A Sea of Difference Between Real World and Reel World : In Steven Spielberg’s movie ‘Jurassic Park,’ scientists can recreate dinosaurs from dinosaur DNA. In reality, an expert says, such an event is highly unlikely.

I am sitting in my office across the street from the back lot of Universal Studios, which houses Steven Spielberg and his amazing organization of filmmakers.

My subject is his latest special-effects miracle, “Jurassic Park.” My message is simple. Don’t believe it.

Don’t believe the science, that is. It’s as far-fetched as the premise behind “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” or “E. T.” or for that matter “Frankenstein.”

The problem is that it doesn’t seem as far-fetched. And remarks like one made by Spielberg himself may contribute to a widespread misconception about the movie’s scientific background.

“This is not science fiction,” Spielberg says in “Jurassic Park” publicity material. “It’s science eventuality.”

The idea of the film, set in the present, is that scientists for a private company could assemble the know-how to recreate dinosaurs from dinosaur DNA. (DNA is the substance containing the genetic information for all living organisms.)

That idea apparently appears plausible to many people.

My organization, the Foundation for American Communications, has just released a study on public opinion on “Jurassic Park” conducted by American Opinion Research in Princeton, N. J., in association with Infocus, Inc. We wanted to know if the film would have an impact on public thinking about biotechnology.

The survey found that 58% of those polled who had read the book or knew anything about the movie said it is at least “somewhat likely” that scientists someday will be able to recreate animals using genetic engineering.

Is it? Let’s hear from an expert.

Prof. Leroy E. Hood of the University of Washington, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject, developed the technology described by novelist Michael Crichton as creating the dinosaurs in the book “Jurassic Park.” Hood gene sequencers were used in Crichton’s fictional laboratories.

In a FACS background paper on “Jurassic Park” for journalists, Hood writes, “I would not be surprised if some people come away thinking scientists can really fashion monsters from bits of archaic DNA.” He goes on to explain why they can’t.

Hood says it is possible but highly unlikely that unfragmented, undigested DNA from a dinosaur could be found in blood in the belly of an insect trapped in amber, as Crichton describes. But even if it were found, he says, “techniques do not exist for obtaining the complete DNA sequence of dinosaur DNA from just a few cells worth of DNA.”

Even if a lot of DNA were available, instruments a thousand times faster than those currently available would be needed to tackle the analysis of a complete set of chromosomes, Hood says.

He continues:

“To emphasize how difficult it would be to analyze an animal’s complete set of genes, known as a genome, consider the following. The human genome has three billion letters in its DNA instructions. An encyclopedia on how to construct a human would require 500 volumes, where every volume has a thousand pages and each page has a thousand words. This encyclopedia would represent an enormous challenge to understand.

“It would probably take hundreds of years to decipher this encyclopedia of human heredity to understand how the instructions for developing humans actually function. Knowing the order of the letters in the chromosomes is not enough to begin creating organisms.”

Dinosaur-making, Hood makes clear in this article and a speech this year to University of Washington alumni in Long Beach, does not lie in any plausibly foreseeable future. And if anyone could foresee such a future, it would be Hood.

The worrisome aspect of public ignorance is that it could make an irrational contribution to the public’s existing suspicion of biotechnology.

Our study found that only 31% of those familiar with genetic engineering believe it has “tremendous benefits” for mankind. The other 69% range from believing that it “may have benefits” to outright opposition.

Of course we must be careful with new technology. We don’t want to do anything more to spoil the environment. Yet this fall the first biotechnologically grown tomatoes will come to the shelves of supermarkets. Pharmaceutical companies are using genetics to create new drugs to save lives.

The motion picture industry, largely based part in our home-centered San Fernando Valley, creates reality for billions of people around the world.

Those beliefs, coupled with news coverage, shape public opinion that ultimately determine policy on everything from local government to the technologies that could enhance our lives.

I do not mean this as an attack on Steven Spielberg. I had the opportunity to see him inspire hundreds of Boy Scouts at the National Scout Jamboree in 1989. One of them was my son, who now wants to be part of the film industry someday.

But let’s be sure to watch “Jurassic Park” for what it is--”scientainment,” not science fact. And let’s base policy decisions upon reality, not science fiction.