The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

by Carl Sagan

Other shortcomings are evident in television science fiction programming. Star Trek, for example, despite its charm and strong international and interspecies perspective, often ignores the most elementary scientific facts. The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life-form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke. The idea does, however, provide a precedent in popular culture for the extraterrestrial/human hybrids that later became so central a component of the alien abduction story. There must be dozens of alien species on the various Star Trek TV series and movies. Almost all we spend any time with are minor variants of humans. This is driven by economic necessity, costing only an actor and a latex mask, but it flies in the face of the stochastic nature of the evolutionary process. If there are aliens, almost all of them I think will look devastatingly less human than Klingons and Romulans (and be at wildly different levels of technology). Star Trek doesn’t come to grips with evolution.