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The Science of Jurassic Park and How to Build a Dinasaur
¿Resulta viable en la actualidad el planteamiento científico de la idea inspiradora de las novelas de Michael Crichton «Parque Jurásico» y «El mundo perdido», llevadas al cine por Steven Spielberg, según la cual se podrían clonar dinosaurios a partir del ADN encontrado en un mosquito fosilizado en ámbar que los hubiera picado? Tomando esta pregunta como punto de partida, ROB DESALLE y DAVID LINDLEY exponen de forma amena en CÓMO FABRICAR UN DINOSAURIO los últimos avances en el terreno de la genética y de la biología molecular, para concluir que, si bien se trata de una especulación novelística, ésta se basa en avances y conocimientos científicos genuinos, y que se pueden anticipar los problemas que han de surgir en el camino de la clonación de seres vivos.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
26 people are currently reading
511 people want to read
About the author
Rob DeSalle
36 books17 followersRob DeSalle is curator of entomology in the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. He is author or coauthor of dozens of books, several based upon exhibitions at the AMNH, including The Brain: Big Bangs, Behaviors, and Beliefs and A Natural History of Wine, coauthored with Ian Tattersall and published by Yale University Press. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
May 6, 2025
A very detailed and easy yo ready book. It’s basically explains why cloning a dinosaur it’s almost impossible (a very actual matter if you ask me, especially after the supposed cloning of the Aenocyon dirus) and I’m glad that dinosaurs will not be able to roam the earth again, because imagine an animal that old, with a world so different today to his habitat, with unknown diseases, plants, organisms, and the more dangerous of all organisms: humans. Imagine then trying to see were they fit. Poor creatures.
December 2, 2021
Love the book!
September 3, 2013
This is a very well written, entertaining book. The authors basically go through all the science that is used in the films and discuss it bit by bit. A lot of the time they are debunking how the film does things - (amber found in the congo wouldn't be old enough to trap an insect that had sucked blood from a dinosaur) - but then offers a slightly more practical way of doing in - (New Jersey is the place for amber). I really enjoyed the genetics modules I did at college, so I found the dna parts of the book exciting. There is s great sense of humour running through the book, which means it is a relatively easy read - no mean feat when the science is so in depth. A great little read.
Read
December 22, 2022Once I decided that I will never understand genetics as well as the scientists who wrote this book, I was able to sit back and fly through it while under the notion that whatever sticks in my brain will be worth it. I learned a lot about how difficult recreating a dinosaur would be and about evolution, ethics, and genetics in general. Although it’s a 25-year-old book, and therefore it’s probably outdated in terms of science, I’m glad I decided to give it a read.
April 3, 2019
I actually really enjoyed this! It puts the science of the book and movie up against the real science of the time and explains everything in a way that's fairly easy to follow even if you're not a science fanatic.
June 17, 2024
I had some fun with this one, but it is not the most entertaining book out there. There’s some “what if” but for the most part this book plays it straight. This is a genetic science book first and foremost. I learned more about the complexities of DNA than I thought!
Ultimately, this book answers the question “can we bring dinosaurs back to life?” with a resounding: “no, probably not.”
Ultimately, this book answers the question “can we bring dinosaurs back to life?” with a resounding: “no, probably not.”
July 3, 2025
3.5
Some of this book went over my head, though the authors did try to make it comprehensible to a layman like me. Still, it was interesting, and I did understand the vast impossibility of creating a dinosaur even if you could find some DNA, which is the main thesis, so good enough. 😊
And despite knowing how realistically impossible it is, I still love the movie and Crichton's novel.
Some of this book went over my head, though the authors did try to make it comprehensible to a layman like me. Still, it was interesting, and I did understand the vast impossibility of creating a dinosaur even if you could find some DNA, which is the main thesis, so good enough. 😊
And despite knowing how realistically impossible it is, I still love the movie and Crichton's novel.
September 7, 2024
Unless you're geneticist, don't even try to read this book. There are many chapters on how to extract DNA from an organism, and how a scientist would go about removing some from an extinct species. I freely admit it was way above my head.
