Jurassic Park had cutting edge visual effects, a great cast, the magic touch of Steven Spielberg,
and a memorable soundtrack composed by none other than John Williams. Despite the film's
success and continuing legacy, there's a fatal flaw behind the Jurassic Park franchise: the
science.
Jurassic Park doesn't really create dinosaurs so much as clone them.
We're given the rundown as to how exactly this miracle of science came to be through
a whimsical, animated feature in the first film. Mr. DNA himself explains that blood
contains DNA, and in order to make dinosaurs, John Hammond's expert squad of scientists
had to find dinosaur blood. Fossilized mosquitoes in amber served as the source for the park's
collection of dino DNA.
Once the blood was collected from the mosquitoes, the DNA was sequenced — which is a monumental
task. Geneticists sequenced the whole of the dinosaur's genome and patched in missing parts
with DNA from frogs. With the complete code for a dinosaur/frog hybrid, Jurassic Park
was then able to implant the chromosomes into an egg. Tada! You now have the makings of
a baby dinosaur.
Disregarding the mind-boggling amount of time it takes to sequence a genome, it seems like
a fairly simple process, right? Not so fast. Author Michael Crichton left some canyon-sized
gaps in his otherwise very scientific explanation as to how Hammond resurrected the long-dead
dinosaurs.
Michael Crichton is famous for his fictional explorations of the furthest reaches of science;
from resurrecting dinosaurs to artificial intelligence to time travel, his novels take
a very serious, stringently researched approach to science fiction. Crichton leaves little
up to interpretation and explains in excruciating detail the ins and outs of how the science
in his books should, theoretically, work. And all this theory is based on real, peer-reviewed,
scientific research.
When Crichton was writing Jurassic Park, he firmly believed that genetic experimentation
and manipulation was the technology of the future. Although not nearly as present in
the films, the books show how various corporations are willing to do whatever it takes to make
the next leap in genetic engineering, ethics be damned.
This is a theme continued in other novels such as Next, which questions whether or not
a living person's cells can be licensed and then owned by a corporation. Crichton had
his finger on the pulse of the latest in genetic engineering, and in some ways he was ahead
of his time.
What the well-paid, highly qualified folks at Jurassic Park are doing is de-extinction:
taking an extinct organism and cloning it, giving it life in the here and now.
New gene-editing capabilities previously only seen in the movies are now available to genetic
researchers, allowing them to explore the real possibilities of de-extinction.
And no, that doesn't mean we'll see a real-life T. rex anytime soon. But we might see something
that looks incredibly close to a real, live wooly mammoth. A Harvard team has been working
on splicing mammoth genes into the DNA of an Asian elephant. The goal is to produce
a hybrid "mammophant," but there is no saying how long that process might take — or if
it ever gets approved due to the ethical dilemma around resurrecting a long-dead species.
The closest science has come to a real Jurassic Park scenario is the Lazarus Project, which
successfully cloned embryos of the extinct gastric-brooding frog in 2013. Those embryos
died after just a few days, but it's considered an astounding success that they ever lived
at all.
The whole concept of reviving dinosaurs in Jurassic Park relies on the idea that the
fictional scientists can easily extract DNA from mosquitoes fossilized in amber. This
idea is unlikely at best, impossible at worst. The books mention that John Hammond has amber
mines at his disposal, but even then, how many bugs laden with dino DNA are those miners
likely to find? Not enough to supply a whole amusement park with a previously extinct menagerie.
Even if Hammond stumbled upon the motherlode of frozen mosquitoes, the DNA within them
is not actually frozen in time. DNA, like all other organic material, decays.
The reason why researchers think it's more likely that they could clone a mammoth is
because their samples are only around 4,000 years old, rather than 66 million.
The Jurassic Park method of extracting genetic material is unlikely to supply geneticists
which much, if any, viable DNA to work with; the dinosaurs would be more frog than terrible
lizard in the end. We're not going to lie: we'd still buy a season pass to that park.
Frogs are cool.
Jurassic Park figured out how to create dinosaur chromosomes. But that's only half the battle.
