#so its not even really necessarily like a failure to communicate the theory of evolution to the public when creating scifi media | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oflgtfol · 1 year

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“Other shortcomings [in communicating science] 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… There must be dozens of alien species on 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.”

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

#brot posts #astro posting #god this entire book is just giving voice to so many things i think about like wtf hes even talking about the things i bitch about in scifi #albeit i feel like hes not being as lenient as he should be re: the economic limitations #as well as the technological limitations especially for TOS at the time #so like i understand there is a grounded reason as to why all the aliens are just. variants on humans #but like in an actual scifi way. its boring. its inaccurate #wheres the imagination #and im complaining about more than star trek here im also complaining about star wars #and all other scifi #and in that case when broadening it to the entire genre i will also say its not just finances and technology #but also just. lack of imagination.#so its not even really necessarily like a failure to communicate the theory of evolution to the public when creating scifi media #its just like. cost benefit analysis. weighing whether putting in the effort to make all these distinct independent species totally differe #different #is worth the time and money to design and implement #its easier in a media production sense to just stick some funky ears on a human person and call it another species #BUT YKNOW. it is still something i find annoying and something i do bitch about so im so glad Mr Sagan is also bitching about it

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