Changes in Science Fiction's Ambiguous Attitudes Towards Science

[Lapis Exilis]

Maybe it's just a great way to stoke drama, but science fiction often seems to portray science and technology as dangerous and best left alone. From Dr. Frankenstein's experiments in the very first science fiction novel, to the vampiric monsters of the new speculative fiction hit The Passage (which I am just finishing and which is a very fun read) to the ressurected dinos of Jurassic Park, and too smart by half computers like Hal2000 - SF sometimes doesn't seem to like scientific discovery too much. Or perhaps scientific discovery is fine, but it's the application of science that gets humanity into trouble.

Of course, SF sometimes holds science aloft as the savior of humanity, though that attitude seems more rare. Star Trek, obviously, presents science that makes miracles everyday and that supposedly changed the very nature of human society to do away with greed and crime. Golden Age SF seemed more generally affirming of science, though it's been a while since I've really delved into that stuff so perhaps I misremember.

Is this the secret of SF's appeal - that it dramatizes our own ambiguous relationship with all that the last two centuries have wrought in changes to our lives? Is this, in fact, why SF is becoming fuzzy as a genre as this general sensibility spills over into other fiction, leaving the SF shelves in books stores and libraries to the endless spin-offs of tv, movies and video game series?

 

[clint g]

I think alot of it has to do with drama but at the same time alot of it is true. Technology has always brought death and destruction with it in some way, shape, or form. Of course, the flip side is that technology has made our lives alot easier and more comfortable. Which of the two is more interesting to the viewer though? There is not alot of drama in living a easy life. A world where our technology turns against us? That's a goldmine.

 

[Small White Car]

Well, if the technology is not the antagonist, why do the story in the future at all?

I suspect that answers 2/3 of the examples you can think of.

Clearly there are exceptions, but you've got to answer that question to make those happen. Gene Roddenberry got over that hurdle by claiming he was going to examine social issues that couldn't be told in their original form. So he got a pass.

Ok, that's good, but he'll always be in the minority, I think. For everyone else pitching a romantic comedy in the 24th century, they're gonna hear "why?" a lot from the people who control the money.

 

[Gepard]

I have no observation about this, except to say that Lapis's OP made me think of Caveman Science Fiction:

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Well, if the technology is not the antagonist, why do the story in the future at all?

The future provides a convenient excuse for changing the specifics of an environment (places, names, races, etc) that gives you the ability to hide (or make more palatable) an analogy-based viewpoint. Like what Rod Serling said about Martians being able to say things Democrats and Republicans can't.

Sooo the last one is...time travel?

 

[Myasishchev]

That last strip would be pretty much the entire plot of a Portal adaptation by Michael Bay.

Well, if the technology is not the antagonist, why do the story in the future at all?

Aside from the obvious "technology as protagonist" angle (cf. the ouevre of Clarke, sure he has HAL, but technology is routinely portrayed more awesomely than the people who use it)? There's allegory, utopian tract, and of course there's simple prediction.

Maybe it's just a great way to stoke drama, but science fiction often seems to portray science and technology as dangerous and best left alone.

I think a lot of the problem/phenomenon emerges from a trend that's been going on since the advent of modern science. Laypeople often --are often even encouraged to treat--capital-s Science! as a discipline basically indistinguishable from magic. Science, industry, and technology are certainly hard, and no one can ever be a true expert in anything more than a narrow subfield of an already narrow category; and I think that incentivizes people to not even attempt to understand the basics of fields other than their own. And when their field is, say, marketing--or law <_< --they need not even know what a Goddamn boson is. So they treat science as a magic that is not understandable, or at least not understandable by them, administered for their benefit by a brahmin caste of people who are good at math.

This gets translated into phobia that permeates all throughout society, even within the brahmins; fiction, by its nature, absorbs and reflects this social tension, and feeds it, even when the author must know better, and even when the author is not a layperson. Take Michael Crichton--surely he must have known better.

Oh, and apropos of really nothing, I liked your Wonder Woman idea in that thread a while back. I forgot to mention it there.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Well, if the technology is not the antagonist, why do the story in the future at all?

The future provides a convenient excuse for changing the specifics of an environment (places, names, races, etc) that gives you the ability to hide (or make more palatable) an analogy-based viewpoint. Like what Rod Serling said about Martians being able to say things Democrats and Republicans can't.

