Science fiction

Vox Day (actually Theodore Beale, a science fiction writer and video game designer) has been critiquing Darwinian evolution (which he calls TENS – Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection) of late: Here, he talks about recent findings that bird beaks don’t necessarily change to adapt to environmental conditions (as was thought to be the case with Darwin’s iconic finches in the Galapagos): Notice that the evolutionary skeptic’s position has consistently proven to be more reliably scientifically post-predictive than the mainstream evolutionist position: … I’m not even remotely surprised by this, although I am certainly amused given the central importance of bird beaks to the history of TENS. The more that biological science advances, particularly on the genetic front, the weaker, Read More ›

A historian asks: Science Fiction Lacks Religiosity, But Why? Consider science fiction which, like all genres, has its own share of standard tropes and themes. One of the main themes in science fiction is the status of technology, and you’ll notice a frequent assumption that technology will constantly grow more and more sophisticated over time; more precisely, the assumption is about a certain idea of progression… When people encounter alien cultures in science fiction, they’re usually on some sort of a spectrum of more or less technologically––and, therefore, intellectually––sophisticated. It’s very common, in these situations, that more primitive cultures have “religion” while more advanced cultures have dispensed with it. There’s no inherent reason that intellectual sophistication and religion should be Read More ›

Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel offers two scenarios where it wouldn’t: The second way out is to assume that the past isn’t written, and your actions do matter. The Universe, as it exists today, is not bound to the state its in right now if you travel back to the past. In a way, every action you take creates a new, alternate history for the Universe. You can kill your own grandpa before your parents are conceived; you can prevent your parents from meeting and falling in love; you can kill Hitler before World War II or assassinate Brutus and Cassius and Marc Antony before they assassinate Caesar. In short, you can change history. The only thing you have to give up, Read More ›

Yes, Intro of and why not? Take the medieval romances that feature Alexander the Great soaring heavenwards in a flying machine and exploring the depths of the ocean in his proto-submarine. Or that of the famous medieval traveller, Sir John Mandeville, who tells of marvellous, automated golden birds that beat their wings at the table of the Great Chan. Like those of more modern science fictions, medieval writers tempered this sense of wonder with scepticism and rational inquiry. Geoffrey Chaucer describes the procedures and instruments of alchemy (an early form of chemistry) in such precise terms that it is tempting to think that the author must have had some experience of the practice. Yet his Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale also displays Read More ›

Good sci fi, but … From astrophysicist Paul Sutter at Space.com: The concept of wormholes got its start when physicist Ludwig Flamm, and later Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, realized that black holes can be “extended.” When one goes about solving the fantastically complicated equations of general relativity, the machinery that predicts a black hole also predicts a phenomenon called a white hole. A white hole is pretty much what you think: Whereas a black hole’s event horizon marks a region of space that once you enter you can’t leave, it’s impossible to enter a white hole’s horizon, although anything already in there can escape. That same mathematical machinery delivers a bonus, too: All black holes would be naturally “connected” Read More ›

From their earliest cinematic appearance in Georges Méliès’s “A Trip to the Moon” in 1902, our conception of life beyond Earth has changed to reflect our hopes and fears, the technology we’ve mastered, and our growing knowledge of the universe. Watch our depictions of extraterrestrial life change over nearly 100 films and 112 years. Good chance the vid below is as good as it’ll get re space aliens. Follow UD News at Twitter! B

Geek Anders Exoself (yes, we think it is a pseud too) dismisses the hope of finding a huge Earth naturally (“We can do better if we abandon the last pretence of the world being able to form naturally (natural metal microlattices, seriously?)”) and considers the issues around just building a giant habitable planet from scratch: Why aim for a large world in the first place? There are three apparent reasons. The first is simply survival, or perhaps Lebensraum: large worlds have more space for more beings, and this may be a good thing in itself. The second is to have more space for stuff of value, whether that is toys, gardens or wilderness. The third is to desire for diversity: Read More ›