Dinosaurs eating people

Good tech requires good people. PLUS: My budding relationship with "Jurassic Park", how humans mess up scientific advances, and a brief theology of technology.

I wasn’t a dinosaur kid. But I might be becoming a dinosaur adult.

Growing up, I had no real interest in terrifying lizards. Didn’t know all the names, didn’t collect the figures, and couldn’t tell you the difference between a pterosaur and a dinosaur! Just wasn’t me.

But in 8th grade, I got my first real interest in dinosaurs. Toward the end of the school year in Biology, we watched the original Jurassic Park movie. You know, it vaguely has biological science in it, I guess. However, we couldn’t finish the movie in the class period, so I was left with a cliffhanger. Would the gang survive?

I went home that day to finish the movie. If I’m not mistaken, we owned it on VHS, and I played it that way. It was certainly a scary movie and had me a bit frightened—but I was so fascinated.

As an adult, I again got back into dinosaurs because my fiancée and I enjoyed watching through all the movies together, even the supplemental animated Netflix shows (Don’t spoil Jurassic World: Rebirth, we are going this weekend)! I’ll admit I have been to Jurassic Park Wiki on more than one occasion… It’s also fascinating to learn the Christian roots of paleontology, as I did reading my friend

Thomas Salerno

’s excellent short read, The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones: How Blessed Nicolas Steno Uncovered the Hidden History of the Earth (truly, absolutely fantastic storytelling and I learn tons).

While not all of the Jurassic Park movies are peak cinema, I appreciate the scientific and moral musings. Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, is known for this kind of deep thematic exploration, and I’ve enjoyed many of his works. Each book pretty much can be summed up through the line made famous by Ian Malcolm in the first Jurassic Park movie:

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

Crichton published 25 books in his life, with 4 published after his death. He’s the mind behind the movie Westworld, as well as the TV show ER. His work touches on a variety of subjects—but as I said—he consistently comes back to the familiar plot of scientists teaming up with a large corporation and things just get bad for everyone. And sometimes, dinosaurs just eat people.

For instance, his book Timeline, which I’m reading right now, is about a corporation controlling time travel technology, with dangerous results. Next is about various evolutionary biological experiments that go wrong, some of which escape the laboratory. Prey was a curious novel about a corporation’s nanotechnology going haywire. Micro (published after his death; he only wrote a third) involved shrinking technology held by a large corporation that led to a lot of people’s deaths.

Weirdly, I’ve never read Jurassic Park or The Lost World.

To Blockbuster and beyond

If Crichton was making anything clear, he was making clear his view that technology and science and nature, used improperly, can lead to our own demise. He explains in one interview:

“To the extent that we think egotistically and irrationally and paranoically and foolishly, then we have technology that will give us nuclear winters or cars that won’t brake. But that's because people didn't design them right.”

In other words, it’s not the science and stuff out there that is dangerous… it’s us that’s truly dangerous! Our hubris, quest for profitability, overemphasis of progress, or extreme optimism can lead us down a dangerous, dangerous path. A path where dinosaurs sometimes kill people.

I believe Crichton’s core critique of technology in the hands of fallible man is a pretty accurate depiction of the Christian position. Humans are prone to misusing the good gifts we’ve been given.

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And now the spiritual point…

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Briefly, I want to suggest a half-decent Christian view of technology. As I said, Crichton’s pretty close. Humans are mostly to blame for the haphazard ways we handle what we bring into the world.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Genesis 1. We know creation is called good. Then there’s a moment, easily overlooked, where God hands humans a job description: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground” (Gen. 1:28). We theologians (and seminary nerds) call it the Creation Mandate.

The mandate isn’t a license to dominate or destroy—it’s a calling to steward. To nurture. To take the raw materials of God’s world and shape them with care and creativity. You could call it divine delegation. God makes a garden and then hands us the shovel.

Which means, in plain English: we’re responsible for this place. That’s not just about hugging trees and recycling (though, yes), but for making decisions that honor the creation we’ve been handed.

We’re not in Eden anymore, but the job hasn’t changed. If we’re stewards of creation, then we’re also stewards of whatever humans create with creation.

I believe that technology is just a tool and is practically amoral (as much as anything can be in a sinful world). When you take the raw substances out of the earth and fashion and mold them into bits and bobs, it’s not good nor evil. But I can’t deny the influence of its creators. Hammers build homes—but also break skulls. Tools don’t operate themselves (well, typically), but are influenced by humans. And humans, as we know from reading Genesis 3 onward, have some issues.

Technology is a tool that can be wielded for both positive and negative purposes.

Paul has a little reminder for us in 1 Corinthians 6:12. Everything is permissible—but not everything is beneficial. And, crucially, he says, “I must not become a slave to anything.” He wasn’t talking about ChatGPT, obviously, but the principle still preaches. Just because we can automate sermons or scroll endlessly on social media doesn’t mean we should.

If our creations start shaping us, then we’ve traded stewardship for servitude.

Technology takes on the character of the hands that shape it. And if the hands aren’t guided by love, mercy, and humility? You get more brokenness disguised as innovation. And possible dinosaurs chasing after you.

Spiritually Distracted by Technology - Andrew Noble

I do stand firmly in the belief that nothing we create will overthrow God’s redemptive plan or replace us as image-bearers. No technology or scientific advance will “surprise” the Creator Almighty. So while I exercise great caution when a dire wolf is resurrected, or everyone and their mom is using AI, I’m not fearful for the fate of the world.

But I do hope and pray more Christ-centered hands, hands representing important human virtues for our flourishing, are involved in technology. Because while Crichton’s works are science fiction, their observation on humanity is too spot on. When we chase pride or profit or publicity or pleasure, it all too often becomes that our technology begins to “get loose” and wreck all kinds of havoc.

Making sure technology leads to good and not bad is a function of our Creation Mandate to serve as regents of this pale blue dot. We can shape policies, run companies better, educate ourselves about how tech controls us, and, you know, go for a walk outside sometimes. This way we can, even in small ways, guard against human sin’s corruption in our technical society and begin to build a much better society. Pray that good hands will guide our technology and that they will have the wisdom to think of the human and environmental ramifications!

Let us be better stewards of innovation to the glory of God.

Be tech wise,

Jake Doberenz

P.S. For fun…

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