First of all, can you give me a quick background to yourself, as a view to links with science fiction.
I suppose like many practising scientists and academics, as a teenager I suppose that you could say that informally and casually, my interest in science was initially sparked by a fascination with science fiction. From the age of maybe 13/14, reading seminal works like 1984, Brave New World. They're not particularly scientific, but reading books like that. I can't remember if those books came first, or the SF books like the likes of Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke might have come before those, but that's an interesting case in point because a more purer set would lead you into greater works of art like Brave New World. So like many of the people I've got a colleague here, John Morgan who teaches biological sciences, if you ask him who his scientific hero is, he'd tell you Superman, and he's a tremendous enthusiast for the comic book stuff. I didn't do the comic book stuff, I did the literature stuff, but like John that was my first interest. The science fiction element is what first introduced me to science, and I think probably one of the reasons that happens is because in some ways it's not so taxing; something you can read and enjoy. It's not constrained in the same way that science fact is; you're not constrained by the laws of physics, the laws of nature; there's more scope to extrapolate. But, nevertheless, the old argument is, I think Paul Davies, the cosmologist argues this point, the great similarity between the two ventures, science and science fiction is the 'What if' scenario, constructing hypothetical worlds; one is fiction and one is fact. They're both constrained by different sorts of things, but there's less constriction in one than there is in the other. So it would have been as a teenager, my first introduction.
What I'm actually looking at for my study is the public's views on how science fiction is affecting them, so a lot of what I'm doing is to do with the public and how they might be reacting. Have you got a view on how interested in science and technology in general that you think the public actually are?
It seems to me that there's a growing interest. There's a number of reasons I would say that. Over the last 20-30 years there's been a growing interest. Some of the great blockbuster films of the last 20-30 years very often have a scientific theme to them; some of the great blockbuster films are SF films. Think of films like ET, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, all these sorts of things, why are they popular? One of the reasons they are popular is maybe because they are drama played out on a large stage, which science often is, being drama played out on a large stage, maybe it's because the effects, ultimately maybe it is because of the special effects. The common theme with a lot of them is the fact they are, they seem to be, a socially accepted genre. Also within terms of popular science, the popular science market, it does seem to be a growing thirst in the public domain for popular science books. That seems to explode it the last 10 or 20 years, so there does seen to be a thirst for those things as well. Whether that's real, or whether that's massaged by publishers and by scientists realising they can earn a few bob by writing a book, I'm not really sure. It depends on whether you are on a cynical or romantic approach to science in the public domain. Carl Sagan takes the approach that even pseudo-science is a positive thing. There are also an immense number of, I don't know if it's still the same as it was, but over the last 20 or 30 years there's been an increasing number of these pseudo-science books as well, going back to Delakovsky's The World in Collision, which admittedly is horse shit; a lot of it is horse shit, but the thing is if you take a less cynical point of view as Sagan does in The Demon Haunted World when he has this conversation with a taxi driver about the latest theories of Atlantis or whatever it might be, at least shows a public thirst for curiosity and knowledge about the natural world, so from that point of view a lot of that is uneducated, informal enthusiasm for science, or curiosity for the wonders of the world. So there does seem to be a certain amount of evidence that they are popular subjects. There's a lot of New Ageism going about as well, which, of course, has got a pseudo-scientific guise, but again, our point of view has always been that you can maybe try producing courses that act as a bridge to what people are interested in and what we want them to learn about science. We were one of the first institutions in the UK to run a module about Extra-Terrestrial life. It's like the module that we launched in September '98, we had world-wide publicity at the time because it was unusual that people would tackle a question of extra-terrestrial life. It seems almost mundane now. Most universities tackle this question, not quite in the way that we do it, because we do one lecture on the question of UFOs, and whether there's been contact or not, obviously from a sceptical point of view. But all this, I think, is indication of these things are very much in the public domain and our press gets a tremendous amount of spin out of them. It seems there's good evidence for it.
Do you believe that science fiction will be many people's main exposure to science and technology?
Absolutely. Another interesting thing about science fiction is, I've got this interesting book that was…In 1970s, early 1980s there was a movement in the UK in the older established universities headed by a guy called Professor Bill Williams who Martin and I went to see early in July. He was a professor of physics but he was head of the department of combined studies at Leeds University, and he set up something called SISCOM that developed courses in science and the social context, not just in Leeds but in a number of UK universities. Manchester University have been doing degrees in science policy. Bill Williams was responsible for the publication of a number of texts about science in this context, one of which was a biological theme in science fiction written by a guy called Leonard Isaacs, who's from the university of Chicago. He's making the point that one of the ways in which science fiction is particularly important as a barometer of public perception about science issues because much of it is unconscious. You could say that some science fiction is a very conscious attempt to write something, some speculative science, but for instance I read a great book when I was away on my summer holiday called Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear, which is about the revolution coming up in biology and genetics with the beginning of the mapping of the human genome project. So that's a very overtly scientific SF, but there is an immense amount of SF which is somehow more unconsciously about science; the effect of science on morality or ethics, or the effect of science on the environment and all these things. Some of them are very overtly about science, some of them are more covertly about science. So from that point of view Leonard Isaacs argues that science fiction is particularly valuable, not only because a lot of people get exposure to science fiction through reading it, and that's the most exposure they get to science through reading SF, but also because the authors themselves are in some ways unconsciously writing about science. So in the creation of SF and in the receiving of it, and the reading of SF, it's that unconscious comment about science which is sometimes useful for people. They do get a lot of exposure to it, certainly.
Do you think people themselves will actually realise that?
Maybe sometimes they don't. Christopher Frayling, he's an academic. I'm not sure what his subject is but in the September issue of the Times Higher Education Supplement last year he wrote a piece on the image of scientists and he's talking there about sometimes science fiction is responsible for portraying scientists as being detached, deranged social outcasts, which in this day and age is off beam completely actually. Scientists tend these days to be not people working in isolation. The idea of someone working in isolation and coming up with an absolutely marvellous theory goes back to Einstein. Those theories of generality have given no footnotes to that, at least special relative views can be written in complete isolation, but these days scientists are team workers. I think that's what prevails really, the idea of science being rather unethical, produced by social outcasts or misfits that don't really fit in. You sometimes think that the GM food debate has an underlying issue about science being detached and somehow uncaring, and all those issues must be propagated somewhere, and a lot of people would get that particular idea about science, well, where would they get it from? They'd either get it from press reports about science, and of course many people reporting in the press, the journalists and practitioners, don't understand a lot about science, which is why degrees like yours exist. It just exacerbates the situation even further, and then people's main exposure to science is through SF which is in a way characterising the way in which SF portrays scientists, and has. That does have an effect, and maybe in a lot of cases people don't know. It's almost subliminal. And I suppose they've got a point though. I suppose in some ways science fiction has got a point that science often is practised by big business, certainly 'Technosizes' practise like that. Did you see that interesting report recently by the Welcome Trust in July, which was on BBC online pages. The Welcome Trust had done a report into the teaching of science both pre and post 16, in a test-tube and textbook method of teaching science was extremely limited, in their opinion, and people should start teaching science along with its moral and ethical dynamic, which is exactly the sort of thing that we do within the courses on astronomy and science fiction that we run, and undoubtedly with Science communication. Those issues in science.
