Biology in fiction

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Boris Karloff in James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein, based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. The monster is created by an unorthodox biology experiment.

parasitism and symbiosis (mutualism), ethology, and ecology
.

Speculative evolution enables authors with sufficient skill to create what the critic Helen N. Parker calls biological parables, illuminating the human condition from an alien viewpoint. Fictional alien animals and plants, especially humanoids, have frequently been created simply to provide entertaining monsters. Zoologists such as Sam Levin have argued that, driven by natural selection on other planets, aliens might indeed tend to resemble humans to some extent.

Major themes of science fiction include messages of optimism or pessimism; Helen N. Parker has noted that in biological fiction, pessimism is by far the dominant outlook. Early works such as H. G. Wells's novels explored the grim consequences of Darwinian evolution, ruthless competition, and the dark side of human nature; Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was similarly gloomy about the effects of genetic engineering.

Fictional biology, too, has enabled major science fiction authors like

Ursula Le Guin to create what Parker called biological parables
, with convincing portrayals of alien worlds able to support deep analogies with Earth and humanity.

Aspects of biology

Aspects of biology found in fiction include evolution, disease, ecology, ethology, genetics, physiology, parasitism, and mutualism (symbiosis).[1][2][3]

Evolution

Main article: Evolution in fiction

intelligent machines.[5]

Disease

Main articles:
Tuberculosis in human culture
Jack London's 1912 The Scarlet Plague (reprinted in 1949) takes place after an uncontrollable epidemic.

apocalyptic fiction describing the "near annihilation or total extinction of the human race" by threats including deadly viruses rises when general "fear and unease", as measured by the Doomsday Clock, increase.[9]

Tuberculosis was a common disease in the 19th century. In

Turgenev did the same with Bazarov in Father and Sons.[10] In English literature of the Victorian era, major tuberculosis novels include Charles Dickens's 1848 Dombey and Son, Elizabeth Gaskell's 1855 North and South, and Mrs. Humphry Ward's 1900 Eleanor.[11][12]

Genetics

Main article: Genetics in fiction

Aspects of

hybridisation,[13][14] cloning (as in Brave New World),[15][16] genetic engineering,[17] and eugenics[18] have appeared in fiction since the 19th century. Genetics is a young science, having started in 1900 with the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's study on the inheritance of traits in pea plants. During the 20th century it developed to create new sciences and technologies including molecular biology, DNA sequencing, cloning, and genetic engineering. The ethical implications of modifying humans (and all their descendants) were brought into focus with the eugenics movement. Since then, many science fiction novels and films have used aspects of genetics as plot devices, often taking one of two routes: a genetic accident with disastrous consequences; or, the feasibility and desirability of a planned genetic alteration. The treatment of science in these stories has been uneven and often unrealistic.[19][20][21] The 1997 film Gattaca attempted to portray science accurately but was criticised by scientists.[22] Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park portrayed the cloning of whole dinosaur genomes from fossil remains of species extinct for millions of years, and their use to recreate living animals,[21] using what was then known of genetics and molecular biology to create an "entertaining" and "thought-provoking" story.[23]

Naomi Alderman's 2016 novel The Power imagines that women have electric organs like those of the electric eel, Electrophorus electricus, creating powerful electric fields with modified muscles.[24] The pits along the electric eel's body are lateral line organs, used to detect prey by sensing small vibrations.

The lack of scientific understanding of genetics in the 19th century did not prevent science fiction works such as

The Island of Dr Moreau from exploring themes of biological experiment, mutation, and hybridisation, with their disastrous consequences, asking serious questions about the nature of humanity and responsibility for science.[21]

Physiology

The creation scene in

defibrillators, restoring heart rhythm.[26]

The ability to produce electricity is central to Naomi Alderman's 2016 science fiction novel

striated muscle.[24]

Parasitism

Main article: Parasites in fiction
Xenomorph[29] parasitoid from Alien[30]

parasitic castrator, and many forms of vampire are found in books and films.[32][33][34][35][36]
Some fictional parasites, like the deadly parasitoid
Xenomorphs in Alien, have become well known in their own right.[30] Terrifying monsters are clearly alluring: writer Matt Kaplan notes that they induce signs of stress including raised heart rate and sweating, but people continue indulging in such works. Kaplan compares this to the "masochism" of liking very hot spicy foods, which induce mouth burns, sweating, and tears. The psychologist Paul Rozin suggests that there is a pleasure in seeing one's own body react as if to stress while knowing that no real harm will result.[37]