SF has always had two basic tracks - social commentary (beginning with Wells) and the wonders/ dangers of technology (beginning with Verne). And while certainly a lot of SF is future based, not all of it is. There's the fairly healthy (in books anyway) steampunk genre, for example.

It's been remarked on before, and is the origin of the whole remonikering SF to mean 'speculative fiction" rather than 'science fiction', that the line between science fiction and fantasy has become increasingly blurred. I finished The Passage last night, so I'll use it as an example:

SF characteristics - future-based, scientific experiments done by military result in killer virus, contains a pretty convincing projection of how a colony of humans live in the post-apocalyptic world that results

Fantasy charateristics - unexplained telepathy and clairvoyance show up in humans from the very beginning of the story, specifics of scientific experiments that result in killer virus are non-existent, various extraordinary and unexplained events occur (though the book is the first of trilogy so perhaps explanations are forthcoming)

PS - if you haven't read this, get it immediately. It's the best of its type to come down the pike in 25 years.

Anyway - could this increasing mix of science fiction and fantasy have to do with what Myasishchev is saying about science and its resultant technology reaching a stage where it seems like magic to a lot of people?

PS to Myasishchev - thanks for the compliment!

 

[iguana_tonante]

Maybe it's just a great way to stoke drama, but science fiction often seems to portray science and technology as dangerous and best left alone.

That's surely true, and it's been already commented, but I want to give another perspective: even in stories where technology is treated as dangerous, there are still elements of technology that are used positively. The issue is that, being fundamentally benign, they are not the focus of dramatic emphasis and they get glossed over. Zombies might be created by science running amuck, but they are still contained using shotguns and chainsaws, themselves products of technology. Sometimes, a cure or vaccine is devised, getting back on the usefulness of science (even if only to make up for its own mess). The difference is that they are not the focus of the narrative. So the morals of the story is perceived as "genetics: bad", not "shotguns: awesome!"

 

[Goliath]

I think part of the explanation lies in the fact that SF is a pretty broad church. You can tell pretty much any kind of story, and call it SF, so long as it has a technological-scientific component to it.

SF stories in which science goes too far have often been science-fictional versions of the Gothic novel. Frankenstein, for example, was as much a Gothic novel as it was the first science-fiction novel.

One of the commonest elements in Gothic fiction, as I understand it, is the Return of the Repressed in some form. The Thing is a perfect example: an alien spaceship has lain buried in the ice since time immemorial, until science goes too far, digs it up, and unleashes the horrors within. Change the setting from Antarctica to LV-426, and you've got the plot for Alien--another science-fictional story of Gothic horror. Change the setting from LV-426 to humanity's first starship, and you've got Event Horizon, in which the ghost ship was even laid out like a Gothic cathedral.

And speaking of zombies and shotguns--this same paradigm has also appeared again and again in science-fictional first-person shooters--Doom 3, for example, where an archaeological dig on Mars opens a portal to Hell, and allows an army of extra-dimensional demons to invade our reality. It's hard to imagine the repressed returning with greater vengeance than that.

 

[stj]

It is quite common for people to claim to "believe" in both God and science. If you don't rule out magic as being real, then why shouldn't it appear in some exotic imaginative scenario? The quick answer, because it's silly, carries no conviction for such people. It's like movie physics, it's cool and many people can't tell the difference. I'll never forget the disillusionment when it finally dawned on me that my beloved Andre Norton probably believed, deep down, that some people could cast illusions and such if they thought really, really hard!

Additionally, some people try to resolve the conflict between science and superstition by setting imaginary boundaries to science. Beyond that is God's territory, and venturing in is hubris. The fundamental incompatibility is resolved in favor of God. Accepting the benefits of science (aka technology,) like the shotguns mentioned above, is easy to do because it's so self serving, while striking a fictive blow for God is painless.

(Incidentally, re Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein abandons his creature, leaving him bereft of guidance. This parallels God's alleged abandonment of his creatures. Victor Frankenstein's well deserved death at his creature's hands is also an indictment against God. Mary Shelley was not Shelley himself, but how often does a wife really have nothing to do with her husband's beliefs? Frankenstein the novel is not just an antiscience, proGod tract. Ironically, the framing story, which makes the strongest antiscience statement, is almost always dropped, probably because it is least integral to the story.)

And there is yet another aspect, which is "technology" as a hamfisted metaphor for modern (mass) society. Star Trek in particular, with its frontier motifs, was strongly characterized by this usage I think. The Prime Directive, which is really a very individualist, even quasianarchist, moral principle expresses this very strongly.