What do you think of personally as being science fiction?
That's a good question. We had to do that when we came to produce the degree, because the first module we wanted to run was 'what is science fiction'? We had to try and work out what we were going to put in and what we weren't going to put in. Science fantasy certainly doesn't go in. I was interviewed alongside Terry Pratchett once for a BBC radio 4 program, and Terry Pratchett himself would admit that what he does is not science fiction. So we're talking more of the traditional Verne, Wells, Asimov and Clarke, but we didn't want to fix a very narrow definition of science fiction, so we didn't want to be just the extremely and explicitly hard SF stuff; books which are avowedly about science, because there are many great works of science fiction which are not specifically about 'techy' science, there's all this other stuff. We did try to make the definition of the SF we were going to look at as broad as possible but one thing we did not want to include was fantasy stuff because we didn't think it was as relevant for studying science in a social context. It's infamously difficult to define science fiction, and one of the things we had to do in the course documentation was define it, which we found difficult. In the end, I can't remember the definitions off the top of my head, but it was 'good science fiction looks at the moral, ethical, political and social issues of the placement of science and the effect that it has on society, both now and possibly in the future. One of the reasons in which we obviously feature scenarios about SF is because putting them into a future perspective you can try to see trends, from the way that scientists currently practise or the way that science affects our lives, or things about human identity and intelligence and so on. So we tried to be as all-embracing as we possibly could about science fiction from that point of view. It's a bit like me not answering the question in a way. Maybe the modern titles themselves, we've tried to define what it is. We've looked at the evolution from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is undoubtedly a science fiction book, all the way through to the Matrix, so there's a long history of 200 years. We look at Utopias and Dystopias, because there's a strong tradition of that; we look at the way issues of space and time are explored in SF. There's also alternate reality stuff, different worlds, or built time-lines, counterfactuals as they're called. If the Nazis had won the Second World War, how would the rest of society gone? So there's all these political and social things which are tackled in SF which we recognise, and also the cyberscience stuff, the cyberpunk stuff. The way in which we relate to machines and the way that the boundary between natural and artificial intelligence may be more fuzzy that it is now. Those things are covered also in different modules.
What about the public. Do you think they'll see all these things you're talking about as science fiction, or will they just maybe think of Space as science fiction and not really give it a second thought?
I don't know. I think the public are more broad minded than the press reporting about science fiction tends to be. Members of the press who've done communication studies degrees know works of people like William Gibson, and cyberpunk stuff, so some of them are…..a lot of science fiction, given the fact that it's very popular both in book form and in film, especially in film. But there's good and bad reporting. When they did reports about the nature of the science fiction degree, the bad reporting would be that it's into Star Wars and Star Trek, so there may be in some cases – I'm not sure where it originates, a lot of people may think it's a course in Star Wars or Star Trek. But people who know something about SF realise what a contribution it's made in the last couple of hundred years.
Obviously you're using science fiction as an educational tool. Why do you think it's so important that it can be used and it should be?
One of the ways in which it's important is because there's a public fascination with it. Another way in which it's important is because it's been used by both scientists and by writers to comment on the social position of science in society. Things may not continue the way they are so it's almost like a sort of social commentary. If you look at the evolution of it over the last 200 years or so, then it can act as a barometer of contemporary feelings about the way society was going at the time. It's also useful to look at the ways that history has evolved, not only the history of science fiction but the history of science it implies and the way people felt about science in those particular times. One of the major things that we feel in teaching about science is if you are critical about science rather than accepting about science, take a critical approach, critical analysis, science has never changed, science is always changing, it's cumulative, it's progressive. It's never finished, it's never about a set of data and results, it's about an ever-changing thing, and if you accept it as that changing element, that changing thing which it is, science fiction is the literature of change which acts as a barometer, the way in which science is going over these years. So it's important for all those reasons, and of course the other reason of, it's often unconscious; it can be a conscious and unconscious comment on the way that science and society are going.
How accurate do you think the science needs to be in science fiction? Well, first of all, do you think science fiction tends to represent real science?
In different ways. I know you can get these pedantic science types who will dismiss science fiction, and we can all be guilty of that. I went to see Final Fantasy yesterday; took the kids, that's my excuse! The computer animation was absolutely stunning, but there was this pseudo-scientific Japanese approach to the question of what energy is within the film, and there's also this question of 'Gaia', that the world has this 'Gaia' ethos, this energy. And they try to portray this image of energy having a scientific identity which sounds to me a bit like the old idea that there was a bright old spark in living things. And as pseudo-science it irritated me, but good science fiction doesn't necessarily have to be scientifically robust. If it's commenting more in the social placement of the practise of science or the technology of science rather than the science itself. It might be concentrating on the social issues of science or the social control of science, governmental control of science, or just about human identity and how that might change in the future. Would we become net-wired, will we become plugged in, how do we lose identity, what is intelligence? All these things. They don't necessarily have to be. They can make an assumption about the progress of science, and they wouldn't necessarily have to dwell on it, so it depends, I suppose the answer to that is.
When I'm out questioning the public, one of the main issues is whether or not science fiction is a predictor of the future of science (Oh yeah that is one thing that always pisses me off); where it's going. What do you think the public think about this? Do you think they just see it as something that predicts the future?
I think that's an artificial issue that's been fabricated by the media. Within science fiction circles they call it 'P-Work', 'Prophecy Word'. Somehow science fiction has become associated with prophecy. It's all cobblers because for every issue that you identify one accurate prediction, there are probably a thousand which are completely and utterly wrong. We've got a member of staff here who teaches in the management department who's quite comical about the way in which…One of the things that science fiction got badly wrong is the computer. There's this idea in 1950s science fiction that there is the computer, one computer like Deep Thought on 'Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy': one all-seeing, all-knowing computer. Totally failed to predict the decentralising nature of computer technology, in fact you've got a dedicated computer on your wristwatch, and the Internet is so unregulated, not least because of the… So the prophecy thing. No, I don't think it's about that. It doesn't try to predict anything, it's always been a social warning of the way people may go.
So do you think the public…?
No I don't. I think it's a media issue.
Connected to that, do you think science fiction can actually lead to real science?
I think it has in some cases. The good example would be the laws of robotics that were developed by Asimov in a fictional way, which are something like if we ever developed robotics technology to the level which is often portrayed in fiction. The likes of the Terminator, which was a bit farcical, they're supposed to be flights of fancy in a distant future. Undoubtedly, there will be some programming machines like that which will have a social responsibility, and of course one often thinks of Arthur C. Clarke, who made a couple of predictions about the telecommunications satellite and so on. So that's another one…
(Interview interrupted ………..)