Symbiosis

Main article: Symbiosis in fiction

The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn says microscopic lifeforms called midi-chlorians, inside all living cells, allow characters with enough of these symbionts in their cells to feel and use the Force.[38]

Ethology

"Sneaky Fuckers" she reads about in an ethology article.[39]

"Sneaky Fuckers", using her knowledge to navigate the tricks and dating rituals of the local boys; and she compares herself to a female firefly, who uses her coded flashing light signal to lure a male of another species to his death, or a female mantis, who starts eating her mate's head and thorax while his abdomen is still copulating with her. "Female insects, Kya thought, know how to deal with their lovers."[40][39]

Ecology

Main article: Ecofiction

Red Mars, and Margaret Atwood's 2013 MaddAddam.[41][42] Dune brought ecology centre stage, with a whole planet struggling with its environment. Its lifeforms included giant sandworms for whom water is fatal and mouse-like animals able to survive in the planet's desert conditions.[43] The book was influential on the environmental movement of the time.[44]

In the 1970s, the impact of human activity on the environment stimulated a new kind of writing,

H. H. Munro, J. G. Ballard, and Isaac Asimov.[47]

Fictional organisms

A mock taxidermy specimen of a fictional rhinograde invented by the German zoologist Gerolf Steiner[48]
Further information: Lists of fictional species and Speculative evolution

Fiction, especially science fiction, has created large numbers of fictional species, both alien and terrestrial.[49][50] One branch of fiction, speculative evolution or speculative biology, consists specifically of the design of imaginary organisms in particular scenarios; this is sometimes informed by precise science.[51][52]

Functions

Fictional biology serves a variety of function in film and literature, including the supply of suitably terrifying monsters,[53] the communication of an author's worldview,[5][6] and the creation of aliens for biological parables to illuminate what it is to be human.[54] Real biology, such as of infectious diseases, equally provides a variety of contexts, from personal to highly dystopian, that can be exploited in fiction.[7]

Monsters and aliens

Further information: Extraterrestrials in fiction and Humanoid

A common use of fictional biology in science fiction is to provide plausible alien species, sometimes simply as terrifying subjects, but sometimes for more reflective purposes.

Martians in his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds,[55] the bug-eyed monsters of early 20th century science fiction,[56] fearsome parasitoids,[57] and a variety of giant insects, especially in early 20th century big bug movies.[58][59][60]

Humanoid (roughly human-shaped) aliens are common in science fiction.[61] One reason is that authors use the only example of intelligent life that they know: humans. The zoologist Sam Levin points out that aliens might indeed tend to resemble humans, driven by natural selection.[62] Luis Villazon points out that animals that move necessarily have a front and a back; as with bilaterian animals on Earth, sense organs tend to gather at the front as they encounter stimuli there, forming a head. Legs reduce friction, and with legs, bilateral symmetry makes coordination easier. Sentient organisms will, Villazon argues, likely use tools, in which case they need hands and at least two other limbs to stand on. In short, a generally humanoid shape is likely, though octopus- or starfish-like bodies are also possible.[63]

The Devil Tree of El Dorado, and Fred White's 1899 Purple Terror. Algernon Blackwood's 1907 story "The Willows" powerfully tells of malevolent trees that manipulate people's minds.[67]

Optimism and pessimism

Further information: Evolution in fiction
H. G. Wells's 1898 The War of the Worlds struck a pessimistic note about human evolution.

