Imaginary Things and Science

A few weeks ago the physicist Sean Carroll* made an interesting post about using fiction (and video games) to teach science. He points to the books with the formula "The [field of academic inquiry] of [product of human imagination]" - think The Biology of Star Trek, The Physics of the Buffyverse, and their kin.

And as long as it’s been in circulation, the idea of subjecting TV shows or fantasy genres to scientific investigation has been the target of scoffing from curmudgeonly old folks who are taking a temporary break from chasing kids out of their yards. After all, they will tell you, how can you learn anything about science by studying fiction? Science is all about the real world! It has nothing to say about fake worlds that someone just made up.

Balderdash, of course. Neither physics, nor any other science, is some list of facts and theories to be committed to memory. There are a bunch of established pieces of knowledge that are worth remembering, no doubt about that, but much more important is the process by which that knowledge is acquired. And that process is just as applicable to imaginary worlds as it is to the real one. Any respectable universe, whether we find it out there or make it up ourselves, will be subject to certain internal rules of behavior. (When it comes to fiction, those rules are occasionally sacrificed for the sake of the plot, whereas in the real world they’re a bit more immutable.) Learning how to discover those rules, from the standpoint of an observer rather than one of the creators, is nothing more or less than learning how science is done.

I get the sense that a lot of people feel that science really is just the memorization of a bunch of boring facts. That attitude isn't too surprising, since many introductory science classes are taught in just that way. I'm hoping that more instructors will incorporate "fun science" (looking at science in fiction, playing video games that teach scientific principles, hands-on experiments, et cetera) into their curricula.

* Not to be confused with the biologist Sean Carroll.

Tags: science fiction, education

Zombie Evolution

It has been suggested that there could be no self-sustaining zombie population. The argument goes something like this: zombies "reproduce" by biting people, but not eating them. A fast zombie would be efficient at catching and eating people's brains, so no new zombies are made. A zombie that was so ineffective that he could bite, but not eat, his victims would be avoidable., so, again, no new zombies are made.

Anders Sandberg thinks that analysis is too simplistic.

First, there is of course always a slight chance of incompetence from efficient zombies and competence from inefficient zombies. This will lead to growth in any case.

Second, there might also be an evolutionary pressure on zombies. Assuming zombieness is in some sense heritable (why not? nothing about zombies makes sense anyway), there would be an evolution towards reduced virulence (i.e. biting, not killing as often). This is just as how many non-vector transmitted diseases evolve towards more benign forms where the host is not killed (diseases transmitted by vectors on the other hand have a weaker incentive to become less virulent). So the initial zombies would evolve towards an optimal speed to injure enough people to keep the spreading high, but not be too efficient. Maybe this is the "Hollywood optimum", since it provides with maximum uncertainty of the survival of the heroes.

Sandberg then runs a simulation of the evolution of a hypothetical zombie population. The results are frightening:

At first the very fast zombies expand, evolving towards ever more shuffling zombies while the humans are plentiful. Once the human population starts to decrease appreciably the zombies begins to evolve towards faster zombies again. But now there are so few humans left that the plentiful old zombies get them anyway and the evolution stops before it gets very far.

I'm convinced. We simply can't assume a zombie infestation will disappear on its own. Destroy them all! (via evolgen)

Tags:zombies, evolution

Children

What could cause widespread infertility? In the movie version of The Handmaid's Tale, biotoxins are the culprit. In the recent Children of Men, the causes aren't spelled out, but "we're left with the impression of an ecology badly out of whack." Will McCarthy's latest Lab Notes column for SciFi.com takes a look at what we currently know about reproductive toxins. He concludes that the outlook of Children of Men is too bleak:

The harshest criticism I have for Cuarón's story, and James' before it, is that it's unremittingly, unreasonably, unrealistically grim. Where is the biotech industry in all this? Vague rumors of a secret project aren't enough; where are the millions of skilled workers, the trillions of dollars in R&D funding that would surely be directed at the problem? By injecting human DNA into the egg cells of pigs (or sheep, or some other mammal unaffected by the fertility apocalypse), we could clone large numbers of healthy children who would—after some respectable interval and an appropriate course of sex education—start reproducing the old-fashioned way. And while we're at it, why not improve their genomes a little, so this kind of thing never happens again? On the side, we could upload our consciousness into robot bodies, cross our DNA with that of the smartest apes, and of course create sterile dome cities where toxins and pathogens are ruthlessly scrubbed away.

Given enough time and resources the human race probably could at least come up with some sort of stop-gap solution. Whether it would work to save our species is harder to know. Could we clone forever? Could we remove the toxins from the environment that caused the infertility in the first place? If there was a breakdown in civil order, perhaps not.

For another take on the same issues - use of technology (particularly cloning) to overcome the near destruction of the human race due to environmental catastrophe - I recommend reading Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.