March 6, 2025
Uno de los mejores libros de difusión científica que he leído c: y aunque la respuesta es no, no se puede fabricar un dinosaurio. Y que haya destrozado una de mis películas favoritas de ciencia ficción como lo es jurassic park (no soy muy fan de la segunda), ha despertado en mí de nuevo la obsesión por estas fascinantes criaturas, no puedo esperar a aprender más de dinosaurios.
August 21, 2025
A really interesting and fascinating book exploring the biological background behind the Jurassic park movies. This is a riveting read for fans of the films with a biology background and very well written to provide the facts but not spoil the experience of the movies.
November 1, 2017
快二十年的老書了
看這本對照小說簡直記憶大考驗
還好前不久才重看過侏儸紀公園的小說
我一直以為鳥是恐龍後代是這兩三年的新說
沒想到二十多年前就已經是主流看法了啊~
大部分都在討論生科問題
恐龍生態復原幾乎沒有篇幅
三類的學問我實在力有未逮
不知道裡面的生科"新"知還有多新呢?
看這本對照小說簡直記憶大考驗
還好前不久才重看過侏儸紀公園的小說
我一直以為鳥是恐龍後代是這兩三年的新說
沒想到二十多年前就已經是主流看法了啊~
大部分都在討論生科問題
恐龍生態復原幾乎沒有篇幅
三類的學問我實在力有未逮
不知道裡面的生科"新"知還有多新呢?
December 31, 2019
Intriguing and informative. Makes bringing a dinosaur back any time soon look unlikely; but a very clever way to educate people on the science of genetics!
June 30, 2021
Interesante, pero una pena que esté ya desactualizado.
April 10, 2022
This is obviously quite dated now, but I still absolutely loved it!
December 20, 2023
😍bardzo wartościowa lektura😍
May 6, 2025
I enjoyed this more than I expected too. even tho there was a lot of science and facts in here, it's written for the uneducated masses.
August 24, 2025
Lots of interesting information told in a fun way. I would definitely read an updated version.
January 11, 2010
This is the kind of book that appeals to the guys who sit at the back of the theater and make fun of everything that’s going on onscreen. And to guys like me who want a little information – but not too much – about the science behind the science fiction.
The book of which I write is The Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World, by Bob DeSalle and David Lindley. It came out in 1997, shortly after Steven Speilberg’s film, The Lost World, came out. The film is, of course, based on the book by Michael Crichton.
I admit to a love/hate relationship with Crichton. In too many instances, narrative drives too much of the science, which is unfortunate, because Crichton is in a position to teach as well as entertain. More often than not, however, Crichton presents enough of a scientific theory or principle to get the narrative point across and leaves it at that. (My favorite book of his is Airframe, which mixes two other interests, aviation and journalism.)
As far as explaining the science behind whether it would be possible to recreate dinosaurs from DNA extracted from dino blood-drinking mosquitoes trapped in ancient amber, DeSalle and Lindley do an adequate job, only taking the science two or three steps beyond what Crichton does. This method, however, while entertaining, doesn’t do much more for teaching science than Crichton’s approach.
Of course I know it’s a book meant for mass audiences. Individuals looking for the meat behind the bones the pair present in this book are better off going elsewhere. I learned some about nuclear physics, for example, through reading The Radioactive Boy Scout, but learned a lot more from Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb – a book meant for a more learned, more serious audience. (What those who don’t read that book would be shocked to find out, however, is how much Rhodes tackles the subject matter as a novel, creating a narrative that’s dripping with science but with enough action and character to keep the “story” moving along nicely.)
But back to this book. Their basic premise is that though this DNA-to-dino dream is just a dream now, it might be possible in the future, although success is dependent on so many factors spread out literally over millions of years that one would have to be extremely lucky and extremely wealthy in order to succeed. Buying up the world’s amber supplies, they point out, though costly, would not be as costly – nor politically difficult – as buying an island large enough to support not only the research and development, but also the dinosaur population. Forget a craggy volcanic island off Costa Rica, they say, for an experiment of this magnitude to succeed, one would need an island as big as Barbados or Martinique, and good luck getting folks off those islands. Montserrat, maybe, but then you’ve got that whole destructively active volcano thing to worry about as well, so you might be better off looking elsewhere.
