Does Science Fiction Have Any Predictive Skill?

[Sandman]

Most of their "predictions" that can we can verify at this point have hit very close to home.

They have? What, humanoid robots everywhere and massive colonization of space?

As for the clamshell design used in some mobile phones, that predates Star Trek - think snuff-boxes, cigarette holders and wallets.

[Ned]

What I don't think will happen are common fare in science fiction:

1) everyone speaking English;

2) gavitational fields on ships; and

3) faster than light travel.

[Ned]

As to 1984, was interesting for many things, Among these, I think the most important were/are

1) BB is watching you. (The two way screens that were everywhere.)

2) The active revision of history.

3) The control of the language. (PC was predicted.)

4) Double-Think.

[snoopy369]

As in any discussion of this nature, most of the posters so far fail to make an important distinction. Lul Thyme was the only one to do so, and even he was mostly incorrect, in that neither Asimov nor Clarke are truly hard-science SF writers in their entirety. Both wrote a lot of sociological SF that was more into making a point rather than making specific claims about science (though both wrote hard sf as well).

Calling Star Trek "Science Fiction" is like calling Austin Powers "Action". It's marginally related, and shares some common features, but ultimately it's a dramatic action movie/series that happens to be set in space. No attempt to predict actual scientific achievements is made.

Most SF does not attempt to predict future scientific developments. A few writers do. Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Kim Stanley Robinson, all make interesting predictions that are grounded in science, and may in the future be closer than you would think to reality.

But does Star Trek reflect a possible future? No more than Star Wars does ... certainly some things 'came true' in that we use communicators and such, but that was due to writers setting it in a 'familiar' way, ie putting future tech in a familiar setting, and that meant wireless phones looking like people imagine they would - which is not surprising that indeed they look like that in reality.

[TCO]

correlation = 0.15. Have Steve do a Durbin Watson test, though.

[Solly]

Originally posted by TCO
correlation = 0.15. Have Steve do a Durbin Watson test, though.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ned
What I don't think will happen are common fare in science fiction:

1) everyone speaking English;

That's horse****. Everyone knows the highest intelligence life forms in the universe must speak English, and would back Hillary because they know she would work to bring the US under alien control.

[General Ludd]

A million science fiction writers on a million type writers are bound to get something right eventually.

[Ned]

Well, back in the '50s, we got a lot of mutant monster movies because of some mutated animals, or such, found on some nuked island. Since then, SF has be dominated my mutants and beasts galore to its ruin.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ned

2) The active revision of history.

History is revised the second it's written down.

[Ned]

Also, why is it that movie director normally (always?) depict space-faring aliens as animals sans clothes. I find that strange beyond belief.

[Ned]

Originally posted by General Ludd



History is revised the second it's written down.

We all know that history is written by the victor. What was new in 1984 was the active revision of history by government.

But, active revisionism is common today. Carter, for example, has be caught changing historical documents in his new book. Future generations may be confused about whether Carter's version of history was real or not.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Sandman


They have? What, humanoid robots everywhere and massive colonization of space?

As for the clamshell design used in some mobile phones, that predates Star Trek - think snuff-boxes, cigarette holders and wallets.

note that I mentionned "that can be verified"
they have provided approximate timelimes for some of their predictions...

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by snoopy369
As in any discussion of this nature, most of the posters so far fail to make an important distinction. Lul Thyme was the only one to do so, and even he was mostly incorrect, in that neither Asimov nor Clarke are truly hard-science SF writers in their entirety. Both wrote a lot of sociological SF that was more into making a point rather than making specific claims about science (though both wrote hard sf as well).

Calling Star Trek "Science Fiction" is like calling Austin Powers "Action". It's marginally related, and shares some common features, but ultimately it's a dramatic action movie/series that happens to be set in space. No attempt to predict actual scientific achievements is made.

Most SF does not attempt to predict future scientific developments. A few writers do. Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Kim Stanley Robinson, all make interesting predictions that are grounded in science, and may in the future be closer than you would think to reality.

But does Star Trek reflect a possible future? No more than Star Wars does ... certainly some things 'came true' in that we use communicators and such, but that was due to writers setting it in a 'familiar' way, ie putting future tech in a familiar setting, and that meant wireless phones looking like people imagine they would - which is not surprising that indeed they look like that in reality.

I was referring only to the part of the body of work by Asimov and Clarke that can be classified as hard science fiction.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Ned
1) everyone speaking English;

If you speak of US/UK scifi, then that's not too surprising....