Science fiction and scientific possibilities

Can science fiction be used, as Stewart urges, "to explore paranormal and fringe-science issues"?

Perhaps. Despite what I said above, some science fiction writers have tried to apply the more or less orderly procedures of science fiction to the themes of fantasy. Among others, James Blish attempted to provide a scientific rationale for telepathy in his novel Jack of Eagles; Larry Niven and Robert A. Heinlein tried to do the same for magic in various works; others have occasionally tried to do so for were-wolves, vampires, and even astrology.

Some entertaining stories resulted from these attempts. However, they could not have done much to further the objectives of CSICOP, namely: to counteract beliefs in superstition or the occult.

In fact, I fear that stories of this sort must inevitably go some way toward reinforcing these beliefs. Any attempt to use such stories to counteract superstition is foredoomed by the fact that, in order to discuss these paranormal phenomena in rational terms, the writer has to pretend that the ghosts and goblins and psychic phenomena are real in the first place . . . in effect, validating those beliefs rather than dispelling them.

Poltergeist suffers from one other problem in that it is a film, not a book or short story. Film does not offer a hospitable venue for intellectual discussion, because that is the nature of film: movies wonderfully stimulate the senses and excite the emotions, but of rational intellectual content there is seldom very much.

What science fiction can profitably do to counteract superstition is to explore the wonders of real scientific possibilities as they relate to the real world - even some possible future real world very far removed from present existence. But that is precisely what a great many science fiction writers have been doing - in print media, if not in film - for the last half-century and more.

If there is anyone not familiar with the field who is interested in seeing how this is done, she or he would be well advised to stay away from the moviehouses and go to a bookstore or the public library. I am reluctant to recommend specific works because to name a few is to leave out scores of others that are equally deserving, but some recent novels worth a look would include works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Greg Benford Vernor Vinge, and many others. (They might even include some of my own books.)

It is true that, even in print science fiction, there is a vast number of stories which are as meretricious in their own way as any horror flick, but that's not surprising; it is only an example of Sturgeons Law. That is the dictum laid down long ago by the late Theodore Sturgeon, one of the most gifted of science fiction (and also fantasy) writers. What Sturgeons Law says is: "Ninety percent of science fiction is crud. But then, ninety percent of everything is crud."

Frederik Pohl is a three-time Nebula award winner (including the "Grand Master" Nebula awarded for lifetime contributions to science fiction), a six-time Hugo award winner (he is the only person ever to have won the Hugo both as writer and as editor), and a past president of both World SF and the Science Fiction Writers of America. His most recent science fiction novels include Mining the Oort and The World at the End of Time.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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