Abstract
One of the many possible applications of science fiction is that it may be employed as a mean to discuss ethical dilemmas connected with (possible) scientific and technological developments. There are probably several imaginable ways that this can be done (see also Chap. 6 in this volume), but of course, the most direct approach impinges on the possibility of creating a credible empirical scenario that allows the story to unfold in such way that it may have a bearing on the ‘real’ ethical dilemma that is being treated. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that discussions of the scientific credibility of various scenarios portrayed in science fiction has long been considered an important element in taking a critical approach to science fiction. As this chapter will illustrate, evaluating the credibility of the science behind science fiction is more complicated than might be expected.
Ash: “You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.”
Lambert: “You admire it.”
Ash: “I admire its purity. A survivor… unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.”
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Notes
- 1.
As the purpose here is to discuss the intruder of the Alien films as a biological and evolutionary construct, I have taken the liberty of excluding Ridley Scott’s recent Prometheus (2012) from the following discussions, as this movie presents a somewhat creationist model of the origins of both humankind, as well as the Alien species (which is presented as a biological weapon gone awry).
- 2.
‘Lay people’ is used here as a somewhat less precise term for people who are not considered experts – i.e. have formal training within the field, they are addressing. This common-sense approach ignores the rather complicated discussion about what exactly constitutes an expert (see, for instance Wynne 2003). However, I believe it will be sufficient for my purposes in this chapter.
- 3.
Of course, some scientific discussions (for instance within the domain of climate science) may have ramifications well beyond the borders of academia (IPCC 2013). As such, they should indeed be the cause of public concern. Whether this should also be the case for any ‘normal’ (sensu Kuhn 1962) scientific dispute is another matter.
- 4.
Gould appears in A Colder War as an expert on the Burgess Shale fossils – a group of extinct Cambrian animals that is the focus of his evolutionary bestseller Wonderful Life (1989). In Wonderful Life, Gould argues that the Cambrian was a period of ‘evolutionary experimentation’ giving rise to a multitude of animal body plans, most of which later went extinct. The Burgess Shale fossils themselves are examples of how bio-fictional constructs have captured the imagination of alternate history novelists, who have been intrigued by the prominent role Gould ascribes to contingency in evolution. Apart from making their way into A Colder War, the Burgess Shale fossils also make their appearance in William Gibson’s and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine (1990/2011) – a steampunk novel based on the premise that the computer was invented and put into production during the Victorian Age. In line with the general message of this paper, Gould’s evolutionary interpretation of the Burgess Shale fossils has been the subject of controversy. Briggs (1990) has argued that morphological disparity in Cambrian multicellular arthropods was much less than what Gould presupposes and Conway Morris (1998) has argued that all of the major conclusions of Wonderful Life are basically flawed, and that constraint and evolutionary convergence has played a much more predominant role in the shaping of animal evolution than contingency. See Baron (2011) as well as below.
- 5.
Apparently this distinction escapes Thomas et al. completely.
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Baron, C. (2017). The Perfect Organism: The Intruder of the Alien Films as a Bio-fictional Construct. In: Baron, C., Halvorsen, P., Cornea, C. (eds) Science Fiction, Ethics and the Human Condition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56577-4_2
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