 

[Myasishchev]

Additionally, some people try to resolve the conflict between science and superstition by setting imaginary boundaries to science. Beyond that is God's territory, and venturing in is hubris.

This is a common component in the "science is magic" psychological paradigm. Science is not understandable, hence science is magic; it is sometimes harmful or tells me things I do not approve of, hence it is magic opposed to God.

I had an interesting discussion today with someone on bioethics, specifically genetic engineering. They'd apparently written a paper on the subject, so they were not unknowledgeable, but it was evident they weren't really considering the issue of enhancement engineering rationally. Their basic platform rested on the notion that one takes away a certain "self-determination" when one (hypothetically) uses biotechnological means to ensure certain aptitudes and abilities (musical, for example). This may be true, but they didn't seem to get that this argument tacitly accepts the (wrong) notion that genes control everything, and that if that is so (it isn't, but...) then the current, morally acceptable arrangement could not possibly allow for any more "self" determination than intelligent intervention--or, for that matter, a dieroll or a coinflip! Random is often equated with free, when no more than moment's thought should be enough to persuade one that this is not the case. I think this logical trap snares them because somewhere, in their personal philosophy, there is a place for magic between the spindle and mitosis.* And to interfere with that magic would be, perforce, interfering with God.**

I tell this story to provide an example of technophobia that has no rational, only emotional basis, driven by a magical, supernatural worldview.

I will hasten to add that by no means is this person dumb, and they did correctly identify many of the problems inherent in human genetic engineering (rich-poor divide, the engineering of disability in cognitively diverse families, manipulation technology outpacing an understanding of causes and effects, etc). But the irrational argument is what sticks with me, because it provides a window into how they--and many others--see the world.

I think that's the worldview that informs much science fiction, especially the science fiction concerned with the misuse of science--and especially science that governs human beings, which much SF defines, almost reflexively, as misuse. But of course you'll find it in some post-atomic SF as well, where just because something is scientifically possible (the annihilation of much of humanity in nuclear war) it must historically inevitable. And then hash is made of how humanity must not meddle in the province of God (whether that be the release of potential energy by the strong nuclear force, genetic engineering, or, as in the rarely-commented-on anti-science premise of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the ultimate origin of the universe).

On the other hand, these kind of stories provide salutary effect. Obviously, it would be bad to nuke the Northern Hemisphere, or create phages tailored to race, or... well, I don't see anything bad about probing the Big Bang, but you get the picture. The problem is that these cautionary tales are often sensationalized and moralized in a way that reinforces the supernatural worldview, instead of merely providing a worst-case scenario in the event of misuse of any given technology.

*Then of course there's my creationist fellow student, who is merely insane. What's annoying is that this one is (evidently) much better at math than me. That's far more frustrating than a mere insane delusion, because when someone, by their own terms, insults their God by refusing to understand Its creation, they really oughtn't be blessed with the tools to understand it when someone who wants to understand it is so relatively impoverished.

**And divine intervention between the sperm and the egg doesn't sound any more self-determinative to me than randomness or human intervention. It rests on a factually incorrect notion, of course; that genetics predetermine one's entire psychological makeup. The complex adaptive model is far closer to reality. In any event, it's trivially true that self-determination requires a self, and since there is obviously no self present at conception, any self-determination needs must be handled later, I would think--when the self actually exists.

 

[clint g]

I had an interesting discussion today with someone on bioethics, specifically genetic engineering. They'd apparently written a paper on the subject, so they were not unknowledgeable, but it was evident they weren't really considering the issue of enhancement engineering rationally. Their basic platform rested on the notion that one takes away a certain "self-determination" when one (hypothetically) uses biotechnological means to ensure certain aptitudes and abilities (musical, for example). This may be true, but they didn't seem to get that this argument tacitly accepts the (wrong) notion that genes control everything, and that if that is so (it isn't, but...) then the current, morally acceptable arrangement could not possibly allow for any more "self" determination than intelligent intervention--or, for that matter, a dieroll or a coinflip! Random is often equated with free, when no more than moment's thought should be enough to persuade one that this is not the case. I think this logical trap snares them because somewhere, in their personal philosophy, there is a place for magic between the spindle and mitosis.* And to interfere with that magic would be, perforce, interfering with God.**

While it is true that genes aren't the only factor that make us who we are, it is entirely possible that they play a role. Sure, the extent of that role is not known but for all we know modifying someones genes can predispose someone to going down a certain path in life. Stealing your dieroll comparison, imagine having a six sided die. Each side represents a predisposition to something. 1=Lawyer, 2=scientist, 3=engineer, etc. Perhaps modifying someones genes can erase one of those sides, turning it into a 5 sided die. Maybe it takes the "lawyer" side and changes it to botanist. Who knows

 

[Myasishchev]

Regardless, it doesn't affect the self-determination argument, since randomly being assigned "lawyer" would be no different, for the person involved, than being intelligently assigned it.

