# Predictive failures of science fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 20, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333 "2004-06-20T19:38:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/61 "2004-06-22T12:01:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Generally speaking, SF writers tend to latch onto whatever subjects are roaming around in the public zeitgeist and project them, greatly magnified, into the future. That’s why science fiction - especially mediocre, overly technical science fiction - dates itself so quickly Precisely **Alessan**. The hot pseudo-science book in the late 60s was the remarkably silly (and stunningly _wrong_) book **The Population Bomb** by Paul Ehrlich and that seemed to…um…“inspire” SF writers. When the internet started to be known, there was tons of VR/Cyberpunk stories. Drexler’s **Engines of Creation** became the nexus for a bunch of nano-tech stories. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/62 "2004-06-22T14:33:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, to my knowledge, **no** SF writer predicted the Internet in its current form. None of them ever imagined that not only would personal computers become cheap and widely available, but that one of their most important uses would be as a text-and-graphics-based personal communications medium. Nobody ever envisioned anything like the Straight Dope Message Board. I remember a book called _The Shockwave Rider_, by John Brunner. It’s been years since I read it (I was in high school, so we’re going back a long time). It must have been published somewhere around 1975 or so. It had what seems to me (in retrospect) a pretty good picture of the internet, although that word wasn’t used. There were various networks around then. The arpanet comes to mind. I know absolutely nothing about this stuff, but wasn’t that sort of the seed from which the internet grew? Anyway, I distinctly remember Brunner’s book. Not only was the networked/connected aspect of the world as shaped by ubiquitous computers a prediction, it was pretty much the whole theme of the book. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/63 "2004-06-22T16:29:04Z")
John Brunner also wrote _The Sheep Look Up_ which centered on ecological disaster and _Stand on Zanzibar_ which focused on overpopulation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/64 "2004-06-22T17:21:40Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > But again, I feel you’re missing the whole point. The purpose of science fiction isn’t to make accurate predictions, so condemning it for failing to achieve a goal it never set for itself is pointless. Are you having a problem with your browser? Why do you keep ascribing positions to me that are the exact opposite of what I’ve explicitly written. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/65 "2004-06-22T18:56:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Would that be Prelude to Space in the US? I’ll look it up - and the IASFM letters. Yes. And the two letters were in April 1987 and November 1988. My info is from an addendum to “Literary Science Blunders” by Martin Gardner in his book of collected columns, _Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic_. > [@](#): > > Still, the thing about sf is that with so many variants on a theme, someone will get almost everything right sometime. Very few moon landing stories had this - and I remember thinking so on July 20, 1969. > > Which is really the answer to the OP. There are so many stories, someone will get lots right, but the vast majority will get everything wrong, and all the moreso because of the purpose of sf, which, as has been said, is not prediction. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/66 "2004-06-22T20:50:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Why do you keep ascribing positions to me that are the exact opposite of what I’ve explicitly written. Sorry. I guess I was misinterpreting the passages you wrote which I quoted in my post. But going back and re-reading all of your posts, I still find that almost everything you wrote is about the accuracy of predictions. Are you saying you don’t think this is a relevant issue on this topic? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/67 "2004-06-22T23:19:46Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > One of the biggest errors of science fiction was the presumption that radiation would lead to spectacular terogenic mutations. I thought that wasn’t so much an error of science fiction as an error of comic books. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Another was that we wouldn’t be doing much in space until nuclear rockets were available. And look at where we are today! No nuclear rockets, and we’re **still** not doing much in space. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![johncole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@johncole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johncole)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/68 "2004-06-22T23:24:59Z")
