Science fiction serves a social function by extrapolating from the realities of the present to the possibilities of the future. Part of the effectiveness of the genre depends upon the realistic assessment of what might happen if certain trends, ideas, or circumstances were extended to a logical, albeit perhaps unlikely, final conclusion. At the base of The Andromeda Strain, essentially a science-fiction thriller, Michael Crichton deals with two social concerns. The first, which is clearly stated early in the novel, has to do with the political or social overtones of new discoveries—overtones that may not concern or occur to the discoverers. The consequences of the contamination of an experiment such as Project Scoop were not seriously considered by the scientific community at large, and most of the military minds that were responsible for the satellite dismissed the inherent ramifications as less pertinent than what...