popularity versus integrity

A common theme I noticed in a number of our week 8 discussions involved an interesting dichotomy of exposure versus integrity. For example, Professor Carrington concluded in his presentation on black women in Utopian science fiction that while figures such as Lieutenant Uhura and Cleopatra Jones certainly broke many social barriers, they often failed to address the real, socio-political issues at stake. In addition, the discussion of popular science looked at the balance between pseudoscience driving scientific interest and the integrity (or lack thereof) of the knowledge it advocated. NASA/Trek paralleled these notions, particularly in its depiction of NASA's Teacher in Space program. That is, the popular synergy between America's space program and a popular television series about the final frontier encouraged anyone and everyone to dream of space travel. Suddenly, amazing possibilities opened up for everyday men and women (particularly the latter), and NASA capitalized on the fervor by selecting a schoolteacher to fly aboard the Challenger mission. The disaster that ensued, despite not being the result of having a schoolteacher aboard, ended the program and tarnished the hopes of countless aspiring civilian space travelers. Again, this highlights the fine line between the popular and optimistic outlook people had for space exploration and the dangers of its reality.

Professor Carrington's discussion of feminist afro-futurism, while not as extreme in its outcomes as the tragedy of Christa McAuliffe, raises a number of complex issues with respect to popularity. Most notably, he introduces the term “black superwoman” to describe a black, female protagonist whose merits are exaggerated to the degree that she could not serve as a realistic role model. Carrington argues that such characters only offer stereotypical fantasies that downplay more important issues of race and exploitation. He also notes that exploitation in popular fiction can take the form of including a particular character type on someone else's terms. For example, producers increased screen time for Nichelle Nichols in order to bring “more color on the bridge.” In addition, Nichols despised the line for which she was most well known (“hailing frequencies open”) because it represented the Star Trek writers cutting back her character's role. Despite all the shortcomings of these attempts to break racial barriers, however, the very inclusion of black women in various forms of popular fiction places them at critical social junctures. As Professor Carrington lamented, the problem is not the conceptualization of a deracialized future, but rather the question as to how we can get to such Utopia.

A final instance that illustrates a cost-benefit relationship between popularity and integrity is the phenomenon of popular science. Pseudoscience, as Sagan and Penley call it, is often readily accepted by readers and fans of science fiction as scientific fact. While this certainly drives interest in actual scientific study, it tends to exclude any semblance of the rigor and methodology that underlie true scientific thinking. Consequently, we must ask ourselves if increasued exposure is worth tge sacrifice in integrity, as well as whether or not it is possible for more nuanced concepts of black feminism, space travel, and scientific learning can become popular as well.

In Defense of Carl Sagan

Jasmine’s post raises a number of issues in the argument Penley develops against the scientific establishment and Carl Sagan in the first few pages of NASA/TREK. I’d like to add to that by explaining why I think Penley’s criticism of Sagan is, as a whole, unjustified.

Penley’s criticism of Sagan begins with the claim that Sagan believes that “Entertainment… is the opposite of enlightenment,” in the realm of science, and points out that “such a view contrasts sharply with that of … physicist Stephen Hawking”. As Jasmine points out, Penley’s attribution of this view to Sagan is simply wrong, given Sagan’s SF publications. Indeed, no contrast of the sort that Penley claims can be found between the views of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking: Sagan is committed to the popularization of science as long as it is accurately represented, which Stephen Hawking, being a practicing physicist himself, would surely have done in “A Brief History of Time”. Sagan only objects to popular science writing when it is grounded in a misunderstanding of modern science and misrepresents scientific facts, a caveat which Penley overlooks when she accuses Sagan of being anti-populist.

Penley also characterizes Sagan as insisting that “our pleasure in science… should only emerge through identification with the righteous joy of his skeptical debunking of nonscience”, but this characterization is clearly inaccurate. Sagan does not debunk pseudoscience because he derives pleasure from showing off his superior scientific knowledge, as Penley makes him out to be, but rather because he is concerned about the impact pseudoscience may have on the public, who may not be able to distinguish science fiction from fact. Given a choice, Sagan would certainly prefer to engage in writing his own works of popular science to spending time disproving scientific myths, making it difficult to see how he would derive any pleasure from being forced to debunk pseudoscience, much less expect others to derive enjoyment from such a debunking. Thus Penley’s characterization as Sagan as being some sort of holier-than-thou scientific elitist is simply wrong.

Subsequently, Penley rejects Sagan’s criticism of the X-Files, as she argues that the X-Files “does not eschew skepticism”, instead turning skepticism “towards the complicity of establishment science and the government”. Yet even her own characterization of Sagan’s argument shows that Sagan is not interested in skepticism in this sense. Rather, Sagan is criticizing the X-Files for its lack of empirical skepticism, or its preference for explaining unusual phenomena by means of alien involvement, rather than through scientifically plausible methods. Thus even if it is true that the X-Files is “fully skeptical” in the antiestablishment sense, Penley’s point is hardly a relevant response to Sagan’s criticism.

Finally, Penley accuses Sagan of being unable to “appreciate the levels of irony and humor in the X-Files”, and of underestimating “the degree of critical reflection fans are capable of”. In the process, she also makes another ad hominem jab at Sagan, again suggesting that his motivations for debunking pseudoscience are elitist. It may be true that by analysing the X-Files from a solely scientific viewpoint and focusing on its failings with regards to empirical skepticism, Sagan may be missing out on the various other themes of the show which make it so enjoyable, such as the issues of government accountability and gender which it addresses. But this is irrelevant to Sagan’s criticism, for the extent to which the X-Files makes insightful social and political commentary has no bearing on the extent to which it represents scientific facts accurately, and so again Penley’s supposed response to Sagan is inadequate. Given this and the other flaws in Penley’s argument I have outlined above, I consider Penley’s criticism of Sagan to be unjustified.