{"id":237,"date":"2009-05-03T15:26:16","date_gmt":"2009-05-03T20:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=237"},"modified":"2009-12-21T23:38:51","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T04:38:51","slug":"forever-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=237","title":{"rendered":"Forever Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eleven years ago, Random House published my book To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 With the occasion of the premiere of the Star Trek<\/em> reboot film and with my mind still bruised from the turgid awfulness of Battlestar Galactica<\/em>, I decided to post the epilogue of my book, very lightly updated — as an antidote to blas\u00e9 pseudo-sophistication and a reminder that Prometheus is humanity’s best embodiment.\u00a0 My major hope for the new film is that Uhura does more than answer phones and\/or smooch Kirk.<\/p>\n

\"star-trek\"<\/p>\n

Coda:\u00a0 The Infinite Frontier<\/strong><\/p>\n

A younger science than physics, biology is more linear and less exotic than its older sibling.\u00a0 Whereas physics is (mostly) elegant and symmetric, biology is lunging and ungainly, bound to the material and macroscopic.\u00a0 Its predictions are more specific, its theories less sweeping.\u00a0 And yet, in the end, the exploration of life is the frontier that matters the most.\u00a0 Life gives meaning to all elegant theories and contraptions, life is where the worlds of cosmology and ethics intersect.<\/p>\n

Our exploration of Star Trek<\/em> biology has taken us through wide and distant fields — from the underpinnings of life to the purposeful chaos of our brains; from the precise minuets of our genes to the tangled webs of our societies.<\/p>\n

How much of the Star Trek<\/em> biology is feasible?\u00a0 I have to say that human immortality, psionic powers, the transporter and the universal translator are unlikely, if not impossible.\u00a0 On the other hand, I do envision human genetic engineering and cloning, organ and limb regeneration, intelligent robots and immersive virtual reality — quite possibly in the near future.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the limitations I’ve discussed in this book only apply to earth biology.\u00a0 Even within the confines of our own planet, isolated ecosystems have yielded extraordinary lifeforms — the marsupials of Australia; the flower-like tubeworms near the hot vents of the ocean depths; the bacteriophage particles which are uncannily similar to the planetary landers.\u00a0 It is certain that when we finally go into space, whatever we meet will exceed our wildest imaginings.<\/p>\n

Going beyond strictly scientific matters, I think that the accuracy of scientific details in Star Trek<\/em> is almost irrelevant.\u00a0 Of course, it puzzles me that a show which pays millions to principal actors and for special effects cannot hire a few grad students to vet their scripts for glaring factual errors (I bet they could even get them for free, they’d be that thrilled to participate). Nevertheless, much more vital is Star Trek’s<\/em> stance toward science and the correctness of the scientific principles that it showcases.\u00a0 On the latter two counts, the series has been spectacularly successful and damaging at the same time.<\/p>\n

The most crucial positive elements of Star Trek<\/em> are its overall favorable attitude towards science and its strong endorsement of the idea of exploration.\u00a0 Equally important (despite frequent lapses) is the fact that the Enterprise<\/em> is meant to be a large equivalent to Cousteau’s Calypso<\/em>, not a space Stealth Bomber.\u00a0 However, some negative elements are so strong that they almost short-circuit the bright promise of the show.<\/p>\n

I cannot be too harsh on Star Trek<\/em>, because it’s science fiction — and TV science fiction, at that.\u00a0 Yet by choosing to highlight science, Star Trek<\/em> has also taken on the responsibility of portraying scientific concepts and approaches accurately.\u00a0 Each time Star Trek<\/em> mangles an important scientific concept (such as evolution or black hole event horizons), it misleads a disproportionately large number of people.<\/p>\n

The other trouble with Star Trek<\/em> is its reluctance to showcase truly imaginative or controversial ideas and viewpoints.\u00a0 Of course, the accepted wisdom of media executives who increasingly rely on repeating well-worn concepts is that controversial positions sink ratings.\u00a0 So Star Trek<\/em> often ignores the agonies and ecstasies of real science and the excitement of true or projected scientific discoveries, replacing them with pseudo-scientific gobbledygook more appropriate for series like The X-Files, Star Wars <\/em>and Battlestar Galactica<\/em>.\u00a0 Exciting ideas (silicon lifeforms beyond robots, parallel universes) briefly appear on Star Trek<\/em>, only to sink without a trace.\u00a0 This almost pathological timidity of Star Trek<\/em>, which enjoys the good fortune of a dedicated following and so could easily afford to cut loose, does not bode well for its descendants or its genre.<\/p>\n

\"trekmovie2w\"<\/p>\n

On the other hand, technobabble and all, Star Trek<\/em> fulfills a very imporant role.\u00a0 It shows and endorses the value of science and technology — the only popular TV series to do so, at a time when science has lost both appeal and prestige.\u00a0 With the increasing depth of each scientific field, and the burgeoning of specialized jargon, it is distressingly easy for us scientists to isolate ourselves within our small niches and forget to share the wonders of our discoveries with our fellow passengers on the starship Earth.\u00a0 Despite its errors, Star Trek’s<\/em> greatest contribution is that it has made us dream of possibilities, and that it has made that dream accessible to people both inside and outside science.<\/p>\n

Scientific understanding does not strip away the mystery and grandeur of the universe; the intricate patterns only become lovelier as more and more of them appear and come into focus.\u00a0 The sense of excitement and fulfillment that accompanies even the smallest scientific discovery is so great that it can only be communicated in embarrassingly emotional terms, even by Mr. Spock and Commander Data.\u00a0 In the end these glimpses of the whole, not fame or riches, are the real reason why the scientists never go into the suspended animation cocoons, but stay at the starship chart tables and observation posts, watching the great galaxy wheels slowly turn, the stars ignite and darken.<\/p>\n

Star Trek’s<\/em> greatest legacy is the communication of the urge to explore, to comprehend, with its accompanying excitement and wonder.\u00a0 Whatever else we find out there, beyond the shelter of our atmosphere, we may discover that thirst for knowledge may be the one characteristic common to any intelligent life we encounter in our travels.\u00a0 It is with the hope of such an encounter that people throng around the transmissions from Voyager<\/em>, Sojourner<\/em>, CoRoT<\/em>, Kepler<\/em>.\u00a0 And even now, contained in the sphere of expanding radio and television transmissions speeding away from Earth, Star Trek<\/em> may be acting as our ambassador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleven years ago, Random House published my book To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek.\u00a0 With the occasion of the premiere of the Star Trek reboot film and with my mind still bruised from the turgid awfulness of Battlestar Galactica, I decided to post the epilogue of my book, very lightly updated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6,10,13,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-biology-and-culture","category-science","category-science-fiction","category-space-exploration","category-writing-and-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}