Inspiring real science. Does science fiction lead real science?
Yes it does. I can't think of any instances. The only instance I can think of which is not particularly practical, but then that's my subject, is the fact that Kip Thorne, the American Cosmologist, was inspired into the possible of negative energy keeping open worm holes, theoretically keeping worm holes open, when he was written to by Carl Sagan. When Carl Sagan was writing Contact he wanted to find a method, a potential method at least, of transporting the female heroine in Contact through to another space/time. Sagan's original idea was the black hole, you know, the black hole as gateway to another universe bollocks, which of course is unsubstantiated, and he wrote to Kip Thorne and he said 'do you think this is possible?' and Kip Thorne said 'No, I don't think it is, but worm holes are another matter.' And I understand that started a whole amount of research into the possibility of Time Machines, and of course there was that famous one where Kip Thorne made the mistake of using the phrase 'Time Machine' in one of his papers on Cosmology and all hell broke loose apparently. He was descended upon by the press. But that's the only one that sticks in my mind about science fiction inspiring real science, but I'm sure it does in many ways.
I've come across quite a lot, while reading this, about NASA, and all that kind of stuff takes place.
It's a sort of question like about prophecy and predication, because most science fiction's not about that, it's about the social role of science and the social effect of science, and so that's not its job in a way. In some cases it is of course. I mean someone like Clarke was right. Most of Clarke's work is about the cosmic perspective on human identity, with our new place in the universe, and so on. But he has written about that sort of stuff.
What negative effects do you think that science fiction may have had on the public's views of science and technology?
I don't know. I was going to say that sometimes the portrayal of scientists is rather hackneyed. Scientists can be portrayed as rather cold, objective, socially outcast, but sometimes the portrayal is in keeping with science fiction, and of course sometimes science is practised like that. The other dangerous elements, I suppose, are the pseudo-scientific elements, which are sometimes very prominent within science, but you also have to accept the other side of the coin with pseudo-science, at least the thirst and interest for it.
How about the way in which science might be portrayed as being used for evil, for all these evil outcomes, something like that?
In some cases that's fair. Science is responsible for space travel. Science is also responsible for the hydrogen bomb. And there's the whole question surrounding that of the social responsibility of scientists, and the social control of science. I don't think that's a bad thing, I think it's a realistic thing. There were all those quotes from Oppenheimer on Einstein that if they'd known the effects to which nuclear capability and nuclear knowledge would have been put to, they would have done something else in their lives. Einstein was quoted about becoming a locksmith, and so on. But it does raise questions, realistic questions, about who's controlling science.
And the reverse of that. What about positive effects on the public's views?
The most positive effects have to be the 'wow' factor, the capabilities of looking outward, the outward urge. Space travel, space exploration. The positive effects are that it is one of the few forums in which we can debate the direction of science without actually being limited, with these constraints about the laws of science. The fact that it acts as a debating forum in someways is good, because it puts those issues out into the social domain, public domain.
On balance, would you say it's been a good or negative effect?
On balance, it's definitely good. If it wasn't for science fiction where would one debate social issues? In Parliament? Well, nobody listens to that, so that's extremely exclusive. When you read Hansard you don't doubt it. As a populist way of debating and disseminating issues in science, definitely positive.
Earlier you mentioned the image of the scientist. I've got some figures from that talk you mentioned, saying that looking at 1000 horror-type films, 31% of them showed the mad scientist or the creations that they'd spawned as being the evil villains. Only 11% of the films showed the scientist as being the hero figure. Do you think this has had any great effect on how the public views real scientists?
I think it might, but I think that in itself is saying something that is a perception that the practice of science, not the scientists because of course the scientists may be an individual representation of science as a metaphor within the film, so even though we might say 'oh look, scientists don't work like that anymore', they are they embodiment of what people represent as scientists, so you could take an individual scientist in the film and say they represent science as an institution, and the way the institution of science has been used, or how it's progressive. That's probably how people would read it whether consciously or unconsciously, I don't know. I think that in some cases that's justified. The social direction and the social application of science has undoubtedly left a bad taste in the mouth in a lot of ways. Those figures don't actually allow for what recent progression there's been, if any, towards scientists being portrayed in a more sympathetic light, and that would be interesting because I was thinking about the portrayal of Sam Neill as a palaeontologist in Jurassic Park, or the cool image of the Chaotician played by Jeff Goldblum in the same film. Scientists are often portrayed, again like Jeff Goldblum as the computer scientist in Independence Day, they've been portrayed as the saviour in a lot of ways. I wonder, within that raw statistic, the finer detail that may suggest.
In the study he talks about he only went up to 1984 so he wasn't considering recent occurrences. From what you're saying about it representing science from the film, what do you think this might say to the female population who tend to see the scientist as a white male stereotype?
I think science fiction in that sense can be very dangerous, but the reason science fiction is particularly important for political and gender issues is if you portray, if there is a sexist film about contemporary society then it's a comment about the way things are now and it's nonetheless sexist in the way it's been portrayed. If you portray a film about the future and future roles and you're still portraying them as being particularly gender biased or sexist in some way then it's even more so because you are saying those roles are true now and aren't going to change in the future, even though the portrayal of the future may be dictated by the way things are at the present. Having said that, science fiction is also responsible for portraying so many very positive role models. One thinks of Sigourney Weaver in Alien and the woman who plays the character in Terminator 1 and Terminator 2 because she really is a tremendous character who fights through it. She's almost like the lynch pin of realising the importance of the entire narrative that goes with Terminator. So there is a portrayal, a very strong portrayal of women in both those films. Science fiction is responsible for quite good things as well. In general, I mean I would call myself a subversive, I always tend to be on the left. Science fiction has always been associated with the left. I went to a conference at the University of Liverpool at the end of June, and one of the commissions on one of its workshops was about radicalism in SF, so because it's about social commentary it's very often is about a comment on the establishment of science. So very often science fiction is subversive. So you would tend to take an alternate view on the way science is being practised and disseminated and what effect it's having on our lives anyway in some senses. So there has been a resurgence of feminism within SF.
And do you believe science fiction actually has an effect on the public's understanding of science and technology, …because quite often it seems to promote an interest in science?
It does and I believe that that is true. I was thinking of all the connotations of the question there and something about the underlying insinuation in the question. Again, it's not the main job of science fiction to teach the public science. It's to address issues of science, and does it do that? Yes, I think it does. It switches people on possibly to understanding a little bit more about real science, or maybe they will do that, maybe they won't. Some of them do, some of them don't. But I'd think that that would be the main thing I'd say about that, it's the interest factor that's the wow thing.
In recent years there seems to have been a spate of books being published, 'The Science of Star Trek' and 'The Science of Star Wars'. Do you think that they add to the whole field?
