While doing some research I was recently reminded of some of my personal pet-peeves that creep into science fiction. Some are rare, and others, unfortunately, more common than I'd like.
Humans as sole rulers of the Far Future
This one is one of the common ones, in my opinion, to the genre's detriment. Usually, since setting a story in such an advanced technology and futuristic society is all but impossible, authors generally leave such things as glimpses into the distant future (I'm speaking of billions or trillions of years). And the type of vision that particular peeves me is where humans are the unchallenged rulers of the universe. The book I've most recently read suffering from this (although not the most recently written) is Stephen Baxter's Manifold:Time. While this book had some great, well-developed ideas in it, it also had some doozies, which is why I also feature it in the next peeve (needless to say, between swearing at the book and trying to force myself to pick it up again each day to finish, it took me some time to read).
So, what's my peeve exactly? Well...it's a big universe. Any story that puts mankind as the sole survivor trillions of years in the future seems, to me, at the best to be hopelessly naive, at worst, to be some kind of religious apologeticism. Knowing humanity as we do, we can guess that, at the very least, mankind will make other forms of intelligent life that may go out on their own. We may make AGI also. But moreso, it seems to me to be very short sighted to believe that in billions of galaxies, trillions of stars and likely even more planets, there is only one lifeform in existence (or that will ever be in existence) simply because we, at the beginning of our technological life, have not yet detected others.
Whenever I read such a scene (and thankfully, they are generally only scenes) I have a very difficult time to continue reading the book.
Crazy philosophies as the basis of series sci-fi
This one, fortunately, is less common (strange as that might sound for science fiction). I guess what I mean here, as with the last peeve, is that in serious (read: hard) science fiction, ideas that I believe to be in error take me completely out of the story.
Once again, Manifold:Time has to win the prize for most obvious example from a quality author that I've read. The issue here is the use of the Carter Catastrophe. In Baxter's defense, he didn't invent it, he just used it in the story. Instead of wasting a lot of space and wearing out my fingers writing it, I'll just include the Wikipedia link here. Essentially, what it amounts to is pseudo-scientific (or even creationist) eschatology masquerading as reason.
Why?
Because it relies on (1) the idea that you, me, or anyone else, has an equal probability of being born at any time during the existence of humanity, and therefore, statistically we will be born near the end of race (because more people are alive at that time than ever before) and (2) the idea that we will never leave the planet (and hence our population will be capped at a relatively low number). Sounds reasonable to you, you think? Well, you might want to consider these ideas:
(1) My biggest argument is that this hypothesis is from a physicist/mathematician and, while math doesn't lie, it can be grossly mislead by incorrect assumptions. In this case, the incorrect assumption that we have an equally probable chance of being born at anytime in the human timeline. Carter may be correct is assuming the Copernican Principle (that the human race is not special in the universe) but individual humans are special, at least in one important way. We are unique in mind and body (or at least, almost unique in body).
Any given individual alive today is the result of a unique and highly improbable sequence of genetic combinations combined with the environmental factors that influenced their development. Thus you, me, your best friend or worst enemy, could only have lived at the time they did. It's worth repeating that because of it's importance. Any human that has ever lived could only ever have lived when they did. There is no probability that I was born now versus two hundred years ago. The only consideration is that I was either born now (1970) or never. I also had to have been born to my parents. Any other combination of parents and the child would not have been me. I call this the Bio-historical Rebuttal.
Many may not like the deterministic, undoubtedly non-religious, view of it but lets face facts, even your identical twin is not you and that's as close as one can come. Your unique biology and environmental factors, combined with the random fluctuations in your brain that made you choose A from B and time J can never be duplicated. Therefore, you are unique in the history of humanity--in the history of the universe--and there is no probability that you were born now versus then.
(2) If humanity doesn't leave the planet, then clearly the Carter Catastrophe may have been right (it may get lucky in 2029 anyway, but that has nothing to do with the principles of the Carter Catastrophe). If we don't leave the planet then we will, eventually, exhaust all it's resources. However, and this is only personal opinion, I happen to believe that eventually (within the next century, surely) the majority of the population will come to understand that the future is extraterrestrial. In fact, the only future is extraterrestrial. That will be the point when humanity's existence really begins. As we move out into the galaxy our population will swell immensely, completely washing out the CC doomsday predictions.
So, those are two of my science fiction pet peeves. As always, I'm happy, and more than a little interested, to read any comments.
Edwin
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