> [@LMM](#): > > I remember a book called _The Shockwave Rider_, by John Brunner. It’s been years since I read it (I was in high school, so we’re going back a long time). It must have been published somewhere around 1975 or so. It had what seems to me (in retrospect) a pretty good picture of the internet, although that word wasn’t used. Exactly right - 1975. Relevant quote: > [@](#): > > The nation was tightly webbed in a net of inter-locking data channels, and a time-traveller from a century ago would have been horrified by the degree to which confidential information had been rendered accessible to total strangers capable of adding two plus two. Brunner also mentions “the integrated North American data-net”, renting time on “the public net”, and introduces the concept of “worms”. > [@](#): > > Fluckner had resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a self-perpetuating tapeworm. > … > It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes weeks. Another famous extrapolation is "The Marching Morons’’ by C. M. Kornbluth published in _Galaxy_ in 1951. Read it and weep. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/69 "2004-06-22T23:35:33Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Sorry. I guess I was misinterpreting the passages you wrote which I quoted in my post. But going back and re-reading all of your posts, I still find that almost everything you wrote is about the accuracy of predictions. Are you saying you don’t think this is a relevant issue on this topic? Since the OP was about accuracy of predictions, and almost all the other posts in the thread have been on the accuracy of predictions, I would hope that my posts would comment on them as well, or else I would be wasting everybody’s time. But from my very first post I have been arguing strongly that sf is not about mere accuracy of predictions, that it is difficult even to define what is meant by an accurate prediction, and that the way futures and predictions have been used in sf have changed considerably over time. SF often - along with a multitude of other techniques - uses extrapolation of present conditions into the future to make statements about the world around the reader. This does not mean sf is about the future, that the predictions made are designed to be accurate or even technologically meaningful, or that it matters whether the future depicted even comes into being. The art of predictions in sf is a device. Nothing more. It can be interesting to go back and look at what predictions were made - because of what it tells us of what people were thinking at the time. Unfortunately, virtually everybody seems to like making the accuracy of the predictions into something more than I think they warrant. It can be a fun game, but it should not become a comment on the value of sf. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/70 "2004-06-23T00:27:53Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > I thought that wasn’t so much an error of science fiction as an error of comic books. Nope, John W. Campbell was very big on the whole “Radiation leads to telepathic/psionic supermen” thing in the late '40s through the mid '50s and pushed it on his writers. Check out **Slan** , (IIRC) **Highways in Hiding** , **Children of the Atom** …um…Heinlein did a number of psychic characters…didn’t one of them get it from his parents being around radiation? and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/71 "2004-06-23T01:09:01Z")
The comic book notion was that radiation would produce superhumans, but the notion of radiation producing malformed monsters was pretty prevalent in “mainstream” science fiction. Take a look at Heinlein’s _Orphans of the Sky_, for instance: The entire population living near the ship’s reactor (called “muties”, both because of their mutations and because their ancestors had mutineed) are all misshaped. Their leaders are a pair of conjoined twins, the toolsmith is a woman with four arms, etc. Or in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, Wyoh is afraid to have more children, because her firstborn was a monster, which she attributes to being left in an unshielded ship on the surface during a solar storm. I don’t think that Heinlein ever had anyone gaining superpowers from radiation, but he certainly did have radiation-induced teratomas. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/72 "2004-06-23T01:15:50Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > Nope, John W. Campbell was very big on the whole “Radiation leads to telepathic/psionic supermen” thing in the late '40s through the mid '50s and pushed it on his writers. Check out **Slan** , (IIRC) **Highways in Hiding** , **Children of the Atom** …um…Heinlein did a number of psychic characters…didn’t one of them get it from his parents being around radiation? and so on. I don’t think Slan was a result of radiation, but Children of the Atom certainly were. Most after the war books had mutants running around - even **Davy** ,. I think. Few giant lizards, though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/73 "2004-06-23T02:41:14Z")
> [@](#): > > SF often - along with a multitude of other techniques - uses extrapolation of present conditions into the future to make statements about the world around the reader. This does not mean sf is about the future, that the predictions made are designed to be accurate or even technologically meaningful, or that it matters whether the future depicted even comes into being. The art of predictions in sf is a device. Nothing more. > > It can be interesting to go back and look at what predictions were made - because of what it tells us of what people were thinking at the time. Unfortunately, virtually everybody seems to like making the accuracy of the predictions into something more than I think they warrant. It can be a fun game, but it should not become a comment on the value of sf. Then I guess I did misinterpret you very badly. For what it’s worth, now that I understand your position I mostly agree with it. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/74 "2004-06-23T02:51:54Z")
