Sci-Fi #2: Relations Between Sci-Fi & Life Sciences

Hi there! If you haven't read the first article I wrote about Sci-Fi which was about the brief history of it, click here.

This article is the second one about Sci-Fi that I am trying to continue as a small series, as the title suggests. Let's have a look!

The subject of this article is the relationship between life sciences and science fiction. In fact, since one of the cornerstones of the sci-fi genre is science itself, more than one title can be made while examining this subject. For this article, I want to talk about genetic engineering because it caught my attention while I was reading it in the book I used as a source. You can see it under the article.

Since genetic engineering as a field is a very controversial discipline within science itself, the inspiration is given and will be given by this branch of science really has a great impact in terms of literature.

"Genetic manipulation alters the physiology or behavior of individuals, populations or the entire human race."(Slonczewski and Levy, p.175)

Considering its current development, it would not be wrong to say that this field has become quite an industry now.

"The accumulating advances of the last half-century have found expression in SF, for example, Janet Kagan’s Mirabile (1991), which concerns genetically engineered animals (including Frankenswine) that hide the genomes of extinct species in the non-functional portions of their DNA." (Slonczewski and Levy, pp.180-181)

As can be seen from this example, by looking at the development of life sciences, issues such as the protection of the lineage of species are directly reflected in the literary work. If you ask me, Sci-fi and science itself seem like a good fields in terms of showing us the effects of scientific studies in a literary sense.

Another example, one of the most well-known novels written about gene studies is Jurassic Park (written by Michael Crichton, 1991), which is about the reproduction of dinosaurs using small amounts of DNA retrieved from fossilized insects.

The concept, which we know mostly with the movie series with the same name, attracted a lot of attention at the time because it was built on something that was not possible in the past. "... the use of the DNA detection methods shown in Jurassic Park is now a routine part of forensic biology and archaeology, and human cloning is a real possibility. " (Slonczewski and Levy, pp.180-181)

As developments in biotechnology continue to increase, a different area of DNA studies is beginning to become more visible. Most importantly, can people's DNA be perfected?

Since this question is still something to think about today, we can certainly see some examples.

"The film GATTACA (1997) boldly explores what might happen if society took ‘DNA perfection’ too far, by reading the sequence of every individual’s genome to determine their place in life. "(Slonczewski and Levy, pp.180-181)

There are more interesting fields of study about genetic engineering, for example, cloning human embryos might lead to tissue engineering and an infinite supply of possible organs, according to breakthroughs in stem cell research. Implanting human genes into cell lines – basically cloning a person into cultured cells – might result in the growth of a person's organs in a lab.

This area can be seen as a direct transition to the human cloning phase. As you can imagine, in the sci-fi genre, we can see very interesting and ethically controversial stories such as human cloning and human production.

"Larry Niven has frequently written on this theme, beginning with ‘The Jigsaw Man’ (1967) and ‘The Organleggers’ (1969), envisioning that the availability of such a technology would lend itself both, outside the law, to a new and hideous form of bootlegging, and, inside the law, to new sorts of sentences for criminals." (Slonczewski and Levy, pp.180-181)

If we conclude the article with a short conclusion (this is a bit difficult since developments are constantly happening when it comes to scientific research and literature), as life sciences develop within themselves, individuals can sometimes make predictions by expressing these developments in works of art such as literary works and films, and sometimes warn us readers/viewers by drawing attention to the possible dangers.

Today, the intertwining of these two fields will continue increasing and we will follow new works with interest.

Works Cited / Source:

James, Edward, and Farah Mendlesohn. “12 Joan Slonczewski And Micheal Levy Science Fiction and the Life Sciences.” The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.