The legacy of Isaac Asimov - science fiction author - Cover Story

Humanist, March-April, 1993 by Pat Duffy Hutcheon

He has died, but so very much of what he was and believed and valued will five as long as there are people to read and think and wonder. This is largely because, during his lifetime, Isaac Asimov made a major contribution to solving one of the most serious problems facing humankind in this century. For Asimov, it was a matter of grave concern that the scientific approach to knowing was still foreign to the general world culture. He saw that, although science had revolutionized the course of history and opened up the universe for intelligent perusal, it was seldom applied to the social realm and had scarcely dented the world views of most human beings. He recognized the danger posed by the fact that, conceptually speaking, the majority of Earth's people inhabit a world defined by Bronze Age tribalism. Isaac Asimov devoted his life to changing this alarming situation.

Armed with a uniquely creative imagination, plus a gift for explaining difficult ideas, he assumed a remarkable dual role: that of science,fiction writer and futurist, and that of public educator and interpreter of science. Asimov is most widely celebrated for his science fiction. Not so well known, however, are the goals he sought to achieve through that popular vehicle. He believed that good science fiction has two important functions: to warn us about what the future will bring if we continue in our present practices; and to provide young readers with the background of information and the vision of future possibilities necessary for intelligent doubting and scientific creativity.

In his chosen role as educator, Asimov wrote on the subjects of the evolution of human culture in general and science in particular. He published over 400 titles, including nonfiction essays on scientific and philosophical topics, general history, and annotated works on the Bible and other literary classics. He traced the development of Judaism and Christianity by analyzing biblical accounts of human origins and prehistory in the light of what science and historical scholarship have taught us since the Bible was written. He presented the Old Testament as a literary masterpiece, much of it put together around 500 BCE, during the period of the Babylonian exile, and representing the collective knowledge of the most learned members of the Judaic culture. Although he loved and respected the Jewish tradition growing from those roots, he always emphasized that he did not value it above those of other groups. As soon as any one tradition is thought to be superior to others, he said, the way is paved for destroying them all.

Perhaps Asimov's greatest talent as an educator was his ability to articulate for his readers the basic conceptual framework of each of the established disciplines with which he dealt in his books. Like all good teachers, he was well aware that simply transmitting bits of information does not lead to understanding. In addition, he assumed a responsibility for organizing and simplifying new knowledge in astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and ecology as it became confirmed and established, and for identifying the connections among these studies and their implications for the future of humanity. Most of the essays in his various collections are concerned with these matters.

As if all that were not enough, Asimov attempted to do the same thing for history. In his 1991 book, The March of the Millennia, he related the evolution of civilization to the development of technology, beginning with the discovery of fire by early hominids. His premise was that it was this crucial technological breakthrough that first distinguished our ancestors from other primates and gave them their evolutionary advantage. As with all subsequent technology, fire made greater demands on primitive communication skills as well as expanding opportunities for their practice. It also increased the food supply of the upright animals who mastered it and made it possible for their range and numbers to increase. As Asimov explained it, from then on natural selection would have ensured that humans developed the intelligence to become master tool designers and this, in turn, led inevitably to a new and faster kind of change: the evolution of culture.

That new kind of evolution was accelerated considerably with the next great technological revolution: the domestication of plants and animals and the more stable form of social organization that farming required. For Asimov, it marked the achievement of civilization. From about 8000 BCE, he said, there was no turning back, although the myths of all cultures have expressed a yearning for some dimly remembered golden age before the advent of agriculture. Many of these myths reveal, as well, a deeply embedded resentment and scapegoating of women. Asimov related this to the probability that it was the female of the species who initiated seed-planting and the caring for animals and, thereby, the more organized, responsible, and labor-intensive existence that such practices required.