johncole writes: \> Another famous extrapolation is "The Marching Morons’’ by C. M. Kornbluth \> published in Galaxy in 1951. Read it and weep. Are you claiming that “The Marching Morons” is an example of a good prediction? What predictions there are in it are terrible. It’s claimed that in this future society the average I.Q. is 45. O.K., let’s ignore the fact that, by definition, the average I.Q. is 100. What this obviously means is that, when measured on a present-day I.Q. test, an average person in this future society has an I.Q. of 45. First, this just wouldn’t work. People with that I.Q. can’t do _anything_ and a society with nearly everyone of that I.Q. couldn’t exist at all. The people described in this story aren’t that stupid in any case. They are more like people with an I.Q. of about 70. Second, it’s simply wrong as a prediction. Do a search on the term “Flynn Effect.” It’s been shown that the average I.Q. has been rising about 3 points per decade. Of course, it’s not meant to be a good prediction of the future. It’s a satire, and satires are nearly always not even close to being accurate predictions. It’s a typical example of Kornbluth’s cynical attitude about everything. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/75 "2004-06-23T04:58:26Z")
The “Flynn Effect” is most likely nonsense. I believe we’ve had several threads on this topic. Since ecological disaster caused by overpopulation is in fact the ongoing reality of our world in 2004, I don’t think we can really call that a bad prediction. It just isn’t happening as quickly as some people feared. As far as I know, none of the major science fiction writers predicted modern self-opening beer cans. Henry Kuttner’s “The Proud Robot” had standard beer cans, the kind you needed a church key to open, being superseded by “plastibulbs”. Of course, nobody with any sense would have predicted the intermediate design, with pull tabs that separated completely from the can, leaving you with a razor-sharp piece of metal to dispose of. God, I hated those things. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/76 "2004-06-23T09:59:38Z")
Baldwin writes: \> The “Flynn Effect” is most likely nonsense. Cite? There’s really no dispute that in every country where there has been a long history of giving I.Q. tests, the average person in any given year (who by definition would have scored 100 on the test that year) would have scored about 103 on the tests given ten years before. The only question is what this rise in I.Q. score means. No one believes that “intelligence” is really rising (even assuming that any such thing actually exists, which is questionable). There’s no way that the human race could be breeding itself into higher intelligence that fast. Something about society is changing that makes it easier for people to score higher on I.Q. tests. This may, of course, mean nothing except that I.Q. tests don’t really measure anything useful. In any case, that’s irrelevant to my point that the prediction in “The Marching Morons” that in a future society the average I.Q. would drop to 45 is absurd. There’s no evidence that intelligence is being or could be bred out of the human race. If the average I.Q. dropped to 45 (compared to present-day society) the people would simply be impossible to manage, whereas in the story there show as merely being mildly retarded. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/77 "2004-06-23T12:49:18Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > There’s no way that the human race could be breeding itself into higher intelligence that fast. Of course there is. We’re better at detecting brain defects pre-natally and more inclined to abort foetuses who have them. Cutting off the bottom end of the curve raises the average. The explanation I prefer is that IQ tests have dumbed down because telling the public they’re thick as pigshit isn’t conducive to getting your grant renewed. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/78 "2004-06-23T14:56:05Z")
Evil Death writes: \> Of course there is. We’re better at detecting brain defects pre-natally and \> more inclined to abort foetuses who have them. Cutting off the bottom end of \> the curve raises the average. No, that’s just wrong. The number of children born with birth defects is and has always been fairly small. Nearly all of them have always either died young or have lived out their lives unable to do anything and certainly never had a chance to breed. That’s simply \> The explanation I prefer is that IQ tests have dumbed down because telling \> the public they’re thick as pigshit isn’t conducive to getting your grant renewed. O.K., you’ve now demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing about what the Flynn Effect says. The point of the Flynn Effect is that in order to keep the average I.Q. on a test always equal to 100, the tests have actually become harder as time has gone on. There’s no dispute at all about the fact that the scores on I.Q. tests would have gone up if the same scores were used. The only dispute is what this means. Go and do some serious reading about the Flynn Effect instead of making up nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/79 "2004-06-23T15:52:09Z")
Okay, instead of making a blanket statement ("The ‘Flynn Effect’ is most likely nonsense) I should have said, “If you’re implying that the ‘Flynn Effect’ proves there’s been an overall rise in actual intelligence, I really doubt the veracity of that.” In any case, the subject deserves its own thread – and has had several – so let’s not hijack this interesting thread any more. Getting back to the subject – Ted Sturgeon predicted fax machines in the 1940s story “Microcosmic God”. Of course, he had artificially created tiny people inventing that and a bunch of other stuff, but still. (Wouldn’t that story make a great movie, if they did it right?) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333/80 "2004-06-23T16:55:13Z")
I don’t know whether any SF writer predicted this, but there really are teratogenic mutants in the modern world – from chemical teratogens, not radiation. I’ve seen pictures of Vietnamese children who were born with a missing limb because the area where their parents lived was dusted with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. I don’t know whether anything like that happened when the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictive-failures-of-science-fiction/251333.md?page=5)