Crichton has confidence in the technical literacy of his reader – as shown by the eleven tables / exhibits he uses in this chapter alone. These are data tables made to look as if they were cut-copy-pasted straight from an InGen technical document.

Best Writing, Quotes

“Now, then: can you ask the computer to search for, let us say, three hundred animals?”

– Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park, Page 188

Life is finding a way, and the computers designed to monitor the dinosaur population have been programmed by the same over confident engineers who developed the rest of the park. The programs are confirming a count – for the sake of speed – rather than executing a count.

Page by Page Highlights, Quotes

“It must be a bird egg. That’s all it can be.” Page 186, Hammond responds to the velociraptor egg

• This is the whole reason he brough the paleontologists here, the whole reason to have them.
• When they deliver their message, he is not ready to hear it.

“Can you have the computer search for a different number of animals?” Page 187 – Malcolm asks a logical question to test the validity of the reporting

“Now, then: can you ask the computer to search for, let us say, three hundred animals?” – Ian Malcom, Page 188

“We just always used the base count of two hundred thirty-eight because we assumed there couldn’t be more.” – Page 189, John “Ray” Arnold

“The problem was you had more than the expected number.” Page 190, Malcolm when they realize they have 292 dinosaurs, 54 more than expected

“It’s a Poisson [Gaussian] distribution,” Wu said. “Normal curve.” – Page 191, Wu doesn’t realize that his Compy height graph doesn’t reflect the population he claims to have

• Fascinating that the Kindle and print copies have different statistical terms.
• Gaussian is correct, so the error must have been caught over time.

“You’ve got breeding dinosaurs out there, Henry.” – Ian Malcolm by Radio