When I was young, I read "The Andromeda Strain", "The Terminal Man", "Westworld" (the published as a screenplay), and later "The Lost World". All movies that I enjoyed. And therein lies the limiting aspect of Crichton the writer. It was only hollywood representations that urged me to seek out his books and in that respect they were fine. But the movies were always better than the books.

I was quite  surprised to learn that he took such a critical assessment of science and scientists while at the same time exploring futuristic visions and events. To say that some of the Drake equation variables are guesses at best is fine. But at the same time some of those guesses are unqustionably large numbers that are known so they become minimum values when plugged into the equation which tend towards ET life. So the validity of interpretation falls into the mathematics of probabilites and statistics. More rigorous research and better data is always a quest for scientists in all fields. But that does not mean you have to poop on all the theories being put forward now. That's just too easy and a cop out.

~ Lazarus ~