The Lost World Study Guide

The Lost World

The Lost World by Michael Crichton

The Lost World is the story of Ian Malcolm, evolutionary biologist and dinosaur expert. Malcolm travels with a team of experts and several stowaway children to an island where dinosaurs have been revived through scientific processes and are running wild. The island is a potential ecological disaster for the rest of the inhabited world, and while there it becomes apparent that it is incredibly dangerous for the scientists as well.

The Lost World Quotes

Table of Contents
  • "What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question."
  • "A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies. And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else."
    • Seventh Configuration "Departure"
  • "In the conservative region far from the chaotic edge, individual elements coalesce slowly, showing no clear pattern."
    • First Configuration

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