Malcolm is the ninth chapter in the Fifth Configuration. Here, Malcolm is high with morphine and lapses into a commentary on natural and human behavior.
Plot[]
Sarah Harding learns from Jack Thorne the helicopters will arrive in less than five hours, therefore assuring Ian Malcolm he'll be alright. Malcolm agrees then starts a morphine-induced commentary, stating "the experiment is over" and Charles Darwin was wrong. Harding wonders what the famous naturalist got incorrect and Malcolm states life is a complex system. Malcolm talks about fitness landscapes, Adaptive walks, Boolean Nets and Self-organizing behavior. Darwin and others - he didn't specify which scientists - never realized how life was so complex and Malcolm starts giving examples of how a gene develops into various cells then body parts form and act simultaneously. Human activity is not the same as natural life - he gives the example of constructing a house. Academics or people cannot describe cell behavior and thus no one can accurate describe how life actually occurs. No one controls it such as the formation of a crystal.
He moves to the example of the yucca plant, which survives with a moth and vice versa. This shows that "complex animals can evolve their behavior rapidly...(and) are transforming the planet, and nobody knows whether it is a dangerous development." He therorizes that behavioral processes can happen faster that thoughts and when we reach cyberspace, it is the end of man kind. It is so as it indicates the end of innovation - our intellectual diversity is disappearing fast. Finally, he states that sudden behavioral changes can be detrimental - that is what caused dinosaurs to go extinct, not the crash of an asteroid. A sudden behavioral change such as a predator dying or a dinosaur affecting water circulation affects the other animals and thus the wider ecosystem.
Malcolm ends and indicates they need to escape. Thorne tries to check in with Eddie, however, he hears a terrifying scream over the radio.
Note[]
This page should not be confused with Malcolm_(chapter), the ninth chapter in the Second Iteration of Jurassic Park.
Trivia[]
- Malcolm's lapse into a commentary is similar to that in the first novel when he was also injured.
- Malcolm's commentary is actually Michael Crichton's. We have in 2021, long reached the age of cyberspace, yet humankind is still around.
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