Devon Kitch

July 4,2001

Chaos and Cloning

Film: Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg

Objective: To define chaos theory and discuss its effects on the future of science in the area of cloning.

Summary: In the movie Jurassic Park, scientists create dinosaurs from the DNA found in mosquitoes that have been fossilized in amber. Hammond decides to use this scientific accomplishment to create a theme park that resembles a zoo. Unlike other zoo animals, dinosaur behavior has not been studied and, therefore, cannot be predicted. When the power is shut off by a disgruntled employee, the dinosaurs take up their natural instinct to kill.

Sources: Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg

1. Is it dangerous to recreate animals or people that would be "confused" in our modern times, or would it be educational in order to learn about the past?
2. Should we have the right to "play God", or should there be more laws to protect us from ourselves?

Excerpts from Jurassic Park

1. Malcolm, the chaotician, says "The lack of humility before nature that is displayed here, staggers me." He believes that man should be more careful when they are trying to manipulate life and the way life leads its natural course. He then goes on to sya that since it didn’t require any discipline on the part of Hammonds scientists, then they do not accept responsibility for their creations. The merely used the knowledge that others had gathered, then took it a step further.
2. "The scientist were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." This goes on to the moral aspects of cloning, as well as the danger involved in cloning something as large as a dinosaur. Hammond compares the glitches at the thee park, to the glitches experiences by other theme parks. Malcolm’s rebuttal is "if the pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists!"
3. As the group embarks on their tour Malcolm tries to explain chaos theory. Unpredictability is the basis of chaos and is often displayed throughout the movie. Malcolm uses the example of the T-Rex "The tyrannosaur doesn’t obey set patterns or park schedules, the essence of chaos theory".

1. "The dictionary definition of chaos is turmoil, turbulence, primordial abyss, and undesired randomness, but scientists will tell you that chaos is something extremely sensitive to initial conditions. Chaos also refers to the question whether or not it is possible to make good long-term predictions about how a system will act."
2. It is known that "complex structures come from simpler ones, just as order comes from chaos."

I think that the movie Jurassic Park is a wonderful example of chaos theory. The movie shows the unpredictability (however exaggerated!) that comes with creating new, unknown life. Malcolm predicted what would happen on the island by his theory of unpredictability. The scientists created the life but then the life took on its own personality. Dinosaurs that were supposed to be all female ended up mating and laying eggs. The dinosaurs did not have to adhere to parks schedules or eating times. They had control through out the entire movie.

I believe that we should be careful with cloning. Dinosaurs were created for a reason and they died off for a reason. Scientists are now talking about re-creating the mammoth, which is another animal we have little knowledge of. It would be a great educational experience, but were the experiment to go wrong, it could endanger humans. On the other hand, this animal would be created for the sole purpose of being caged and studied, and probed, and then probably dissected. The scientists would bring the animal back to life and then kill its spirit and take away what little freedom it had when it was dying.

If we could find DNA of Neanderthals I have no doubt that scientists would want to try and clone them. These men would be lost in our modern society and just like the mammoth, they would be a science experiment. Even when I am told the benefits of cloning, for food and medical reasons, it still scares me to the point that I do not think it should be permitted. If you cloned a person for its organs, then who is to say that that person was not real. I would have to hear a very persuasive argument for cloning, to convince me that it is humane. Creation should be left in the hands of God. In Jurassic Park, Malcolm makes the statement "God created dinosaur, God destroyed dinosaurs, God created man, man destroys God, man creates dinosaurs," which is true in today’s society, but not necessarily with dinosaurs. Man has tried taking God out of everything, and now man is trying to create animals and people so that God is taken out of the equation.