While I say this as a (scientific) layman, my understanding is that environmental factors are probably far more prevalent in higher-order things like specific career choice than genes. Sure, analytical reasoning skills are important to either lawyering or botany, but the factors which shape someone into one or the other are going to be wholly different, and I would presume not entirely or even predominantly genetic.

I mean, I doubt there's much genetic basis specifically for aerospace engineer. Or nuclear physicist. These professions are so new, yet at the same time so widespread across geographical and population boundaries. There is, instead, a basis for mathematical faculties. I suppose it might well be possible to engineer a career into someone, but at this point we're talking so much, and so highly speculative, manipulation that we are no longer dealing with a predictable future or, perhaps, even a h. sapiens sapiens. That's really a bridge to burn when we come to it. No one ever asked Wilbur Wright about the ethics of Sir Arthur Harris' dehousing campaign, after all.

Edit: indeed, my genetic credentials as a lawyer are likely suspect themselves. I'm lazy, dreamy, and sometimes dogmatic. On the other hand, I don't see much better-tailored genetics in my fellows. Lawyer, I think, is rarely anyone's first career choice--unlike medical students, who tend to know that they will be doctors, we tend to be liberal arts majors who realized late that the only thing our liberal arts degrees were good for was law school. I strongly suspect this is why the ABA and its members are so desperate, in an almost date-rapey kind of way, to convince you that what we do is a calling.

I miss the old days, when all being a lawyer meant was that you could read and write.

 

[Thestral]

Some good thoughts in here. I think iguana has a really good point: even when Science Gone Wrong is the bad guy, oftentimes it's also science that saves the day. Though not obviously in Frankenstein.

Also, I was reminded of this from The Nostalgia Chick.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Well, if the technology is not the antagonist, why do the story in the future at all?

I suspect that answers 2/3 of the examples you can think of.

Clearly there are exceptions, but you've got to answer that question to make those happen. Gene Roddenberry got over that hurdle by claiming he was going to examine social issues that couldn't be told in their original form. So he got a pass.

Ok, that's good, but he'll always be in the minority, I think. For everyone else pitching a romantic comedy in the 24th century, they're gonna hear "why?" a lot from the people who control the money.

I think the OP is more right than wrong. Azimov once said that at it's essence, science-fiction was the examination of the logical implications of changes in science and technology.

That doesn't HAVE to imply "science as adversary", but it can.

The view of science in science-fiction tends to parrallel real world views of science. Frankenstein, for example, viewed science as a horror, just as the practices of doctors often were. It hadn't been that long since doctors had been forced into grave robbing to get cadavers for anatomy practice when that book came out.

Then we went into the "science and progress are synonymous" period of the late 1800s-early 1900s. From that to the "horrors of science unleased" of the post war period up to the 60s. The speculative period of the 60s-70s followed that, and the dystopian period of the 70s, and so forth.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

This is a common component in the "science is magic" psychological paradigm. Science is not understandable, hence science is magic; it is sometimes harmful or tells me things I do not approve of, hence it is magic opposed to God.

I had an interesting discussion today with someone on bioethics, specifically genetic engineering. They'd apparently written a paper on the subject, so they were not unknowledgeable, but it was evident they weren't really considering the issue of enhancement engineering rationally. Their basic platform rested on the notion that one takes away a certain "self-determination" when one (hypothetically) uses biotechnological means to ensure certain aptitudes and abilities (musical, for example). This may be true, but they didn't seem to get that this argument tacitly accepts the (wrong) notion that genes control everything, and that if that is so (it isn't, but...) then the current, morally acceptable arrangement could not possibly allow for any more "self" determination than intelligent intervention--or, for that matter, a dieroll or a coinflip! Random is often equated with free, when no more than moment's thought should be enough to persuade one that this is not the case. I think this logical trap snares them because somewhere, in their personal philosophy, there is a place for magic between the spindle and mitosis.* And to interfere with that magic would be, perforce, interfering with God.**

Sounds like in your friend's case, it wasn't a concern that bioengineering was interfering with God, but interfering with the natural order of things (which I suppose is generally the same thing people mean when they say "that's against God").