What I enjoyed the most in this book is how the authors remind us that scientists have to take a critical eye to their work, ensuring that they’re not overlooking possibilities or problems – as much as humanly possible – effectively not putting on blinders, working to get the end result they wish while taking shortcuts and may in some way compromise their work. This is good advice for all of us, especially as they point out, subtly, time and again how the science in these books is kept secret and not peer reviewed – because it’s in the peer review that often those glaring mistakes or omissions are brought to light.
I don’t pretend to be a scientist, of course, just an interested reader who likes the idea of learning and nurturing the idea to think critically. I know as a journalist I needed better critical-thinking skills, and felt the program of study I took on didn’t really include that in the mix. Science has more of a built-in critical thinking system which, while not perfect, takes the concept a bit further than can be done with a few harried checks by an editor working under a deadline.
The book of which I write is The Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World, by Bob DeSalle and David Lindley. It came out in 1997, shortly after Steven Speilberg’s film, The Lost World, came out. The film is, of course, based on the book by Michael Crichton.
I admit to a love/hate relationship with Crichton. In too many instances, narrative drives too much of the science, which is unfortunate, because Crichton is in a position to teach as well as entertain. More often than not, however, Crichton presents enough of a scientific theory or principle to get the narrative point across and leaves it at that. (My favorite book of his is Airframe, which mixes two other interests, aviation and journalism.)
As far as explaining the science behind whether it would be possible to recreate dinosaurs from DNA extracted from dino blood-drinking mosquitoes trapped in ancient amber, DeSalle and Lindley do an adequate job, only taking the science two or three steps beyond what Crichton does. This method, however, while entertaining, doesn’t do much more for teaching science than Crichton’s approach.
Of course I know it’s a book meant for mass audiences. Individuals looking for the meat behind the bones the pair present in this book are better off going elsewhere. I learned some about nuclear physics, for example, through reading The Radioactive Boy Scout, but learned a lot more from Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb – a book meant for a more learned, more serious audience. (What those who don’t read that book would be shocked to find out, however, is how much Rhodes tackles the subject matter as a novel, creating a narrative that’s dripping with science but with enough action and character to keep the “story” moving along nicely.)
But back to this book. Their basic premise is that though this DNA-to-dino dream is just a dream now, it might be possible in the future, although success is dependent on so many factors spread out literally over millions of years that one would have to be extremely lucky and extremely wealthy in order to succeed. Buying up the world’s amber supplies, they point out, though costly, would not be as costly – nor politically difficult – as buying an island large enough to support not only the research and development, but also the dinosaur population. Forget a craggy volcanic island off Costa Rica, they say, for an experiment of this magnitude to succeed, one would need an island as big as Barbados or Martinique, and good luck getting folks off those islands. Montserrat, maybe, but then you’ve got that whole destructively active volcano thing to worry about as well, so you might be better off looking elsewhere.
What I enjoyed the most in this book is how the authors remind us that scientists have to take a critical eye to their work, ensuring that they’re not overlooking possibilities or problems – as much as humanly possible – effectively not putting on blinders, working to get the end result they wish while taking shortcuts and may in some way compromise their work. This is good advice for all of us, especially as they point out, subtly, time and again how the science in these books is kept secret and not peer reviewed – because it’s in the peer review that often those glaring mistakes or omissions are brought to light.
I don’t pretend to be a scientist, of course, just an interested reader who likes the idea of learning and nurturing the idea to think critically. I know as a journalist I needed better critical-thinking skills, and felt the program of study I took on didn’t really include that in the mix. Science has more of a built-in critical thinking system which, while not perfect, takes the concept a bit further than can be done with a few harried checks by an editor working under a deadline.
