velvetpage: (earth harmless)
velvetpage ([personal profile] velvetpage) wrote2008-02-16 08:34 am
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Interesting.

Complexity theory, and what happened to Yellowstone. Sent to me by my brother, and an interesting read. I'd love to see someone apply it to the accountability drive in education.

[identity profile] dagoski.livejournal.com 2008-02-16 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I am going to have to read this when I get a chance, but Crichton it seems has definitely read Bertanaffly's General Systems Theory. More people need to read this book because it's the fundamental book of the science of interconnectivity. Also, you only need Calculus to get at it. The successors in the area of Dynamical Systems Theory require several classes in Diferential Equations and Linear Algebra to really get. But, if you've got the background, give Bar-Yam's Dynamical Systems Theory a try.

[identity profile] velvetpage.livejournal.com 2008-02-16 05:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't have the background - I never even took high school calculus, because I was concentrating on the courses I knew I could get an A in, so as to get a scholarship. :)

I'm wondering if I should go back and get some of that background, though.

[identity profile] normanrafferty.livejournal.com 2008-02-17 03:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Michael Crichton often advocates that things are too difficult to understand, so we shouldn't even try, and everything is fine.

I find it hard to believe this is the same Crichton who wrote this in 1999 (http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/crichton/story.htm):

"So let's stop the self-flagellation, the ritual abuse and the hot air, and let's follow some new paths. Science is the most exciting and sustained enterprise of discovery in the history of our species. It is the great adventure of our time. We live today in an era of discovery that far outshadows the discoveries of the New World five hundred years ago. In a stunningly short period of time, science has extended our knowledge all the way from the behavior of galaxies to the behavior of particles in the subatomic world.

"Under the circumstances, for scientists to fret over their image seems slightly absurd. This is a great field with great talents and great power. It's time to assume your power, and shoulder your responsibility to get your message to the waiting world. It's nobody's job but yours. And nobody can do it as well as you can."

... and then after writing State of Fear, where he portrayed scientists as near-sighted, jingoistic liars, he wrote Next, where he used the real name of one of his real-life critics to name a character who was a convicted pedophile with a small dick.