I argue for the importance of considering author, director, and producer Michael Crichton (1942–2008) as a critic and student of Cold War cultures of expertise. Though best known for his blockbuster fiction, he shared a sensibility with academics in North America and the United Kingdom who were concerned with scientists’ unchecked authority. These scholars created a new field that would later become known as Science and Technology Studies or STS. Like his contemporaries in STS, and often in anticipation of them, Crichton’s novels relied on a blend of history, sociology, and anthropology to lift back the curtain to reveal the specialized worlds in which scientists worked, and to devote specific attention to the practices, instruments, and values that animated their knowledge-production enterprise. In doing so, his fiction both popularized STS and shaped concerns and fears about the future of science and technology. The “speculative present” is useful for making visible the ironies exploited by Crichton, including his own engagement with ideas about speculation as both a form of conjecture and a form of prospecting value. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s early work on the cyborg, the speculative present helps to pry open forms of world making obscured by adherence to binaries of fact and fiction, nature and culture, with the goal of cultivating a broader array of visions about emerging science and technology.

中文翻译：

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投机的礼物

我主张将作家、导演和制片人迈克尔·克莱顿（Michael Crichton，1942-2008 年）视为冷战专业文化的评论家和学生的重要性。尽管最出名的是他的大片小说，但他与北美和英国的学者分享了一种敏感，他们关心科学家不受约束的权威。这些学者创造了一个新领域，后来被称为科学技术研究或 STS。就像他在 STS 中的同时代人一样，并且经常对他们有所期待，克莱顿的小说依靠历史、社会学和人类学的融合来揭开帷幕，揭示科学家工作的专业世界，并特别关注实践，使他们的知识生产企业活跃起来的工具和价值观。在这样做，他的小说既普及了 STS，又塑造了对科学和技术未来的担忧和恐惧。“投机现在”有助于使克莱顿利用的讽刺变得可见，包括他自己将投机作为一种推测形式和一种勘探价值形式的想法。受到 Donna Haraway 早期关于机器人的工作的启发，这种投机性的礼物有助于撬开被事实与虚构、自然和文化的二元对立所掩盖的世界的开放形式，目的是培养关于新兴科学和技术的更广泛的视野. 包括他自己将投机作为一种推测形式和一种勘探价值形式的想法。受到 Donna Haraway 早期关于机器人的工作的启发，这种投机性的礼物有助于撬开被事实与虚构、自然和文化的二元对立所掩盖的世界的开放形式，目的是培养关于新兴科学和技术的更广泛的视野. 包括他自己将投机作为一种推测形式和一种勘探价值形式的想法。受到 Donna Haraway 早期关于机器人的工作的启发，这种投机性的礼物有助于撬开被事实与虚构、自然和文化的二元对立所掩盖的世界的开放形式，目的是培养关于新兴科学和技术的更广泛的视野.