In 2013, scientists were able to get together the complete genome of an extinct frog, but
that particular pollywog isn't hopping around today. This is because even with all the genetic
information, the chromosomes have to be implanted into an embryo. Project Lazarus' embryos died
after a few days, never producing a viable fetus.
So how did Jurassic Park do it? This is one of those details that Crichton was hoping
we wouldn't look too closely at.
"Wait a minute, how do you interrupt the cellular mitosis?"
"Can we see the unfertilized eggs?"
Once you have the chromosomes for a particular animal, you still need eggs. The books claim
that parent company InGen has the tech to create artificial eggs with artificial yolks
into which the dinosaur nucleus is injected.
Okay, maybe this is another moment where Crichton is ahead of his time. The films, however,
are way off base: they claim that they use unfertilized ostrich or emu eggs. Science
shakes its knowledgeable head at that. A much closer relative would be required, despite
the fact that emus are just about as intimidating as any Velociraptor.
Jurassic Park made hard-to-pronounce, scientific names household words: Velociraptor, Gallimimus,
Pterodactyl, and the titular term Jurassic. There is an interesting exclusion, however,
of the word "Cretaceous." The truth of the matter is that some of the most famous names
in dinosaur history actually come from the Creataceous period rather than the Jurassic
period, which are separated by tens of millions of years.
The Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and Velociraptor are all firm residents of the Cretaceous Period,
rather than the Jurassic. Denizens of the Jurassic with famous bone structures were
the Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, and the T. Rex-esque Allosaurus.
The Cretaceous was the final era of terrible lizards before the meteor turned their meat
into ash. So why is the park known as Jurassic Park? Maybe Crichton just thought it sounded
better than Cretaceous Park. It's definitely easier to spell.
The revamped Jurassic World features the Cretaceous Cruise, where vacationers can kayak among
the lazy-eyed Stegosaurus.
While the films give a basic explanation as to why the park's all-female animals were
suddenly able to reproduce, the books go into deep detail as to how a bunch of lady lizards
were able to start producing young without the help of a male. This is yet another moment
where Crichton was strangely ahead of his time.
We find out in the books that thanks to the frog DNA spliced into the dinosaur's genes,
they were able to change their sex and become male in order to mate.
Reptiles having so-called "virgin births" is not unheard of, and these scaley single
ladies don't even have to change their sex. An all-female species of whiptail lizard reproduces
asexually. Parthenogenesis, the process of an unfertilized egg reaching maturity and
ultimately hatching, has been observed in many reptile species, such as the dinosaur-like
komodo dragon, for instance. Raptors repopulating an abandoned theme park? Life, uh, finds a
way.
Jurassic Park endorses the somewhat dodgy practice of gene splicing. The films make
it sound easy to fill in the gaps where the geneticists couldn't complete the DNA sequence.
Jurassic Park chose frog DNA to better acclimate the eventual animals to the tropical climate
of Isla Nublar.
No one really wants to see a giant frog versus a scary, scary dinosaur.
Jurassic World saw fit
to mix it up and make some super-scary hybrids to impress visitors.
The Indominus rex was made up of bits of Velociraptor, cuttlefish, pit viper, tree frog, and a host
of other dinosaurs. Today, in the real world, it is technically possible to make mutant
hybrids, we do it with genetically modified foods. But those anti-freezing and disease-fighting
traits borrowed from other organisms aren't observable like big fangs or camouflage capabilities.
Adding in the genes capable of expressing those features are one thing; flipping enough
genetic switches so that they are expressed is a wholly mysterious, as-yet undiscovered
process. We wouldn't know how to make an Indominus rex just yet, thank goodness.
As it turns out, frogs are what make the whole Jurassic world go round. In the movies, it's
the DNA of these familiar amphibians that is chosen to fill in the genetic gaps of the
collected dinosaur genomes. Their traits are desirable for acclimating the newly resurrected
animals to the tropical island of Isla Nublar, and it's the amphibian ability to change sex
that led to the doom and destruction of Jurassic Park.
In Jurassic World, it's again the frog's fault as to why everything got so bloody, so fast.
