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'''Science Fiction''' is literature which speculates on the impact of technology or cultural changes on human individuals or society. Nineteenth Century masterpieces of science fiction include Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (1818), Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' (1864), and H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' (1898). In the 1920's pulp magazines opened up the genre to many new writers. The 1940s were considered the "Golden Age of Science Fiction" with the emergence of acknowledged masters such as [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Arthur C. Clarke]], and [[Robert Heinlein]].
'''Science fiction''' is a form of [[literature]] that includes some form of speculation as to a possible [[science|scientific]] discovery, invention, or project that has not yet come to pass at the time of writing. Such a project is usually, but not always, intended as a metaphor for an unsettling social change, or a vehicle to introduce a discussion of such change. A speculative project may, but does not necessarily, violate the laws of nature as most scientists understand them. A speculative discovery may be either a new scientific law, or a revision of an existing law, or of an object, substance, environment, or even an entire [[civilization]] previously unknown to man.
== History of Science Fiction ==
Modern science fiction as most people understand it today began in 1818 with the novel ''[[Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus]]'' by [[Mary Shelley]], with various works by [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] and [[Edgar Allen Poe]], and with the novel ''[[The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde]]'' by [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]. These works mainly were warnings to a brash mankind that some avenues of scientific investigation would be better left unexplored. The projects resulting from them, however much good they might promise, inevitably bring harm upon the investigator, those closest to him, and any number of innocent bystanders. This applies even to [[Jules Verne]] and his works (such as ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'' and ''[[From the Earth to the Moon]]''), because the heroes in them almost always come to sad ends.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, [[Herbert George Wells]] and [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] sounded similar dark themes in their work. But their warnings were less about someone investigating something he shouldn't and more about possible dire futures for human civilization and the planet itself. Wells' ''[[The Time Machine]]'' is the best illustration of this concept. Wells also was among the first to speculate on [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] attacks upon the [[earth]], with his classis ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' (1898).
The twentieth century saw science fiction become far less serious in its purpose. The works of [[Hugo Gernsback]] and others were intended merely to entertain and amuse--in other words, to help the reader escape an unpleasant reality. But reality would soon reimpose itself on the imaginations of science-fiction writers. The nuclear attack on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and Nagasaki inspired many writers to create [[monster|monsters]] of tremendous size and destructive power comparable to the power of nuclear weapons, and other writers to speculate anew on the harms that can result from playing fast and loose with dangerous new forces--in this case, [[Atoms|atomic]] [[radiation]]. The deepening mutual scorn in which the [[United States of America]] and the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] held one another, originally inspired works featuring [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] expeditionary forces coming to the earth to make war upon humanity (or occasionally to catch humanity in the crossfire). Later writers, editors, and producers, like [[Gene Roddenberry]] (of [[Star Trek]] fame), would speculate that humanity would expand on new voyages of discovery, only to end up fighting with enemies that looked and behaved very similarly to whatever power was foreign to the writer's nation-state of origin. This era would also see the writing of the ''[[Dune (novel series)|Dune]]'' series of novels by [[Frank Herbert]], in which humanity would expand throughout a vast region of the universe, only to divide into interstellar and trans-galactic versions of the civilizations then extant in the 1960's, and even have conflicts over natural resources that closely mirror the struggle for control of such resources, chiefly [[petroleum]], today.
Eventually, however, this theme would give way to hopeful tales of [[God-substitute]]s promising to solve all humanity's problems, if humanity's leaders were smart enough not to provoke such people to war. However, [[George Lucas]], borrowing heavily from Frank Herbert's concepts for ''Dune'', would create a story arc (''[[Star Wars]]'') set in a far-distant [[galaxy]] that, as he now reveals, is a metaphor for his perception of the War in [[Vietnam]] and the role (which in Lucas' view is ''not'' flattering) of the [[United States of America]] in the civilized world today. In the process, Lucas combined the technological prowess shown by producer [[Stanley Kubrick]] in ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' with the production values and sensibilities of the science-fiction [[B movie]]s of the 1950's and 1960's to create the special-effects-laden "blockbuster" formula that dominates [[motion picture]]s today.
== Science fiction and [[evolutionism]] influencing one another ==
H. G. Wells' work is the best example of prevailing paradigms of scientific consensus influencing science fiction. The meme of evolution was quite strong in Wells' day, and this surely must have informed his projection of the [[evolution]] of man and of civilization into the dire picture he painted in ''The Time Machine''.
The 1950s saw several [[Motion picture|films]] that borrowed plot-themes from evolution. Many of them used ''atavism'' (the retrogression of a species, or even an individual, to a stage of macro-evolution several [[Epoch|epochs]] in the past) as a plot-theme. Although many of these projects more properly belong to the genre called ''horror'' (from the [[Latin]] ''horreo'' I shudder), they all had a strong science-fiction element, using as they did a form of speculation on the progress (or alleged possible regress) of evolution.
In that same era, the author [[Larry Niven]] created a story arc that began millions of years before the present with an apocalyptic war that destroyed every thinking being of the period. Life, presumably, had to re-evolve after that, but artifacts of that war--some of them very dangerous--remained.
More recently, science fiction appears to have influenced "real-life" speculation. The Crick and Orgel theory of [[Panspermia#Directed panspermia|directed panspermia]] involves an obvious science-fiction device, namely a brace of interstellar or even intergalactic missiles and an extraterrestrial civilization to build and launch them. Crick and Orgel, in turn, influenced the successors of Gene Roddenberry to tell a story of the contact, on the part of humanity and its allied civilizations, with the very civilization that fired such a brace of missiles at earth and other worlds.
Even more recently than this, [[Carl Sagan]] wrote a novel (''Contact'') in which he openly speculated on how the first "contact" with [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] explorers or "ambassadors" might unfold. This novel was subsequently adapted into [[motion picture|film]].
== Faith-based science fiction? ==
At first glance, such a concept might seem oxymoronic. However, a writer of science fiction might choose to limit his speculations strictly to those for which a [[Bible|Scriptural]] warrant exists, and to create a character or characters whose abiding faith informs their decisions and actions. A writer might also project his characters into a world that the [[Bible]] or [[creation science]] might predict, and evolutionary [[science]] might declare impossible. Plot-themes of recent faith-based science-fiction works have involved time travel, either real or virtual, to past human environments, for example to [[Jerusalem]] before its destruction by a [[Rome|Roman]] general or even to the civilization that might have existed shortly before the [[Great Flood]]. [[Eschatology]] is possibly the most frequent theme in Christian science fiction today.
== Related references ==
[http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/scifi/history/default.htm Science Fiction History]
== Dual-user Provenance ==
My edits to this article as of April 22, 2007, represent a dual submission of content of sole authorship. I am the same person as User:Temlakos on [[CreationWiki]]. My contributions to this article are based in part on [http://creationwiki.org/index.php?title=Science_fiction&oldid=70097 this version] of the CreationWiki article, which is entirely my work. I have, however, expanded on certain concepts that are more appropriate to a general encyclopedia than to one specializing in creation science and creation-informed history.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]]<sup>[[User talk:TerryH|Talk]]</sup> 14:58, 22 April 2007 (EDT)
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