“But complex animals had obtained their adaptive flexibility at some cost--they had traded one dependency for another. It was no longer necessary to change their bodies to adapt, because now their adaptation was behavior, socially determined. That behavior required learning. In a sense, among higher animals adaptive fitness was no longer transmitted to the next generation by DNA at all. It was now carried by teaching.”

American author and filmmaker

John Michael Crichton was an American author and filmmaker. He is best known for novels and screen stories that blend science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction, and for work that sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. His fiction often examines technology, biotechnology, and the effort to control nature, usually with dangerous or disastrous results. Many of his books draw on medical or scientific ideas, and several focus on genetic modification, hybridization, paleontology, or zoology.