Not very much I don't think, no. I think it's just a device, I think it's missing the point, keeping in mind what we have already discussed. That's not the major point about Star Trek, the science of Star Trek is not the major thing about it. Yes they do add to the field I suppose. I'm just being cynical about that because I think that the only reason that guy who is an astronomer in fact I think Lawrence Krauss, he's cosmologist. I think maybe he has just written those books to make money. I think it does have role, if people want to follow that up, though I don't think it's the main point of science fiction.
Also earlier you mentioned the pseudo-science aspect linked with science fiction and I noticed in your article that was in Physics World, you talked of science fiction maybe being about to be used to tackle this growth in pseudo-science (I guess that what people like Krauss are doing as well). So with this in mind do you think the general public would see a distinction between science fiction and pseudo-science or do they see it as one?
No they wouldn't, I don't think. It depends. Part of the problem is you talking about the general public as if they're one amorphous mass, which they aren't. There's all these different nuances within individuals, with what we call the general public. The smartest of them…well, scientists read science fiction, that general public includes scientists so they would certainly understand the difference, there may be another element there of a lay audience who have a tremendous understanding of science and that's why we need science fiction as well. People that know very little about science, and you would have thought they'd read the science fantasy type stuff. So I suppose there are grades and degrees of this throughout the general public, but my main point I think is that you can use issues addressed in science fiction, and likewise use issues that are addressed in pseudo-science to tackle issues in science, and then actually, if you look at it, it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between science and pseudo-science. Some pseudo-science leads to science. Astrology leads to astronomy, obviously, as in the past. So, it's not necessarily clear cut. I just think you can use it as a tool.
How interested in Science and technology do you believe the general public really are?
I think they are extremely interested in the consequences of science and technology, both in terms of risk and usefulness. I believe they are much less interested in how science and technology "work" or who does them.
Do you believe that Science fiction will be many peoples main exposure to science and technology?
It may be their main exposure to the word "science." Hmm. No. I think the average person gains most exposure to sci & tech through the media in the form of news reports. Science fiction is their main and possibly one exposure to speculation about the consequences.
What do you think of as being science fiction? What are the first science fiction film, TV program and book that you can think of? And what do you think the public will consider to be science fiction?
What do I consider as sf? Any work of fiction which has a scientific premise and speculation at the core of its plot. A What if? scenario. First film? To the Moon. (Dans la lune? forget the french title) First TV? Before my time ;-) but Buck Rogers comes to mind. First book? Frankenstein.
Do you think that science fiction can be used as an educational tool?
Why/If so how?
Absolutely. I use it myself, frequently, in several ways. Others use it even more. Visit www.analogsf.com/wow/ (Educators website contest) as well as the http://www.dpsinfo.com/2001/dyr/index.html (Worldcon Educator's Day) for examples. My use and why? To develop scientific literacy, in particular critical reading skills, understanding of scientific processes, and creativity. I come at it from two directions, typically. One, I use the analysis of a particular story to engage students in analysis of the author, the science, the speculation, etc. Then, I have students turn those tools to critical analysis of popular science and/or media articles about science issues. It's quite effective in having them begin to assess sources of information and what that information says. Second, I use the story-telling method of sf to have students speculate on the consequences -- or potentials -- of a particular advance in science and/or technology. Again, very effective, particularly in group work. It also detaches the student from the speculation, which I've found makes them more willing to consider a variety of ideas which might otherwise be too alarming or revealing. I also use sf as a means to show interrelationships between science and society, including how perceptions of science and scientists have changed and are changing. This is often a nice opening to a science course.
Do you believe science fiction on its own can teach science and/or inspire the public to follow a life in science?
Definitely. Many scientists of my acquaintance, including myself, discover a wonder about the natural world through science fiction, not science class. The notion that we don't know it all, or that what we know can change, isn't usually taught in early grades, but is available in the literature. Can it teach science? Yes, if the work is chosen very carefully.
Is it important for science fiction to represent 'real science'? How accurate does it need to be?
The science being extrapolated needs to be solidly grounded, or the speculation is less credible and useful. This being said, as long as the worldbuilding around that science is internally consistent, I have no problem with "leaps" in a story such as faster than light travel. For example, to write a story about exploring a marine environment on a distant planet, the methods of the explorers underwater might be key to the story, but the fact they travelled there in the first place isn't. See the distinction. There's a spectrum of "real science" as used in sf. At one end, you really have a manual to accomplish something in the future, using only what we know and some thoughtful extrapolations into the near future. At the other, nothing is remotely tied to real science. One has little "fiction" the other little or no "science." To me, the best sf doesn't flout physical laws - unless there's a reason it's allowed -- but it's not slave to what we know today either. Reasonable speculation.
Do you think that the public will see science fiction as a predictor of future science?
The public (and the media) has always loved to call anything in the way of futuristic science as science fiction, meaning unbelievable, in spite it being real. This implies a belief, which I think is quite prevalent, that sf is predictive, when it is not. Sf is about speculation on what we face due to curiosity, anxieties or issues about current science and technology, even when set in the future. Other types of writers try to predict trends in science, economists etc. SF writers aren't in that business, which is why the public is so often able to turn around and say how "wrong" a particular book or movie was about the future. But the speculation was most likely correct. This being said, the best sf writers are scientifically literate people, far more interested in science and where it's taking us than the general public. They tend to gravitate to what is changing or new. Thus Sf is ahead in terms of what to worry about -- cloning, for example, was "done" in sf over 25 years before Dolly the sheep. So it can seem predictive. This was likely confusing, wasn't it? Sorry. Hmm. I think the question mixes up which comes first. The average person meets SF in terms of visual media, film or TV. Those stories reflect the fears of now, rather than being science fiction speculation. If you go to rent a movie, match the release year with the "science demon" in the flick. You'll find a nice pattern, matched perfectly to public anxieties. So that type of sf isn't predictive of science, it's reflective of cultural attitudes towards science at any given time. Readers of sf literature, on the other hand, do see it as predictive, in my opinion. Many writers are doing their best to push the curtain further ahead. It's fun and worthwhile.
Do you believe that science fiction can lead or inspire 'real' science?
Definitely. I used it that way myself. My first two novels came out of work I was doing -- and vice versa. Also, many scientists, engineers etc. in space programs and so forth, people I know personally, say they are actively gearing their research towards producing some ability or technology imagined by an sf writer.
What negative effects do you believe science fiction has had on the public's view of science and technology?
There are several. First, the visual media has fostered many misconceptions about who does science, why, and what science can and cannot do. The print media is much better at showing scientists and science, but isn't as widely accessed. Thus the public has stereotypical views. I encounter this routinely when working with students on "a typical scientist character." Even the "best" class will give me a loner, older male, white, brilliant, independently wealthy, immoral, no social skills, etc. As for science? The visual media swings public opinion from science as a cure-all to science as the demon plague. Technology is often relegated to black boxes. Sigh. At the risk of repeating a theme, the literature has the opposite effect.
