Science and Fiction in Science Fiction

[Aquarius]

Glad my ramblings helped, panyasan!

[Alelou]

Missed a bit, have been sick all day and really can't stay on long but thought everyone may be interested in this if it hasn't been posted yet:

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/0 ... mera.shtml

Scientists create “interspecies” rodent using embryonic stem cells
"Although both are rodents, the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and the house mouse (Mus musculus) have evolved separately for up to 20 million years."

Edit: BTW, I didn't mean for this to support anyone's view. Just thought, because of the topic, it would interest people.

Interesting and a little scary. I tend to think we should be cautious as hell with this stuff.

So do these new chimeric mice have the ability to reproduce normally themselves? I didn't see that discussed.

[Silverbullet]

Alelou, you are very right it is scary. It appears as if Science is wandering in to realms where t has no guide posts.

I believe that there have been many writers of both Fiction and fact that have warned about things like this. No dr, Frankenstein Monster but always the peril of something getting loose

[crystalswolf]

A lot was not discussed in the article about the experiment. I also wanted to know what measures were taken, if any, to allow for safe gestation. I remembered watching a Discovery Channel show a while ago where there was a small comment about this experiment. I just happened to come across this topic again and thought immediately of this discussion. I can't find any more info on those chimeras though. Wish I could!

Side note. The more I look into it, the more I think it's anyone's guess about the whole issue. For instance, apparently there are human chimeras. They do not even know it until they catch a disease or something that highlights this.

As for the thread topic, Aquarius explained far better than I did, it seems. The last sentence especially:

'When responders use language like "you can't do that" or "that can't happen" or "good thing you didn't write it that way," it comes off as a shut-down that suggests social pressure toward conformity to how someone else thinks the story should be written, and I think that's what CW is objecting to.'

I see these kinds of comments pop up whenever this topic is discussed. That's why I suggested what I did.

[Pegmumm]

It's ironic that we talk about cross planetary species hybrids and how approving or disapproving we are... but cross mice and wow.

Maybe we aren't as enlightened as all that?
And maybe its okay to discuss this sort of thing in a fiction story but real life... well that's different?
And then again maybe it's a human thing. We don't want anyone threatening our place at the top of the food chain.
Just messin' with ya.

peg

[Alelou]

When I see the damage that some insect or plant that hitched a ride from China is doing to parts of our environment, I think it's entirely reasonable to worry about what some unpredictable new combination of species might do out there in an environment that hasn't evolved to deal with it. This is obviously more of a concern with species that propagate quickly and have no moral scruples or codes of conduct to stop them from doing what comes naturally.

Hawaii is plagued by mongooses and Puerto Rican tree frogs. Australia is plagued with giant toads. The South is awash in kudzu vine and Florida's fresh waterways with water hyacinth. The Great Lakes are being colonized by zebra mussels. I spend July and August battling Japanese beetles. Meanwhile, the maples, viburnums and ash face are under serious threat from new insects from Asia. All these 'invasive' situations are somewhat inevitable, and have been occurring for a long time (our apples and daylilies were invaders once, too), but do we really need to add in unpredictable NEW species that never evolved anywhere but were created with a laboratory roll of the genetic dice?

[WarpGirl]

OK for me personally the only true science I really care about is the science of astronomy is ST. The science of space and stars to me is the most important. Anything else is fine by me. Because we are dealing with "strange" life and fiction too. So mixing spieces to me is all good.

[Silverbullet]

WG, in fiction mixing species is fun. but I believe what was being expressed was that many times the cure became a worse problem. Species were brought into Hawaii and Australia toeliminate one problem and the species brought in became a new problem.

Genetics is really new in terms of Science. and playing with it can be dyn-O-Mite. Creating a new species in a lab and not knowing entirely is properties can result in something that could be a threat and might possibly be uncontrollable.

In ST the Augemtns would be a new species of superhumans but they became convinced they wre superior and that ordinary Humans needed to be ruled by them. Too Phlox spoke of wars being fought to eliminate the threat of genetically altered beings. That that type of science was outlawed on Earth.

