Sex - The Most Important Invention Ever...

[trekkerguy]

If I read this correctly it's not about mixing franchises.

Just the elements of them that make them successful and constantly renewable.

 

[Lord Garth]

^ Yeah, I know. I'm just saying there's another type of mixing. I think the impact of the actors and actresses is underestimated sometimes.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

(Hey, mods, I'm going somewhere with this. Really.)
It appears that sexual reproduction is about a billion years old, give or take. Most forms of life on Earth reproduce sexually,

I haven't read the entire thread so maybe this has come up before, but over half of the biomass on Earth is microorganisms, and they reproduce asexually. It's kind of a side point in your biological argument, but still...

with sex being defined as the production of offspring through the mixing and recombination of traits from more than one parent.

The major advantage of sexual reproduction over fission, for instance, is the spread of advantageous traits possessed initially by one or a few organisms throughout a population.

That's not actually the advantage of sexual reproduction. In fact, the spread of advantageous traits is not what evolution is about. So long as a trait doesn't kill you, it gets passed along. It's a 19th century notion of "progress" that assumes evolution works towards more and more advantageous sets of traits. It doesn't. It removes traits from a population. If a trait is not that great, but doesn't kill an organism, it continues. Therefore, "advantageous" traits spread just as easily among asexually reproducing organisms as they do among sexually reproducing organisms. That's how we get anti-biotic resistant bacteria.

(If you "don't believe in evolution" you really can just skip this whole thread. Thanks for reading this far.)

Often fans will say that "Star Trek has to evolve" in order to survive. Having said that, they then argue about the bookkeeping details - usually, over what are the core "strengths" or what's the "essence" of Trek or "what Trek needs to get back to" or "preserve."

Fine, but that's got nothing to do with the initial premise of that discussion - evolution.

There are several mechanisms behind evolution. Mutation is an essential but unpredictable and occasional one. Sexual reproduction is the engine that's proved crucial to successful and efficient evolution as we understand it.

Sex is the recombination of elements from more than one parent to produce something new that at best has the strongest characteristics of both parents.

Evolution is not about a single organism pushing out the boundaries from the inside. It's not about getting back to "what worked" for the single organism at an earlier stage of life.

Actually DNA is an enormously conservative molecule. You are correct that sexual reproduction allows novel combinations of traits but this does not create variety in the gene pool, only in the combinations of genes already in the pool. It means that should the environment change and a trait which didn't kill an individual before suddenly does, among the individuals who survive, there is more of the original gene pool still spread around because of all the novel combinations. But the original gene pool has not fundamentally changed - it has only been tossed like a salad. New traits only come to be through mutation, and 99% of those are deadly to an organism.

Fans fret about Trek "turning into" some other familiar franchise ("Star Wars" seems to be the most common and anxiety-inducing example invoked) because of permitting elements from those other franchises, films or stories into Trek.

That's what a lot of fans seem to be currently afraid of in regards to the new "Star Trek" movie.

Well, the possibility that this movie will turn "Star Trek" into something that it hasn't been before as a result of bringing in new story and stylistic elements from other successful films and stories is the real hope of the movie, IMAO.


"Star Trek" won't turn into "Star Wars" or "Top Gun" or any other existing film/franchise/story. At best, it will "turn into" something new and vital with characteristics of all its progenitors.

Unfortunately, "keeping Trek pure" means weakening it and not letting evolution occur except through spontaneous mutation. If "Star Trek" is a closed system which must reproduce itself primarily by looking only or mainly to its genetic/memetic past and privileging that over all outside influences, it weakens and will - hell, should - die out.

Mostly I agree with your point, I just think your biological analogy is flawed through some common misconceptions about genetics and evolution. However, there is an analogy to be had in there. Like DNA, long-running, multi-author stories tend to have a certain conservatism, running along with the same essential elements for long periods of time and then undergoing periods of upheaval in which numerous new elements come to be (usually in relation to some sort of environmental change). This is periodic evolution and it is a debated, but increasingly accepted view of how evolution occurs in the natural world (see the works of Stephen Jay Gould). This is what happens when someone suddenly turns Robin Hood from a cut-throat highwayman into a noble bandit who steals from the rich to give to the poor, which is what happened in the 1500s when an author took the old hero from 12th century ballads and wrote a series of plays about him in which he was barely recognizable as the same figure - except for the names.