November 12, 2012
I absolutely loved this book. I generally love "the science of..." type books, but this one was particularly well written. I believe this book can be relatively broken up into three sections:[return]Section 1: Mourn for your youth - I grew up with Jurassic Park. I obsessed so much over it that I devoured anything Michael Crichton in middle school. During a stay in the hospital, my mother and I read Jurassic Park and The Lost World to one another. The beginning chapters of this book all basically start off with: it's not possible, but assuming it were, this, this and this would go wrong. It completely ruins the suspension of disbelief.[return]Section 2: Get rid of the science curriculum in public schools - I learned more about Earth science, geology, biology and other natural sciences reading this than I did attending a math and science magnet school and studying engineering. It's incredible how easy the authors made complex concepts to understand.[return]Section 3: Let's punch Ian Malcolm - I always had a sneaking suspicion Malcolm was blowing smoke out of his ass; this book provided all the scientific and mathematical reasons that he really was an arrogant asshole.
January 13, 2017
An overall interesting little book, but I did expect a bit more discussion about paleontology, about what was, at the time, known about the biology of the dinosaurs in the films/books. At least that was my interpretation of the title "The Science of Jurassic Park...". Instead, the book spent most of the time on the science behind "building" a dinosaur (as the subtitle suggests), which meant a lot of discussions about DNA and all the issues surrounding any attempt at reconstructing any dinosaur from an almost impossible discovery of actual Dinosaur DNA. The difficulties pointed out in the several DNA-focused chapters were pretty well thought out and argued, especially for a non-geneticist like myself and the authors brought up several points I had not thought of or remember hearing about when the movie first made it's big cultural splash. Not quite like going to the movies with that one annoying friend who points out all the technical faults, but by the end of the book you've really given up any hopes of anything quite so exciting as the notion of re-creating even a modest dinosaur.
June 27, 2022
I remembered reading, or more accurately skimming and cherry-picking, through this book as a kid. So I decided to pick it up and see if it was as good as I remember. And... it's not bad. The interesting stuff, for me at least, is in the later chapters were it discusses some of the issues you might encounter as your dinosaurs mature. That said, what I did read/skim of this were interesting. Yes, it's a bit on the dry side, but still quite readable. The concept is very interesting and it's fun to see the authors pick through both the books and the films of Jurassic Park and The Lost World as they work out how feasible this might actually be. It would be really interesting to see this updated with how far science has progress in the past 24 years since this was originally published.
November 28, 2015
Loved this book, I read it for my AP Bio class in high school because it was the only one that looked interesting on the list. It was a great book, I had long since lost my copy and was able to find a new copy online somewhere. Loved how the book went into all the reasons Jurassic Park wouldn't work, and all the assumptions that were made for Jurassic Park to actually work. I still loved the Jurassic Park book.
January 6, 2011
A very enjoyable read that looks at the possibility of "building a dinosaur". I found some of the most interesting parts of this book to be the mentioning of the economic and practical considerations (such as how much it would cost and how you would have to house he dinos) to be just as interesting as the science itself. If you can find it in print, it's worth a read!
January 9, 2012
This was a well researched and yet very readable book. All the science that is present in "Jurassic Park" (book by Michael Creighton plus movie) that is used to bring back dinosaurs is evaluated by this team of scientists, who let the reader know why it is impossible...but how current science may be used to make dinosaurs...provided the scientist had enough money, time and a great deal of luck.
March 24, 2014
Have you ever wondered if it's really possible to make a dinosaur from fossilized DNA? This book takes you on a tour of the science used in the novel "Jurassic Park" to see if it is really possible to recreate a dino from seemingly scratch. A fun read, especially after just reading the novel or watching the movie!
February 5, 2012
Very informative read for a developing young mind, this book covers the basic science of how they designed and built dinosaurs in the story of Jurassic Park. Whether any of the science is accurate I can't comment, but enjoyable nonetheless.
June 23, 2013
If I were still teaching school I might think of a way to incorporate Jurassic park and this book into my curriculum. It is a fabulous description of the science behind DNA/genome and the possibilities versus the practicalities. LOVE it!
November 20, 2007
Awesome book! It goes behind the scenes of Jurassic Park to show you how they made the dinosaurs. Interesting book for anyone who knows a thing or two about genetic engineering. 5/5 *s
December 19, 2007
After reading this book, now I know. It aint gonna happen. Really love the science in this though.
Jeremy
Jeremy
November 28, 2009
I loved Jurassic Park and this book was really cool. I'd recommend it to any Michael Chroton fans.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews