As a new President was born on Tuesday, one of my favourite authors passed away. Michael Crichton was a visionary who at 6'9" tall didn't have to stand on the shoulders of giants. Best known for Jurassic Park and ER, it was his medical background and understanding of how new technologies could be perverted that gave his books such authenticity.
Reconstituted dinosaurs might remain fiction, but much of his work should remain in our consciousness to remind us of the dangers of unregulated, unrestricted applications of science. We will face seismic choices, outlined at his best in his last book NEXT. He himself was so disturbed by the potential for perversion of genetic medicine that the books ends with his author's note of five recommendations for legislative change. Various obits can be accessed here, I will miss his brilliance.
