The Lost World (1995)
By Michael Crichton
Adaptation; Chaos theory; Evolution; Extinction; Horror; Science fiction
An alternate site to Jurassic Park exists, one still populated by dinosaurs who appear to have recreate the ecological balance of prehistoric periods.
When paleontologist Richard Levine asks Ian Malcolm to accompany him into the Costa Rican jungles to search for dinosaurs, Malcolm initially resists. Unaware of the events that led to the failure of Jurassic Park, Levine is intrigued by rumors of unusual, prehistoric creatures roaming around Central America. He believes that these dinosaurs are remnants from an earlier era, existing somewhere in a “lost world” environment. Malcolm barely survived his last encounter with dinosaurs, but the lure of observing the dinosaurs’ behaviors and perhaps uncovering the key to their extinction persuades him to assist Levine on his venture. Malcolm sees extinction as the only scientific theory that eludes experimental verification; though the fossil record can indicate when an animal becomes extinct, the genetic and behavioral elements that destroyed the animals cannot be pinpointed. Site B – the testing and breeding grounds for Jurassic Park – appears to be the “lost world” for which Malcolm and Levine are searching, an environment in which dinosaurs live in an ecosystem free of disruptive human influence. Once Levine is trapped on the island, and summons Malcolm and his crew to rescue him, he begins to disrupt the very environment he seeks to examine. While the humans fight to survive in the Lost World, they realize that the environment’s artificiality has produced only a poor imitation of real dinosaur life, and that the humans’ very presence on the island will permanently shift its delicate ecological balance.
Site B represents the darker elements of genetic engineering, as it is essentially representative of the failed experiments which led to the successes housed in Jurassic Park. In the abandoned laboratory, Malcolm and Levine learn that the process created dinosaurs susceptible to disease, defects and death, and that several batches of the dinosaurs had to be genetically altered in order to produce creatures that could survive in modern environments. The apparent success of genetic engineering on Jurassic Park belies the extensive losses necessary to the process. Furthermore, the zoo-like atmosphere of Site B interferes with the expected social behavior of the dinosaurs, illustrating that certain social behaviors must be learned in order for optimal survival of the species. The laboratory-produced raptors have no actual experience of proper social relations between older and younger members of the species; thus, the adults fight each other and the infants for food, destroying each other because of their inability to employ species-sustaining behaviors. Ultimately, Malcolm realizes that though these dinosaurs may have the genetic attributes of their predecessors, their Site B environment cannot illuminate the mysteries of their extinction. Genetic evolutions are not the entirety of natural selection, because most creatures must adapt several interacting changes simultaneously for maximum efficacy. Because life forms can be viewed as hundreds of thousands of complex interactions, Malcolm concludes that there is no verifiable means of separating genetic and behavioral evolutions when determining the cause of species extinction.
Evaluation: By focusing more attention on Malcolm in this novel, Crichton shifts his examination of genetic debates from the dangers of cloning to the limits of biological determinism. Although a sequel, this novel is both interesting and thought-provoking, and is more intelligent than the average thriller.
– Natalie Champ