Not if you had read Carry_OKie's comments on it.
I don't agree with Carry's interpretation and even if he/she/it were correct about the "top-down approach" the one paragraph does not negate the logic of Crichton's argument nor was the suggestion about how to fund science the central topic of the lecture. In fact, I would judge it to be at most, tertiary, and not germane at all to the subject at hand.
Carry was simply "picking at nits".