Michael Crichton Quotes
People will spend vastly more to get what they regard as 100 percent safety than they will for 95 percent or 90 percent safety. It’s irrational of course.
Michael Crichton, Techno Novelist, Speech, “The politicization of science and its effect on government policy,” January 28, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
She told constituents that she would try and implement some gun control measures. She, later in her career explained to critics of Congressional inaction via gun control--see {640804}.
Proenza was giving an explanation of why he had “blown the whistle” on the Department of Commerce over the QuickScat weather satellite. QuickScat, was the satellite that the Hurricane Center used to give early warnings about hurricanes and other tropical storms. However in 2007 it was still in service although it was only designed for a shorter period than it had already been functioning. Proenza and other scientists at NOAA reported that the satellite could fail at any time and leave the nation without an equivalent predictive tool. There had been a government plan to replace the satellite with a new one, but the cost was $400 million, but the Bush Administration had cut taxes massively and had gone from the Clinton budget surplus to the largest deficit then in American history. The administration told all senior officials that they should not tell Congress or the public that they needed any more money. When Proenza went public because he thought that people could easily die for lack of predictive capability of hurricanes, the George W, Bush administration suspended him for speaking out and not being loyal to the President and his administration. His loyalty was to the lives and safety of the American people and not to any politicians.
The French culture makes failure painful for individuals as the perception of others is very negative. America, in contrast, is much more forgiving about failure with people getting second and third chances commonly. Failure is necessary for great success in almost everything significant in that no one can be perfect and success often depends on resiliency to failure along the way.
John Michael Crichton was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres, and heavily feature technology. His novels often explore technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and scientific background.
