Ironically, Crichton was himself known to play fast and loose with facts. Mathematicians laughed at his portrayal of chaos theory and its implications in Jurassic Park, and the scientific community cried foul over his portrayal of climate science in State of Fear.
It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.
Crichton's Travels is a fascinating and infuriating book. You know he's a human being just like yourself, but yet his thought processes are as alien as anything you'd expect to find in a Star Trek script.
The idea that the author of The Andromeda Strain could be taken in by spoon-bending was also more than a bit frightening.
A novelist is allowed (and encouraged!) to bend facts to make their books more exciting to the reader. Crichton may or may not have been an expert on certain subjects, but the contents of his fictional novels are not relevant to that discussion.
Sure, except that Crichton was extremely outspoken regarding "climate change as a lie"[1] where he used his book, State of Fear, to present his views as facts[2]:
It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.