Sunday, September 22, 2013
Interpretations of Evolution From Science Fiction
In the 19th Century, Darwin published his landmark books, "The Origin of Species," and "The Descent of Man," and changed the way we saw life and its origins. In 2013, the theories are now more accurately described as "theorems," as is, theories that are so well-demonstrated to be true that any questions of their validity must be very, very convincing to disprove the theorem, and so far, no anti-evolution claim has ever held up under close scientific scrutiny. In science fiction, SF writers, myself included, tend to extrapolate on trends and evolutionary history, showing how life might look thousands or even millions of years from now. This type of extrapolation is not just the domain of science-fiction, a few years ago, there was even a documentary called "The Future Is Wild," based off of an earlier book by the same author, Dougal Dixon, called "Life After Man." I own DVDs and an electronic copy of the "Future" set and the book, "Life After Man," as well as the book companion to the DVD set, and one can easily see how Dixon, a renowned evolutionist from Scotland, I believe, extrapolated these evolutionary concepts of life into the world as geologists predict it will look, 50 million years, 100 million years, and 200 million years from now, respectively, by using modern science and geology, as well as extrapolating fossils into the future, based on how life has evolved to cope with challenges in the past, to create some truly fantastic environments based on the theorem of evolution. (Incidentally, Dixon has two more E-books out in this same set, called "Man After Man," the future of human evolution, and a book about what dinosaurs might have evolved into in the modern-day, had they not gone extinct, so this extrapolation is not limited to future environments, alternate histories are also very common in SF and other forms of speculative fiction.) Popular examples of evolutionary SF are Planet of the Apes, where apes, enhanced by humans, evolve to take over the world and commit a Holocaust against humans, Miyazaki's Japanese anime classics Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, where animals have evolved human sentience, in the case of the wolves and boars in Mononoke and the "Toxic Jungle" and the sentient Ohm insect monsters in Nausicaa, and various T.V. shows, such as the X-Files "Host" episode and Star Trek: The Next Generation- Genesis Episode. Also, evolution and ecology also play a role in Dune and Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain novels, as well as Arthur C. Clarke's trilogy on the colonization of Mars, with the "terraforming" of Mars, or building Earth-like conditions on it. Evolution is a vast concept, and one of the six critical points of Darwinism, outlined by Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, is that it is an ongoing process. Who knows what the future holds, but we know one thing. No species lasts forever.
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But what species can control its environment and deliberately manipulate DNA. Is the real issue, what do we want to evolve into?
ReplyDeleteCurrently, no species can do what you described, but humans are very close, and that may not always be a good thing. Michio Kaku has stated that in 30 years, DNA manipulation will be so commonplace that even a student at say, the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, would be able to genetically engineer a virus that would kill off a good chunk of the human race, and a vaccine for it, all in a few hours. I am actually writing a novel about a young woman with a SERIOUS ego and attitude problem that does just that, and spreads the virus while vaccinating herself all of her allies because someone insulted her dress at a scientific awards banquet. So yes, there is potential for abuse of the technology.
DeleteI think the more critical question here would be: would it really be better for humans to attempt to manipulate their would be natural evolution? In Orson Scott Card's series Pathfinder, nineteen separate colonies, all sharing one copy of each colonial man or woman, are walled off from one another. Each set of humans is then manipulated according to the whim of a sort of robot, combining them with an alien species, or something of the sort. One of the colonies--the only one with access to previous Earth history--advances scientifically far enough to manipulate their evolution easily. "We made ourselves tall and slender at first. We metabolized food very efficiently, so we required less of it per person. And we rebuilt ourselves to concentrate on the brain. Each increase in brain size required more blood for the brain, less for the rest of the body. So the leaner we were, the better, Any organs we could eliminate or shrink saved blood." (Card, Ruins pp225) They eventually changed tactics and made themselves look like yahoos from Robinson Curusoe because they though it would help them with something that had happened in the past. They were so fickle about it though! And people would be now too. Humans right now certainly don't know what will be best for the future of the human race, and shouldn't 'play god', to use a familiar term.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that even though humans do not know the consequences of manipulating DNA and RNA to create new organisms, the sense of wonder and the potential to learn about evolution in general by watching it happen in a lab would settle a LOT of debate and be quite astonishing. There is, however, a risk, such as the unfortunate scientists who created the genetic abomination "Mewtwo" in Pokémon, or the hideous deaths of the Fascist government scientists in the Japanese series Elfen Lied. If the creature is more advanced than humans, as "Lucy" and "Mewtwo" were, or something like that German Haidnur pagan god "Harke" in my Google+ profile window, and it ever found that out, we could have a truly apocalyptic scenario on our hands. So, yes, I see your point, based on other science-fiction examples and the complex moral questions they ask. But still...REAL. POKEMON. (sorry, just had to put that.)
DeleteI'm all in favor of scientific research on gene manipulation; there is an infinite number of exceptionally beneficial uses. Test tube babies are actually pretty brilliant, for example, for people who can't have children, or whose children would be genetically fated to contract a disease or be born with a condition. Then the human element came into play, and a whole bunch of people wanted to use the gene manipulation for designer babies. As much as I love Mewtwo, (and am VERY much so looking forward to its Mega evolutions) I don't think that society was truly ready to face the consequences of 'playing god' to create him, either. Though it's been years since I watched the first movie, I believe Mewtwo was already causing a lot of turmoil before Ash and crew arrived on the scene, and this group of ten year old kids had to tame the world's most powerful (not) pokemon. While I certainly believe there's potential, and most definitely a sense of wonder, I also hope they don't advance too fast.
ReplyDelete[[Quick after thought: In HG, Team Rocket is forcing pokemon to evolve--what if, in the real world, some organization starts doing that with animals, and the government produces propaganda which convinces the masses it's for their benefit (as well as ours, probably) and they turn out being these fierce beats that live in tall grass, jumping to attack anyone who walks through it? BUT the animals have humanity, or something like it, instilled in them, so they can be loving and friendly if you tame them? Of course,. taming in the real world would probably require a heavy hand, and we probably wouldn't have the science for self containment devices like poke balls, and our veterinary hospitals don't have boxes that suddenly revive animals who're dangling an inch from life...yeah, there really ARE a lot of complex moral questions!!