What positive effects do you believe science fiction has had on the public's view of science and technology?
It's sexy these days. Really! There are scientist heroes, even mathematicians and engineers. And there's a more realistic variety of people portrayed as scientists and as using technology, providing better role models. (Scully in the X-files has encouraged many young ladies to enter forensic chemistry.) Another positive effect? While sometimes taken to an extreme, sf is encouraging the public to seek scientific or technological solutions to problems caused by sci and/or tech. In other words, a bit of demystifying, and a bit more "I'm supposed to understand this" attitude. Another positive effect? And the major one? We live in a era of accelerating change. SF is the single best creative expression of change within science, technology, and our society. People who have an intake of sf take many advances in their stride simply because they are expecting refrigerators to talk and spaceflight to get us somewhere. They aren't as daunted by the fact that today's telephone will be completely different in 5 years, and understand the potential problems/benefits of having technology that will track every purchase they make. I believe this segment of the population will continue to view science and technology both as tools and as having profound impact on our lives.
On balance do you believe the net effect for the public has been positive or negative?
Positive, in the last 10 years. Before that? Negative.
How strongly do you believe/disbelieve science fiction affects the public's understanding of science and technology?
Strongly believe
How do you believe that reporting on and analysis of science fiction (i.e. "The science of ..(Star Trek)........ " )can further affect the publics understanding of science and technology?
Anything that makes science accessible is of value in education. For the general public? I doubt they want to know such information. Further, if it consists of pulling apart the science "misconceptions" in a show, what I've found occurs is a generalised distrust not of sf, but of anything that sounds like science. Not exactly what one wants. So books etc. that look at "how could we do this?" are much much more effective in improving the public's understanding.
Do you believe that the general public will see a distinction between pseudo-science books/film/TV (such as "Buffy the vampire slayer" and "The X-Files") and Science Fiction.
LOL. In my experience, people who "would never touch sf - or hate science" quite happily watch X-files etc. and will defend that this isn't the same at all. So they distinguish between the two just fine. While X-files etc. might not be hard sf, I find the desire to distance oneself from sf, as though it would be harder or less interesting, is a shame.
How do you believe your work affects the public's understanding of science and technology?
I don't know. I portray scientists as I've known them to be and I keep my biology as real as I can within the constraints of storytelling. Are people picking up on this? Certainly some readers do notice, and tell me so. Others don't. I hope, that being consistent and keeping as much science accurate as I can, that my work is sneaking some of the wonder of science into readers' heads when they aren't looking. My short fiction is much more focused on immediate consequence of one aspect of science/tech, so it tends to be as rigorous scientifically in all aspects as I can make it, to keep that focus very tight.
Is this a consideration in your work? (that it will have an effect on the publics views of science and technology)
My short fiction? Yes, I do consider that and hope its true. And in some of my novels, I hope that's a result, but it wasn't a plan as I wrote. I do look at the societal consequences of biological concepts.
And lastly do you believe that the general public will believe that science fiction has had an effect on their understanding?
If by general public you mean people who commonly access science fiction, yes. They will watch a film and come away with a more vivid internal image of how gravity works, for example, than school will ever give them. When something like this is done well, wonderful. When it isn't, it can undo all that was gained in high school physics. On the bright side, at least they are reminded there is gravity. If by general public you mean everyone, then no. I think the general public still perceives science fiction as "unreal" and "unreliable." Entertainment for kids. For that reason, they'd deny any effect. However, the effect is there. SF terminology and even the concept of imaginative speculation has pervaded our culture and mindset. Whether the general public admits it, or not, they've absorbed quite a bit of both.
How interested in Science and technology do you believe the general public really are?
Very interested in specific areas of personal interest: for example, careers for their children, studies of disease affecting them personally, environmental issues close to home, but less so as a general subject.
Do you believe that Science fiction will be many peoples main exposure to science and technology.?
I would phrase it differently. I would say that within the mix, science fiction is a unique and powerful window on science and technology that touches the general public in a way that no other vehcile of communication seems to achieve.
What do you think of as being science fiction? What are the first science fiction film, TV program and book that you can think of?
2001 - the film. I am sure I saw or read something before that, but your question what is the first one that I can think of ... and it made an impression. I think of good science fiction as being Jurassic Park and lots that Michael Crichton does ... taking a little science and using it as a lever to engage people in a good story.
What do you think the public will consider to be Science Fiction?
War of the Worlds ... and the like. Again .. just my immediate impressions
Do you think that science fiction can be used as an educational tool? Why/If so how?
I think that it can be used in many ways, but principally to make artistically inclined students feel more comfortable with science and technology, by inviting them to write or visual express stories that are judged in part by the science and in part by the quality of the art putting both science nerds and artistic kids on equal footing in an endeavour.
Do you believe science fiction on its own can teach science and/or inspire the public to follow a life in science?
I think that a survey of professional scientists and engineers who were at least partially inspired by science fiction in their youth would provide you with a resounding yes to this question.
Is it important for science fiction to represent 'real science'? How accurate does it need to be?
What is real science ... is it what we know now, what we think we now, what we can imagine, or a combination of these things ... I think that science fiction is best when based upon real science or somehow making it clear what is fiction ... for example, we all know that there are threads of truth to Jurassic Park DNA stuff, but other things that are not ... I might be good for books on science fiction to include an appendix that summarises the main facts and main fictions ..
Do you think that the public will see science fiction as a predictor of future science?
Yes ...
Do you believe that science fiction can lead or inspire 'real' science?
Yes ... consciously or not we all carry the images of Star Trek tools and other concepts around in our minds as we address problems and opportunities in science ... and this has to have an influence
What negative effects do you believe science fiction has had on the public's view of science and technology?
Cultivating the image of the Mad Scientist and Frankenstein experiments does a great disservice to a lot of people ... and has probably had a negative impact on the encouragement of careers in science.
Do you think that the images of science being dangerous and/or used for evil will have an effect on peoples views?
Yes ... how much I don't know .. but significant.
What positive effects do you believe science fiction has had on the public's view of science and technology?
Star Trek and other positive visions for the future make life easier ...
On balance do you believe the net effect for the public has been positive or negative?
Positive ... if we did not have things that stimulate our imagination and wonder and challenge us, we (humanity) would dry up and blow away ...
(Christopher Frayling. 2000) "A survey of 1000 horror films distributed in Britain between 1931 and 1984, on the other hand, shows that mad scientists or their creations have been the villains of 31% of them; that scientific research has produced 39% of the threats in all horror films and - by contrast - that scientists have been the "pursuers" or heroes of a mere 11% of horror movies.". Bearing this in mind how do you believe the representation of scientists within science fiction effects the publics view of science and scientists?
