Science Hatred in Science Fiction

Time for an anecdote:

When I was young, in the days before STAR WARS when only a small and happy band of what are now called geeks read science fiction, I actually believed the propaganda recited by such figures as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov that the science fiction readership was smarter, more interested in ideas, more insightful than the general public.

Several things diminished my faith in that bit of flatter over the years. Once was a science fiction convention where I served on a panel with some gray haired member of the old guard, a fan from the days of John W Campbell Jr.

The topic of abortion came up. I asked him only about the scientific facts of the question without inquiring into his moral stance. I asked him, for example, if the “fetus” (his terminology, not mine. He did not know that the word refers to a stage of development, not to a species of organism) were alive. He said no. The fetus is potentially alive, not actually alive.

He did not know the scientific definition of life every High School student knows. I forbore from asking him how the allegedly nonliving organism managed to grow, etc.

I asked him if the fetus had an XX or XY chromosome pair? In other words, was the fetus definitely male or female?

He said no. A fetus with XX chromosomes was only potentially female. Biologically and scientifically speaking, the organism in question was as sexless as an amoeba.

I asked him if a organism is halfway out of the womb, let us say the lower half is out, but the upper half is still lodged in the birth canal, is the lower half sexual  but the upper half sexless? Would the cells composing her sexual organs, for example, define her sex? But the brain cells in its brain did not?

At the moment when the organism was exactly halfway out of the womb, was the organism a nonliving fetus from the middle up, but a living human being from the middle down?

The conversation moved to another topic, and I did not get an answer to this question.

I also did not get a chance to ask him if he had flunked High School biology.

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.