I have read Science fiction where Humans evolved in to Superior beings over eons. Possibly.

[WarpGirl]

I was just stating my thoughts on the topic of science in ST. Truthfully, I got lost from the the paths of discussion.

[justTripn]

I'm an amatuer astronomer and people sometimes say, Wow that must help you write fanfiction. No . . . not really. It might even be a liability because a knowledge of astronomy just makes you see mistakes all over the place in Star Trek. I don't even want to go over them, they are so annoying to think about and they undermine the whole story. My other pet peeve is using the Universal Translater to go impersonate an alien on another planet as Transwarp pointed out. (Doesn't anyone notice that their lips aren't in sych with their speech?) That drives me up a wall. BUT! Many science-y people love Star Trek. What we are looking for is at least a little internal consistency with the conventions established in this science fiction universe. And we are looking for a wink and a nod once in a while towards real scientific concepts. Or not . . . I have noticed that Farscape doesn't even try to offer scientific explanations for all the wierd phenomenon encountered. It's like, what if everyone's personality jumps over one body to the person they are standing next to? What then? Great question!!!! On Farscape, they will probably attribute it to an energy blast or something. They don't even try to get scientific. But the drama they set up is fantastic. I think it's more about exploring these wilds sorts of questions.

[pdsldl]

To me Farscape was a totally different deal mostly because they were in a different universe with no humans and they never even suggested that world was based in Earth standards like Star Trek was. The science, wonders, worlds, rules, species etc... were all new so it was wide open and they were smart enough to never offer any explanations for how anything really worked so it was okay to accept it as possible in the UT.

[Aquarius]

I'm an amatuer astronomer and people sometimes say, Wow that must help you write fanfiction. No . . . not really. It might even be a liability because a knowledge of astronomy just makes you see mistakes all over the place in Star Trek. I don't even want to go over them, they are so annoying to think about and they undermine the whole story. My other pet peeve is using the Universal Translater to go impersonate an alien on another planet as Transwarp pointed out. (Doesn't anyone notice that their lips aren't in sych with their speech?) That drives me up a wall. BUT! Many science-y people love Star Trek. What we are looking for is at least a little internal consistency with the conventions established in this science fiction universe. And we are looking for a wink and a nod once in a while towards real scientific concepts. Or not . . . I have noticed that Farscape doesn't even try to offer scientific explanations for all the wierd phenomenon encountered. It's like, what if everyone's personality jumps over one body to the person they are standing next to? What then? Great question!!!! On Farscape, they will probably attribute it to an energy blast or something. They don't even try to get scientific. But the drama they set up is fantastic. I think it's more about exploring these wilds sorts of questions.

Actually I totally get this. Not that I run into it that often, but in the rare instance I watch a movie or TV show and someone's getting their hair cut, I hate watching the actors fake it. One was "Say It Isn't So" with Heather Graham. She played a hairdresser--granted, not a good one, I think, but still, I cringed, thinking "No one holds the hair like that!"

[Transwarp]

I'm an amateur astronomer and people sometimes say, Wow that must help you write fanfiction. No . . . not really. It might even be a liability because a knowledge of astronomy just makes you see mistakes all over the place in Star Trek.

Indeed. There is almost zero correlation between astronomy in the ST universe and in the real universe. It would be cringe-worthy, except this as one of those areas that is so commonly and completely abused by ignorant script writers that the only time I ever notice is when they get it right. And when that happens, I'm astounded.

[Alelou]

Okay, yes, they probably are ignorant, being English major types, but even if they weren't, wouldn't the ability to tell stories anything like what we're used to -- with weekly episodes set in different systems with different species, and back-and-forth relationships among them -- be utterly crippled by any serious attempt at astronomical and scientific reality?

[pdsldl]

That was all covered by warp drive, which is a scientific impossibility fans collectively agreed to ignore from day one. And it was a given that the distance/time required to get from one place to another was plot dependent most of the time unless the journey was the basis for the episode. Alelou is right without this there would have been no way to tell varied and exciting stories with new species and places.