“Are you familiar with the concept of a techno-myth?
The Lost World (1995) by Michael Crichton
“....You want to know what I’ve heard?” Levine said. “I’ve heard that a couple of years back, a company named InGen genetically engineered some dinosaurs and put them on an island in Costa Rica. But something went wrong, a lot of people were killed, and the dinosaurs were destroyed. And now nobody will talk about it, because of some legal angle. Nondisclosure agreements or something. And the Costa Rican government doesn’t want to hurt tourism. So nobody will talk. That’s what I’ve heard.”
Malcolm stared at him. “And you believe that?”
“Not at first, I didn’t,” Levine said. “But the thing is, I keep hearing it. The rumors keep floating around. Supposedly you, and Alan Grant, and a bunch of other people were there.”
“Did you ask Grant about it?”
“I asked him, last year, at a conference in Peking. He said it was absurd.”
Malcolm nodded slowly.
“Is that what you say?” Levine asked, drinking his beer. “I mean, you know Grant, don’t you?”
“No. I never met him.”
Levine was watching Malcolm closely. “So it’s not true?”
Malcolm sighed. “Are you familiar with the concept of a techno-myth? It was developed by Geller at Princeton. Basic thesis is that we’ve lost all the old myths, Orpheus and Eurydice and Perseus and Medusa. So we fill the gap with modern techno-myths. Geller listed a dozen or so. One is that an alien’s living at a hangar at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Another is that somebody invented a carburetor that gets a hundred and fifty miles to the gallon, but the automobile companies bought the patent and are sitting on it. Then there’s the story that the Russians trained children in ESP at a secret base in Siberia and these kids can kill people anywhere in the world with their thoughts. The story that the lines in Nazca, Peru, are an alien spaceport. That the CIA released the AIDS virus to kill homosexuals. That Nikola Tesla discovered an incredible energy source but his notes are lost. That in Istanbul there’s a tenth-century drawing that shows the earth from space. That the Stanford Research Institute found a guy whose body glows in the dark. Get the picture?”
“You’re saying InGen’s dinosaurs are a myth,” Levine said.
“Of course they are. They have to be. Do you think it’s possible to genetically engineer a dinosaur?”
“The experts all tell me it’s not.”
“And they’re right,” Malcolm said. He glanced at Harding, as if for confirmation. She said nothing, just drank her beer.…