All the park's animals have a little bit of frog in them, but the Indominus rex was a
little more amphibian than others.
Some tree frogs, namely the red-snouted treefrog, blend into their backgrounds so well that
they are invisible in both visible and infra-red light. This cloaking ability is how the Indominus
rex, super smart and ultra-sneaky, is able to fool its captors into thinking that it
had disappeared from its paddock.
Imagine a raptor. Likely, the image summoned to mind is of the stunning practical effects
from the first few Jurassic Park films, wherein the Velociraptors were speedy, man-sized monsters
that had thick scales and a pack mentality. This image is completely divorced from the
reality of what paleontologists have unearthed about the species.
Crichton may have been confused when writing about Velociraptors. One of Crichton's favorite
research books, Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, mislabeled the bigger, badder Deinonychus
as a sub-species of Velociraptor. Deinonychus' description better fits the creatures we see
on the silver screen, whereas real Velociraptors were small, flighty creatures no taller than
around three feet.
Recent paleontological finds suggest that they were covered in feathers, their arms
like wings. Think “big chicken” rather than “small dragon” for an accurate image
of a Velociraptor.
Easily one of the most famous fallacies popularized by the Jurassic Park films is the idea that
Tyrannosaurus rex's vision is based on movement. That's a comforting idea if you're facing
one of the big beasts, but there is little to no scientific evidence to back up this
hypothesis.
"You think maybe his visual acuity is based on movement, like the T.Rex. He'll lose you
if you don't move."
Dr. Allen Grant chooses a, let's say, inopportune time to test this theory when faced with a
T. Rex right after the park's power is cut, disregarding the fact that the animal can
likely smell him and all his fear.
The books take care to note that this wasn't Dr. Grant's theory, but instead another scientist's.
From what we know from real scientists, there is no credence whatsoever to the idea that
the T. Rex was anything other than a smart, sharp-eyed hunter — one whom modern researchers
agree also has a great sense of smell and sound.
Considering that these facts weren't discovered until over a decade after the Jurassic Park
book and movie, we can't really blame the writers or the filmmakers for exploring this
theory.
Forget everything you think you know about pack dynamics. Whether it's fluffy wolves
or scaley raptors, popular media has been misled about how groups of deadly predators
interact and work together. Older research that popularized the idea of an "alpha" of
the pack has recently been proven inaccurate.
In this flawed understanding, the alpha takes charge via displays of dominance and force.
The strongest rules over the weakest, and if there's a younger, stronger contender,
they can usurp the old alpha and take over. This is what happens in Jurassic World when
the Indominus rex effectively becomes the alpha of the raptor pack.
However, more recent studies show that familial relationships take precedence over power.
The "alpha" is whichever animal is the most like a parent to the rest of the pack. Thus
it would make more sense in the films if the raptor pack had stayed loyal to Owen Grady,
who had raised them since birth and long established himself as the parent of the group. Since
the raptors had imprinted on him, the pack's betrayal of him in favor of the I. Rex doesn't
follow current understanding of pack behavior.
Even with all the scientific errors and misinformation that the books and films spread, we have to
give a lot of credit to the Jurassic Park franchise for making science cool. Paleontology
and genetic engineering was put on a worldwide platform; the films not only introduced impressionable
kids to an interesting career path, but they also opened the door to increased funding
of the sciences.
Following the release of the first film, paleontologists and archaeologists enjoyed what has been called
the "Jurassic Park phase," wherein enthusiasm for fossils and the pursuit of dino DNA was
more ardent than ever.
"Whether you like them cuddly or cruel, or ferocious or fluffy, there's no doubt dinosaurs
have roared back from extinction."
Around this time, great leaps and bounds were made in research into de-extinction, and discoveries
that would have usually gone unnoticed by popular press, like the sequencing of an ancient
weevil's DNA, became sensational.
However, the film's focus on de-extinction has also been implicated as a distraction;
why should we try to revive dead animals when there are living ones in need of protection?
Regardless as to whether Jurassic Park's legacy has been a help or a hindrance to the scientific
community, its influence is undeniable.
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