Movies are dominated by stereotypes - so I don't think scientists should feel too victimised ... lawyers have probably also suffered in the movies, science fiction has had an impact in this negative way, again, I would balance this with the positive impact of engaging people in films and stimulating our imaginations ... Lately it seems that the trend is shifting ... and I would be interested in a 1984-2001 study.
How strongly do you believe/disbelieve science fiction affects the public's understanding of science and technology?
I would like to seem some empirical evidence on this ... but I suspect that most people have their first, memorable exposure to issues such as DNA through science fiction films and television ...
Do you think that the public will realise that Science Fiction is having this effect on them?
Not consciously, but if they were asked to reflect on it ... most would agree.
How do you believe that reporting on and analysis of science fiction ( i.e. "The science of ..(Star Trek)........ " )can further affect the publics understanding of science and technology?
I think that this is an area of great opportunity ... but just one aspect of a bigger picture which relates to answer one... find out what interests people - and use that to draw them into scientific understanding and knowledge.
Do you believe that the general public will see a distinction between pseudo-science books/film/TV (such as "Buffy the vampire slayer" and "The X-Files") and Science Fiction.
Yes ... people are generally smarter than we think.
What kind of interest do you have in Science Fiction?
When I was young many years ago, I did read a fair bit of science fiction but to be quite honest I'd essentially stopped when I went to university, my interest moved on in other ways. I think science fiction played some considerable role in fuelling my interest in science. The particular authors if you want some steer on where I came from in that sense, one particular author who had a very great influence was Fred Hoyle, obviously he wrote non fiction books as well but he and his brother Jeffery also wrote some science fiction stuff which was very interesting, very stimulating. There was also a series of if I'm remembering particular things that I thought were very good, there were a series of books called the “Spectrum” series of science fiction short stories, about 3 or 4 books and some of those were excellent with the classic authors such as Asimov and the normal crew and some of those were very good. It tended to be that I liked things which had a good strong science content with a human interest but I wasn't particularly into what I'd call fantasy type science fiction, it really was things that set human relations in an unusual way or had some particular technical implication that was interesting. In fact I remember reading one which now would be counted as almost normal in that it was a story about somebody doing some mining or process or other on Jupiter and they were doing some repair on some piece of apparatus, some huge big piece of apparatus or something, sort of like an engineering or a bridge and then you suddenly realise halfway through the story that they took of their helmet and in fact it was all virtual reality, they weren't actually there, they were in a space ship or something above Jupiter and it was all done through virtual reality controlling what was going on down below. Well nowadays we are also most at that kind of stage, so that sort of thing, looking forward to technical advances that way, I found that very interesting and so on. And I was very interested in physics, so the physical aspects and so on were of interest. But it's interesting, since essentially being at university I've read very little science fiction. I have obviously occasionally watched the odd science fiction thing on TV or film, things like “Alien” or a bit of “Star Trek” and so on but I wouldn't describe it as something that I spend a lot of time on watching. Again going back to youth another science fiction thing that people would watch of my age, which is lets say we've just passed the first half century shall we, would tended to have watched things like “Dr Who” which nowadays are of course an absolute hoot and what ever. But in their own days they were entertaining and they were pointing towards interesting physical effects, the fact that you could walk in the TARDIS and it was much bigger on the inside than outside, would did they do that actually? Changing rooms ought to have a good at that I suppose and so those sort of ideas and those sort of things, so that's where I'm coming from when I talk about science fiction.
Did you like the science before science fiction or did the science come first?
I think I probably liked the science before I read the science fiction.
What kind of level of interest do you think the public have in science in general?
That's a difficult one, because science in general is different from science in particular and to generalise I think is very difficult. There's certain aspects of science which typically people are interested in, medical science most people I would guess have an interest in that, and astronomy is normally, although they seemed phased by it, they are often very interested in. You mention the word physics and the eyes glaze over like anything, it's a wonderful way to at cocktail parties to you know, it's either I've got aids or I'm a physicist and they just dissolve into the back of the room. Chemistry people aren't particularly interested in I won't have thought and so on, biological sciences well a bit but not of the details. It tends to be and I'm assuming that the average person and this is an assumption ok, and you are asking what I'm assuming that most people would find things that are directly relevant to them interesting. A little bit of what stretches the mind in a wow way is interesting. But a lot of the more straightforward scientific stuff and the method of science and just a general lot of scientific stuff they probably aren't terribly interested and largely I think because they think its boring and haven't been introduced to it properly but you don't need me to tell you that.
Do you think that science fiction will be the main exposure for some people to science, that some people just get all of their scientific information from science fiction?
I suppose for some people it must be the main diet to some extent, other people will watch presumably or catch in the papers the odd scientific article or things like “Tomorrow's World” or some thing, but some of the so called but not always 'good' TV programs science such as “Horizon” and “Equinox” and so on, the actual audience for those is fairly selective and so they are not what I would call the general public audience. So a lot of people will see some things on science through film or the “James Bond” film where there is the mad scientist with the test tube or through science fiction or through some news coverage and news coverage isn't as bad as it used to be, it's somewhat better than it used to be, but it's still not ideal.
What do you personally thing of as being science fiction?
Science fiction I would describe as being a literary or visual genre in which at its best to my mind it's where humans are put in unusual circumstances that are not the normal ones you would think about and the ways it plays on their emotions and their feelings and their reactions and their thinking, that's what to me is good science fiction. It's probably true that interesting science fiction is also true where it also does a sort of future cast, and tries to look forward to how society or the world will look in future eras or in different eras or in different places and exploring those differences, that's also a very interesting part of science fiction. It's really trying to look at alternative universes and alternative ways of living and that interesting, it makes you think anew about your own predicament I guess.
What do you think the general public will see as science fiction?
Well most people probably like it as a good yarn and to some extent people presumably do like to watch things or listen to things that take them out of the ordinary, most popular entertainments, mass entertainments tend to be things that take you away from your norm and allow you the luxury of forgetting or sublimating either an ordinary existence, or a dull existence or worried existence for a period of time, and that can be a good adventure yarn and a science fiction theme will give you another opportunity for a bit of adventure, as car chases, what ever and as with all literary or visual things like that it's good if it does spin you a good yarn and does take you away from what you were thinking about before. As I said to me a really good attraction however is if it gives you that added value where its not merely taking you away from things but is as with good literature stimulating you to look at the world in a different way.
Do you think it's important for science fiction to represent real science?
No, I don't think so. And so long as it's clear what's being talked about is science fiction, you know this is science fiction it's not science fact. If you want science fact sure have a go with science fact or project science fact or what ever but science fiction doesn't really deal with science fact. As I say a lot of the things about science fiction are to do with human reactions to things. That's when it's interesting or good. On the whole science has absolutely nothing at all within its remit to say anything about those things.
Do you think the public see science fiction as a predictor of where science and technology are going?