A major theme of science fiction and of speculative biology is to convey a message of optimism or pessimism according to the author's worldview.[5][6] Whereas optimistic visions of technological progress are common enough in hard science fiction, pessimistic views of the future of humanity are far more usual in fiction based on biology.[4]

A rare optimistic note is struck by the evolutionary biologist

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, too, optimistically imagine that humans will evolve godlike mental capacities.[5]

The grim possibilities of Darwinian evolution with its ruthless "survival of the fittest" has been explored repeatedly from the beginnings of science fiction, as in H. G. Wells's novels The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), and The War of the Worlds (1898); these all pessimistically explore the possible dire consequences of the darker sides of human nature in the struggle for survival.[5] Aldous Huxley's 1931 novel Brave New World is similarly gloomy about the oppressive consequences of advances in genetic engineering applied to human reproduction.[68]

Biological parables

Stanley Weinbaum's 1934 A Martian Odyssey

The literary critic Helen N. Parker suggested in 1977 that speculative biology could serve as biological parables which throw light on the human condition. Such a parable brings aliens and humans into contact, allowing the author to view humanity from an alien perspective. She noted that the difficulty of doing this at length meant that only a few major authors had attempted it, naming

Ursula Le Guin. In her view, all four had impressively full characterizations of alien beings. Weinbaum had created a "bizarre assortment" of intelligent beings, unlike Brunner's crablike but extinct Draconians. What united all four writers, she argued, was that the novels centred on the interactions between aliens and humans, creating deep analogies between the two kinds of life and from there commenting on humanity now and in the future.[54] Weinbaum's 1934 A Martian Odyssey explored the question of how aliens and humans could communicate, given that their thought processes were utterly different.[69][70]
Asimov's 1972 The Gods Themselves both makes the aliens major characters, and explores parallel universes.[71] Brunner's 1974 Total Eclipse creates a whole alien world, extrapolated from terrestrial threats.[72]

In her 1969

oestrus, called "kemmer", at which point an individual comes temporarily to function as either a male or a female, depending on whether they first encounter a male- or female-functioning partner during their period of kemmer. The invented biology reflects and exemplifies, according to Parker, the opposing but united dualities of Taoism such as light and darkness, maleness and femaleness, yin and yang. So too do the opposed characters of Genly Ai with his carefully objective reports, and of Estraven with his or her highly personal diary, as the story unfolds, illuminating humanity through adventure and science fiction strangeness.[73]

Structure and themes

weedy seadragon) from William Buelow Gould's Sketchbook of fishes, c. 1832, used by Richard Flanagan in his 2001 novel Gould's Book of Fish

Modern novels sometimes make use of biology to provide structure and themes. Thomas Mann's 1912 Death in Venice relates the feelings of the protagonist to the progress of an epidemic of cholera, which eventually kills him.[74] Richard Flanagan's 2001 novel Gould's Book of Fish makes use of the illustrations from artist and convict William Buelow Gould's book of 26 paintings of fish for chapter headings and as the inspiration for the various characters in the novel.[75]

Realism

The geneticist Dan Koboldt observes that the science in science fiction is often oversimplified, reinforcing popular myths to the point of "pure fiction". In his own field, he gives as examples the idea that first-degree relatives have the same hair, eyes and nose as each other, and that a person's future is predicted by their genetic code, as (he states) in Gattaca.[76] Koboldt points out that eye colour changes as children grow up: adults with green or brown eyes often had blue eyes as babies; that brown-eyed parents can have children with blue eyes, "and vice versa"; and that the brown pigment melanin is controlled by around 10 different genes, so inheritance is along a spectrum rather than being a blue/brown switch.[77] Other authors in his edited collection Putting the Science in Fiction point out a wide variety of errors in the portrayal of other biological sciences.[78]

References

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  2. ^ Parker 1977, pp. 11-16 and passim.
  3. ^ Koboldt 2018, pp. 37–65.
  4. ^ a b Parker 1977, p. 80 and passim.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Stableford, Brian M.; Langford, David R. (5 July 2018). "Evolution". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Gollancz. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
  6. ^ a b c Levine, George (5 October 1986). "Darwin and the Evolution of Fiction". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
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  70. ^ Moskowitz, Samuel (1934). Introduction. Lancer Books. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
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  72. ^ Parker 1977, pp. 73–76.
  73. ^ Parker 1977, pp. 70–77.
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  76. ^ Koboldt 2018, pp. 4–5 and passim.
  77. ^ Koboldt, Dan (5 May 2015). "Eye-based Paternity Testing & Other Human Genetics Myths". Apex Magazine (72).
  78. ^ Koboldt 2018, pp. 7–135.

Sources

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