lost credibility in the eyes of the public.

Within the section about global warming, Crichton asserts "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world". This is nonsense, as a glance at the scietific literature on model validation shows.

11 External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about .

Official homepage
Michael Crichton: A Critical Companion (book) by Elizabeth A. Trembley

Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael

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