Jurassic Park by John Crichton - Essay Example

The storyline in Jurassic Park presented a different perspective on technology when society realized that the fears could indeed be real.  In the story, biotechnology, aided by computer automation, aims at revolutionizing genetics with the sole purpose of making money, as seen in the character Hammond, the owner of the park (Crichton 42). The same argument is applicable to contemporary society, which pays less attention to the implications of the ethical aspect associated with technology. However, through fear, the realization of this fact must have motivated modern society to research all the security and ethics-compliant measures being implemented since the start of the millennium.

The preventive measures of today’s society are also a reflection of the fear instilled by the character Malcolm, the mathematician who proposed the “chaos theory” that suggests complex systems, in spite of countermeasures taken, will always demonstrate unpredictable behavior. The continuous research and development of backup systems, anti-virus software, and firewalls are a manifestation that the story actually drove modern society to realize that their systems can actually fail and result in chaos.

In the book, the scientists blinded themselves to the potential flaws their scheme had, especially because they were carrying out their research outside of the US and essentially, away from control measures. However, fear was evident after the dinosaurs started killing them, especially when every scientist in the park who knew how to use computers was killed (Leahey 38). In this sense, two observations can be drawn from the behavior of modern society: fear and hope. Hammond’s system was designed to predict tragedy, just like humans today have the ability to undergo medical tests and know their health status. However, Malcolm asserted that the working of any system cannot be foretold for any time duration with certainty.

The way modern societies are turning to religion anticipating the end of life and preparing for life after death can only imply that although they are fearful of their unpredicted end, they are also hopeful of life thereafter. Evaluating this critically, it is evident that whether such preparation is by ethically, morally, and socially acceptable means or not, it is clearly being done with the aim of creating peace with a Supreme Being. It is the fear of what religion teaches of life after death that drives society to adopt certain ways of life, perhaps explaining the growing number of religious organizations and members to existing ones. Therefore, underlying the story in Jurassic Park is a warning of the catastrophic results of human knowledge as in technology combined with greed, the fear of which is reflected in today’s society.
Read More