Well yes except that you see what lots of people see as science fiction is in fact technological projection, that's not the same as science. There is a great difference and one of the problems I guess is again I'm sounding very pompous or whatever but one of the problems is maybe that in the perception of science that the average person has, is some idea that science is a panacea it's a provider of widgets like Obionekenobe's nice laser sword or something and not a way of looking at the world that happens to be almost at times unduly effective but not uniquely effective and in some cases not able to comment on certain other things in the world. So I wonder and I think I don't know whether you'd support this or not that the average person has very little understanding of the scientific method, in what really the true nature of science is and that is altogether different as well from what even the scientist would like science to be, and of course the actual practice is even different from that again. But the idea that you try and build up a picture of the universe and the world that relies on experimentation, careful construction of theory, getting the sums right, testing those against the theory, rejecting theory that's no good because it doesn't agree with the observations, trying to refine that, having a better predictive theory, testing the implications of that and so on and so on and building up a structure that then becomes a very useful way of looking at the world and allows you also as a by-product really to have the control to be able to manufacture some very sophisticated technological equipment. Now the manufacture of the technological equipment isn't science it's the principals underlying it and the world view that has to be developed by scientific method and that underlining method and so on isn't really treated and I think that that is something which is farther lacking and maybe I'm being over pessimistic but I mean when you look at things like peoples reactions to risk analysis for example, or say the foot and mouth crisis and what does it really mean and why do you kill these things and so on. It is very difficult to say well look it's trying to be done scientifically, well I hope it is anyway, in the sense that you've made a model of this, they've tried various things on it and this is the most effective way, not even sure exactly why it works but that seems to be the way to do it and that is the most logical best solution that could be found at that time. People would expect that if it is scientific that somehow it's right in some way. Well it is in a sense but not in any absolute sense, it's really a tool and any effective way of dealing with the world, and that sort of idea you see doesn't probably get across in science fiction, maybe it does.
Do you think that science fiction or the ideas in it can inspire real science?
Well yes/no, it's very difficult to know which comes first chicken or egg. It's possible that odd scientists look at something and say oh yes if only we could do that, that would be an interesting thing and one of the most fascinating things is that you look back, say something like Star Trek where one used to giggle at seeing there was captain Kirk on the ground and Mr Spock or what ever it was putting these funny little things up to their ears and saying ok Scotty beam me up you see and they didn't have any wires attached or anything like that and it was some sort of telephone thing and now everybody's doing it in the street, the only difference is that if you're on a train crowded with these things they don't beam up and away from the train. That was something that 20 or 30 years ago looked odd but has come to pass. Is it that some astute technologies was watching Star Trek and said oh look that's a good idea, we can sell lots of those, or was it just that the writers thought that well eventually we'll get small radiophones or something, the general public won't have one but presumably the star ship captain of the enterprise would be able to afford one of those things. So I think it's difficult in that way. It's possible that some ideas do inspire but as with all ideas it's very difficult to know good science theory comes from and the history of science is littered with people getting ideas from weird and wonderful places. You know the famous story about Keckkoola and the benzene rings, he dreamed the ring structure of benzene. It's said that he got that idea the day after he'd had a dream about a snake, very Freudian I do say, a snake that was chasing itself and grabbed onto it's own tail and he woke up in the morning and remembers this dream and god it was a snake chasing his own tail and he began to think about arrangements of 6 carbon atoms in various ways and realised hang on a minute suppose it loops back on itself and the tail was joined, well it's rumoured. So things like that it might well be that people watching the odd film would be inspired to do something but I think one would be hard pressed to claim that it was a really direct and strong causal link.
Do you believe science fiction has had any affect on your field?
Oh, hurmmmm Well its probably had some good effect in the sense that it has made people much more interested in things like gravitational theory, black holes of course were an absolute gift and people are fascinated by those obviously all the hype that goes around science fiction, stories about black holes and so on makes people more interested in learning about them perhaps a bit more scientifically about those. Ideas about time travel I think are always very fascinating, those are input obviously by ideas about relativity and so on, so again I'm sure that a lot of students first go into astronomy and physics because they are fascinated by such ideas. To some extent it does affect what the public are interested in and hence what the governments may put money into and press. One of the ones that's quite interesting and may or may not get money put into it is the asteroid impact danger that 10 or 20 years ago you would have never got any funding to even think about, 30 years ago you would have been laughed out of court about and 40 years ago with the Velaskovski ideas of the worlds inquisition it was completely howled out of court by the scientific community, although nowadays it's recognised as a genuine threat with a certain small risk which you can try and quantify and it is beginning to be taken more seriously that you could do something about at least about getting more information about the thing to find out what the actual risk is and if you want to have some sort of long term strategy to ameliorate that risk. Now obviously things like Deep Impact presumably have pushed the public into more awareness but those films tended to come just a little while after the scientific documentaries which had been popularising that. I think it is true to say that the science was just ahead of the science fiction in that case. Although I read a science fiction story with that sort of idea about the consequences of impact at least about 40 years ago.
Can you think of any negative affects that science fiction may have had on the general public's views of science and technology?
Yes I suppose so. One, as I say is perhaps believing too strongly in the good and bad that science can do, that somehow science is evil or science is good or what ever and not realising its limitations, its good points and its bad points in terms of the actual method that humans use, that might be a problem. Perhaps it may have generated some impatience with scientists, that they should be getting on and getting the answers to things much more quickly than we possibly can.
Can you think of anything that the public might see as being negative?
Well yes the Klingons probably aren't very popular. It's not necessarily science fiction that's doing this, the vision of if you're having a scientist, if she is female then she has to have big thick glasses, no physical attributes and wear a white coat, I think is very bad, bad role models. These have been started to be worked on in programs such as the X-Files in which the main female scientist does not meet that classification, is better. So I think it's good if we can get away from the stereotype role models, the idea of the mad scientist I think is very unfortunate. To so extend it either produces a negative in the terms of science being bad in some sense or that it is nerdish in some sense and that is very bad for recruitment into science, or for any poor child in school either boy or girl who does really enjoy science. There has certainly over the years been dreadful prejudice in schools against girls doing science and that is a real tragedy, it's everybody's loss, so that sort of attitude. But true science fiction I would say is not trying to do that at all and in my mind quite the reverse it's just popular stereotypes.
And what about the positive views of science that the public might see?
