[asa] science fiction [was with creationism]

I'm trying again on this post as it seems to have disappeared yesterday.

I can't resist jumping in here (as a self-appointed sci-fi critic).

While I have as much fun as the next guy poking fun at the pseudo-science of
fiction works, I've become recently more sensitive to a "higher" side of that
genre. I.e. that the fiction side may be the more significant part as opposed
to the science. And now your discussion here makes me think this concern is
parallel to our debates over how the Bible is approached. Here is what I mean:
 good science fiction, to my mind, has a message – and that message is using
science and technology merely as the medium. I.e. I can poke fun at how the
term evolution is bandied about and conceptualized in Star-trek episodes, but
such technical inaccuracies are secondary to the story-line and the message
being delivered. It’s sort of like learning to enjoy earlier science fiction
that is riddled with now obsolete technical detail (e.g. fifties era
conceptions of futuristic computers and robots all hulking and clunky because
almost nobody foresaw that “smaller” and not bigger is where such things would
go) -- all that becomes too distracting to the technophile who can’t get his
mind off the inaccuracy of it. He misses what may have been the main points of
the story in the first place.

This is just like somebody getting all bent out of shape that Job or the
psalmist speaks of the foundations of the earth in ways that would seem to
indicate immovability (because, well, umm, they thought it was) – and then
because of that being unable to contemplate whatever point was being made in the
first place (which had nothing to do with modern geology). Becoming more of an
accomodationist on all this myself, I’m going to have to work on how I react to
movies I watch with my family. It may well be there is more Truth (or
Falsehood) to be found in the “fiction” part of science fiction than in the
science (even if the latter were flawless according to the current times.)

George, your book is tempting. I may have to look it up. C.S. Lewis’ space
trilogy is for me a perfect example of what I’ve been saying. Nobody would read
that today hoping to be impressed with accurate and up-to-date science. And I
would say that those concerns were probably peripheral at best to the author’s
intentions, anyway. While some sci-fi may actually be about science or
technology, I propose an ironic claim that most of it (the good stuff) actually
isn’t about science or technology at all. Or if it is, it is about Science with
a capital S and its relationship to society. The minutia of actual science
would make for immensely boring and rather vacuous (non?)-fiction. Enjoyment
of great classics of sci-fi separates the real readers from the mere
technophiles if I may venture such a bold claim. And Dawkins & Co., definitely
are locked into the technophile approach to the Bible.

--Merv

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Received on Fri Apr 20 08:56:58 2007