Robert Sawyer, guest blogging for Borders,
writes about an upcoming panel at
Readercon in Boston that asks "Is Darwinism Too Good for SF?"* The panelists will be
Jeff Hecht (science writer, primarily about lasers and optics and occasional SF writer),
Caitlin Kiernan (primarily a horror writer with a background in vertebrate paleontology),
Anil Menon (SF writer with background in computer science),
James Morrow (SF writer who often satirizes organized religion),
Steven Popkes (SF writer and software engineer) and
Sawyer (whose Neanderthal trilogy does touch on evolutionary themes). I hope I'm mistaken, but the panel seems dominated by people who likely don't know much about modern biology. When SF panels focus on physics it seems that physicists usually participate, so it's a shame they couldn't find more panelists with a biology background.
Anyway, here's the description:
This year marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of The Origin of Species and the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth. Considering the importance of the scientific idea, there has been surprisingly little great sf inspired by it. We wonder whether, in fact, if the theory has been too good, too unassailable and too full of explanatory power, to leave the wiggle room where speculative minds can play in. After all, physics not only has FTL and time travel, but mechanisms like wormholes that might conceivably make them possible. What are their equivalents in evolutionary theory, if any?
It's an interesting question and Sawyer is asking for comments and suggestions.
Here's the comment I left:
I don't think that comparing FTL and time travel are really analogous to evolutionary theory (which - the former are primarily technologies while the latter is an explanation of how the natural world works. Evolution should be as much a part of good world building as gravitation.
That being said, in the science fiction context I think there are multiple ways evolutionary theory can be used, such as stories that look at our evolutionary descendants in the far future (Wells' "The Time Machine", Silverberg's "Son of Man"), alternative evolution on Earth (Wilson's "Darwinia", Harrison's "West of Eden"), and evolution on other planets (Niven & Pournelle's "Mote in God's Eye", Blish's "A Case of Conscience").
I'd also argue that evolutionary theory is so tightly intertwined with modern genetics that human-directed evolution using genetic engineering should also be included (Atwood's "Oryx and Crake", Kagan's "Mirabile" ). I'd wager those are more realistic than FTL travel.
That's off the top of my head - there are certainly other novels that should be included in the list.
Go add your own suggestions.
* I really hate the panel title. I don't want novels with "Darwinism", I want novels with modern evolutionary theory. "Darwinism" is what the creationists call it.
Tags:science fiction, biology
One of the most unique offerings at SciFiction is Michael Swanwick's "Periodic Table of Science Fiction", which has a short short story linked to each element in the periodic table. It starts with "The Hindenburg" for Hydrogen (atomic number 1) and continues all the way through "Now You See It Now You" for Ununoctium (atomic number 118). I don't think it's surprising that some of the bits work better than others, but it's a clever concept.