"Star Trek" can only flourish if the creators are eager to continually bring new elements from other successful story forms - as well as the occasional, rare true mutation of internal innovation - into Trek and allow the combination to become a new form of "Star Trek" - really distinct and with distinctive new strengths that Trek hasn't previously possessed.

The difficulty with Star Trek is that these periods of "evolution" are forced. They do not occur "naturally", that is, through inspiration. They happen because someone at the studio wants to "revujenate" the "franchise" rather than because someone has a great idea of something to do with the Star Trek universe. It's genetic engineering versus periodic evolution. It is the nature of genetic engineering that most complex organisms that are engineered, die. The nature of genetics are simply too complex for us to manipulate at this point in human history. DNA does not, could not ever constantly introduce new elements. Life would not exist under those circumstances. Life cannot afford to mess about with what works because the balance between life and environment is finely tuned. That's why it's difficult to tell a human fetus from a fish fetus at the early stages. I would venture the same is likely true for stories. They may be consumed in great quantities when they are released, but staying power is hard to invent. It happens in a much more organic way, as in how TOS caught the public imagination and survived even though it was a rather weak organism in the gene pool of entertainment. The likelihood of this engineered version Star Trek having the staying power of TOS is remote, but possible. Doesn't mean it won't make a ton of money though.

This incredibly annoying and probably boring post brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood chick with degrees in molecular biology and art education. How's that for some recombination?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Boring? Annoying? I think I'm in love!

( )

Edit: Isn't there a theory that sex exists to slow down evolutionary change? That kind of ties into your point about the conservatism of multi-author stories.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This is periodic evolution and it is a debated, but increasingly accepted view of how evolution occurs in the natural world (see the works of Stephen Jay Gould). This is what happens when someone suddenly turns Robin Hood from a cut-throat highwayman into a noble bandit who steals from the rich to give to the poor, which is what happened in the 1500s when an author took the old hero from 12th century ballads and wrote a series of plays about him in which he was barely recognizable as the same figure - except for the names.

Now that's interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks.

It seems likely to me that if Star Trek is remembered for more than a few decades that it'll be best remembered for some incarnation that is yet to come and the exact nature of which we've no way of anticipating.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

This is periodic evolution and it is a debated, but increasingly accepted view of how evolution occurs in the natural world (see the works of Stephen Jay Gould). This is what happens when someone suddenly turns Robin Hood from a cut-throat highwayman into a noble bandit who steals from the rich to give to the poor, which is what happened in the 1500s when an author took the old hero from 12th century ballads and wrote a series of plays about him in which he was barely recognizable as the same figure - except for the names.

Now that's interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks.

Not sure if you're referring to the periodic evolution thing or the Robin Hood thing, but if you want to know more check out Gould's Dinosaur in a Haystack - one of his many collections of essays. There are a couple of good ones in there which introduce his theory of "punctuated equilibrium", or periodic evolution. For Robin Hood try Stephen James Knight's Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography which discusses the changes everybody's favorite outlaw has undergone over the years.

It seems likely to me that if Star Trek is remembered for more than a few decades that it'll be best remembered for some incarnation that is yet to come and the exact nature of which we've no way of anticipating.

Without a doubt. I tried to steer clear of Complexity Theory in my first post, but unpredictability is a fundamental law of the area in which life exists, which is a kind of wave edge between order and chaos. A mythos (defining that as any long-lasting story cycle) is essentially life-like and should follow the same laws. That's why I'd be happy to wait for inspiration to drive the process rather than engineering. But that's me - I don't have any money invested in Star Trek, and the producers do. I continue to hope the movie will be a brilliant reinvention with all the vitality, life and originality of TOS. I've not really seen anything to lead me to believe that it will be that, but I still hope it will be so.