But see, that's exactly the kicker in our ambguous attitudes towards science - interfering with the natural order of things is great when we cure cancer, which is about as natural as it gets. But there's a line of interference where we get mighty uncomfortable.

I was just thinking through SF tales of genetic engineering - and it is almost universally shown as part of dystopic reality (AFAIK - my knowledge of the breadth and depth of SF is limited for sure. Where's Mistral when you need him?) So bioengineering to stop something that clearly causes pain and death = good. Bioengineering to enhance perfectly healthy folks = heebie jeebies.

I've seen some discussions in which people state we are all already cyborgs - that is, we are integrated physically with technology at a fairly high level, we simply haven't gone so far as to incorporate the technology directly into our bodies. There's another one of those lines. Bluetooths and iPhones - cool. Cell phone embedded in your cerebral cortex = heebie jeebies.

Some good thoughts in here. I think iguana has a really good point: even when Science Gone Wrong is the bad guy, oftentimes it's also science that saves the day. Though not obviously in Frankenstein.

Also, I was reminded of this from The Nostalgia Chick.

That's great!

 

[Myasishchev]

There was one book I read once that basically treats humans as natural cyborgs, and previously and independently Scott McCloud (of all people) had mused on it (in all places Reinventing Comics), explaining how humans identify with their technology, although I don't think he ever said the word "cyborg." One example McCloud gives is that the immediate reaction to a fender-bender is "He hit me!" instead of the more correct "His car hit my car!" But stone spears work as well. Of course, language is a technology, which is literally internalized.

Re: misgivings about upsetting the "natural order"--that suffers a logical flaw as well. Humans and human ingenuity arise from and form a part of the natural order.

 

[Thestral]

I'd be hard-pressed to disagree about how our dependence on technology has transformed our culture and us as people - and the world around us.

The thing about technology = cyborg though, and especially the idea of things like stone spears and language... well, humans aren't the only ones - especially with language. What would that mean?

Some good thoughts in here. I think iguana has a really good point: even when Science Gone Wrong is the bad guy, oftentimes it's also science that saves the day. Though not obviously in Frankenstein.

Also, I was reminded of this from The Nostalgia Chick.

That's great!

If you enjoyed that one, I would commend the rest of her work to you. And other stuff on the site, for that matter.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Re: misgivings about upsetting the "natural order"--that suffers a logical flaw as well. Humans and human ingenuity arise from and form a part of the natural order.

Very true - I've had that argument a hundred times.

Not very thoughtful environmentalist: Humans are destroying nature with all their building!!

Me: Birds build houses too - what's the difference?

NVTE: They're animals!

Me: So? We're animals too. If a bird's nest is natural, so is an apartment building.

NVTE: Uh UH!

Me: Why not?

NVTE: Because humans built it!


Funny how science and technology - our investigation of nature and the application of what we learn - has come to be seen as unnatural...

I'd be hard-pressed to disagree about how our dependence on technology has transformed our culture and us as people - and the world around us.

The thing about technology = cyborg though, and especially the idea of things like stone spears and language... well, humans aren't the only ones - especially with language. What would that mean?

Chimps use other technology as well - sticks for getting termites, very, very simple stone tools, etc. As far as what it means - just the same as we're talking about above. There's nothing fundamentally different about humans and animals, it's simply a matter of degree. We can't "destroy nature" because we are part of nature and whatever we do is therefore natural. We can destroy our, and other species' habitats, but we'd hardly be the first animals to do that. Doesn't matter in the grand scheme. We could wipe out 99% of species on earth (and probably will), nature and life and evolution will still toddle on. As far as nature is concerned, we're not really any more significant than ants.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Re: misgivings about upsetting the "natural order"--that suffers a logical flaw as well. Humans and human ingenuity arise from and form a part of the natural order.

To even presume that we understand fundamental forces like genetics to tamper with them is hubris of the worst order.

Science tends towards that flaw in general, really. Scientists presume that they have some special control over nature based on their allegedly superior knowledge and information. Only rarely do they stop and ask the crucial question: "what if we are WRONG?"

Many a sci-fi tale has stemmed from just that: the consequences of science being WRONG.