A positive sign would be to believe that science is a thing worth doing, that its going to do things for you that other things can't do, and get you places and solve problems that you can't do in other ways. I think that's the positive hope, that 'boldly going' if you like to put it that way, is a positive aspect. Going back to the negative aspects things like Jurassic Park, again the idea that science can be seriously misused is a difficult one, and it's true in some senses that science can be misused as any other human activity can be misused but not more or less so, it's just that it would be interesting, somebody, no doubt, will be doing a doctoral thesis soon…on whether how much the Jurassic Park effect or similar has affected genetic food debate. Genetic food is not a clear cut debate and its been done very unscientifically, people are reacting very unscientifically to that, the risk. Risk analysis is a difficult thing, people really don't get into it very well and it's been coloured because obviously any genetic change must therefore be bad. It's not self-evident, that's true, and if you could have some genetic modification which allows you to grow a great deal more crops on the same amount of land, and feed more people from the same amount of land that can, under certain circumstances, not all circumstances; it could put all the other farmers out of work, or something; that could be a useful thing, if it could stop babies being born with bad birth defects, again that's presumably a good thing rather than a bad thing, however if it keeps having two heads while you do it, you follow me? It's risk, it's understanding what the science can do and what it can't do. It's always this problem, science is a human activity. Science doesn't have its own morals in a sense, it's amoral in the sense of not having morals, but it's a human activity and humans have the morals. It's how you use it that's the problem. I don't know whether science fiction has been good or bad at making science seem more or less moral than it really is, it's actually the people who do it and the people who apply it, the politics involved rather than anything incipient, morality of science.
So what do you think the net effect is? Does the good outweigh the bad?
Oh, definitely, absolutely. I'd say strongly so because, as you say, in a lot of cases it's the only contact or maybe the only real contact that members of the public have, and if they find it interesting and enjoyable, if they enjoyed the science fiction, I find that, you know 'Oh, I really liked that film' or 'that was really interesting' or 'pwhoor' presumably that does at least say that they might then be more attentive to learning, interested in learning about the true background behind it, so I think that's a good thing. But the problem I guess is, that very often it's very difficult, for all sorts of reasons, to actually take the transition between watching something, or finding something, a bit of science fiction interesting and actually transferring that into a real fed, nurtured interest in science, and the real group I'd be looking for with that is teenage kids who, a lot of whom, for whatever reasons, hormones seems to be the main one, although they seem to be very interested in science at primary school age, by the time they're twelve to fourteen the nerdish image of science has come to such a point that you're not allowed to interested in anything apart from sex, drugs and rock and roll, which when you're young is not necessarily a good, bad…. But it means that a lot of them don't then, at a crucial era, do the foundation work in mathematics and science that's necessary if they are going to pursue a career in it, and I think that…if science fiction can help that, if the X-Files are popular and people get more interested in physical effects, biological medicine, whatever as a result of watching science fiction when they're that age so it does demystify, decriminalise or de-nerdify it, then that's fine. I don't see any problem with that.
Now you mentioned a lot people's interest being stimulated, but do you think science fiction can actually affect their understanding?
Yes, probably. This is your thing about should science fiction be true scientific…I think things are more convincing if you're watching a science fiction film and they're relying on physical effects that are true, or could be, may well be true, than ones that are false, but as I say there's no reason why they necessarily should, because there's no law that says they have to, but the problem then is of course that people may come away with the wrong impression of scientific laws, but I'm not sure how deep that's actually ingrained, because they're probably not exposed to it for very long, it seems to be my experience with undergraduates at least that you have to expose them quite hard and for quite long periods before they actually understand the nature of particular physical laws, so it probably doesn't do too much lasting damage.
Do you think the public see that it is having an effect on their understanding or do you think they just sort of walk in, watch it, and go out and think it doesn't have an effect on them?
Yeah, I guess so. I guess that they don't really, that would be my thought. You might find out otherwise from other people. I don't know, but I thought that it would do, have a great one. 'Cause I say that the problem is, that worries me is that people think 'oh that's interesting', I do wonder how, if you are regarding the public understanding of science as in some cases educative, though that's a word one should never use these days, but from the point of view of getting a population that is more scientifically sophisticated and has more ability to make sensible judgements about scientific subjects…it's unfortunate that if people do find that's interesting they don't then have some way of taking that further, or easy way of taking that further so they can learn more about things in a satisfactory way.
In recent years there seems to have been a rush of books entitled 'The Science of Star Trek' or the 'Science of Star Wars'. Do you think they have much of an effect?
I don't know whether they have an effect. I think it's good that they're there, so that if somebody is interested in that then that is at least a next step, so fine. So I say try at least to get it right.
Would you classify programs such as the X-Files as Science Fiction?
Yes, I think so.
And what about programs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
That I think is getting a bit…not that I've seen much of it. I may have just caught a little bit of both, but that I would have thought is getting more towards what I call 'Paranormal phenomena' (Pseudo-science?) Yes, pseudo-science. And of course that's an interesting thing. One of the problems is..well I don't know how bad it is, I've no idea, you'd have to tell me on this one…how confusing it is to people to draw the true line between science and pseudo-science. And I obviously find this where people think that I am, when you talk to members of the public, sometimes they think you are an astrologer, and not an astronomer. Often they can't see the difference between those, but I don't know whether they really don't see the difference, or it's just the word they've got wrong. You know, they really do know that I don't go and follow star charts to find out with what I could win the lottery next day, but it's just a nomenclature…confusion, but all scientists, I think, in all areas, are always worried about pseudo-science, because it's, if you like, the sin against the holy ghost in religious terminology. If you get people beginning to believe in pseudo-science and are not applying proper reasoning or scientific reasoning to those problems, we're lost because once you lose that method of doing things that's effective you can explain or do anything, you can warp it to anything you like and that it very worrying. If most people did believe in pseudo-science really, I mean most people don't believe in their star signs even though they might read them and like to think that there might be something in them, just because people are human, but they don't probably really believe there's a causal link in them, but that's OK, there's no problem about that. If the majority of people believed there was a causal link when there is no experimental evidence or any theoretical evidence, and there should be, I think, then you're in trouble, then the dark ages are beginning again.
A lot of scientists I've spoken to, they draw the line differently between where science fiction ends and pseudo-science begins, but do you think the general public, the average person, would be able to tell the difference?
Not necessarily. I'm not sure that even a lot of scientists necessarily, outside their own specialist fields, be able to absolutely draw the line.
That's one of the interesting things I've found. We had some children who were 12 and 13 and they considered Buffy to be a science TV program, and then were having difficulty separating that from science documentary science.
So ultimately do you think science fiction does affect or does not affect the public's understanding of science.
Oh, I'm sure it affects it in some ways, but at what level (It's complicated) it's complicated. But I think what it certainly alters is attitudes, but on the whole I'd guess that would be a positive rather than a negative thing. You may be able to say, oh no actually it's very negative because what we find is that people in general there are destructive things happening in science fiction, and that therefore people get a view of science as being destructive rather than constructive… I don't know, I have no idea about that, I'm just being optimistic and hoping, because I tend to see students as it were, or members of the public who've become interested in science possibly because of science fiction. That's fine, that's great, I don't care how people get interested in it so long as they are interested in it and begin to understand it for what it actually is, but if it keeps putting people off science then perhaps we'd better get in touch with the BBC or ITV very hurriedly.