From: rcampb@cac.washington.edu (Russ Campbell )
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: POSSIBLE OR NOT (Was: Re: Jurassic Park - DNA in blood?)
Date: 6 Jan 1993 21:56:05 GMT
Organization: UW Computing
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: redx.cac.washington.edu

In article <1993Jan6.115802.1@hmivax.humgen.upenn.edu>, bole@hmivax.humgen.upenn.edu (Greg Bole) writes:
|> > You can question the science, but I felt that the book and the idea was 
|> > fascinating, even if it is not possible.  There are many SF novels out 
|> > there that are based on things that are thought not to be possible.
|> 
|> YES!  This is the whole point.  I agree 100%.  I just wish more people 
|> would realize that it is *fiction*.  Too many people read this and think
|> that the Molecular Genetics presented are possible, or that it expresses
|> the leading majority of views concerning dinosaurs.  (It does and it doesn't)

AT LAST!  Someone finally posts the crux of the discussion.  Yes, it is
*fiction*.  Most of the best speculative fiction stories use as plot
devices several extrapolations from fact/current theory to create the conflict
for the story.  The point of doing this is to take the imaginative reader
beyond what is currently known as possible and what is not into a realm of
*speculation*.

I changed the subject line because I wanted to make the following
notation.  IMPOSSIBLE is a subjective word.  There are actually very few
things that are impossible (the 'existence of nothing, since nothing is
something' comes to mind).  We as humans throughout our history have
stated that things are impossible primarily because we could not do them
*at* *a* *particular* *time*.  Because something is thought not possible
does not mean that it *is* not possible.  A few specific examples:  the
world *is* round, the speed of sound *is not* the ultimate speed barrier,
and the moon *is* reachable.  At given times these things were all thought
"not possible" and yet our species has managed to do them in spite of
itself.  Speculative fiction (science fiction if you prefer) is what it is
because the imagination is unbound by the *known* laws of the universe. 
People that get hung up on the validity of the science in a work of
fiction have missed the point completely.  

In Jurassic Park, the genetics science used is extrapolated from what is
currently thought to be possible to make what is currently thought to be
not possible believable in a "what if" type of story.  Who bloody cares if
the book uses something that is "not possible"?  There are two points to
the book:  1) to entertain and be made into a movie and make oodles of
money, and 2) to stimulate imagination into thinking about the "not
possible" being in actuality possible.  It may not be possible *now* to
clone dinosaurs from DNA fragments preserved with insects in amber but who
is to say that in 5 or 10 or 25 or 100 years it will still not be
possible?  The rate of knowledge gain and pushing back the limits of
possibility is not so low that I would say this flatly will NEVER be
possible.  And, yes, I'm one of those infernal optimists that things that
somehow, someday, we will discover some principal as yet unknown and
unhinted at that will allow us to break out of our tiny little solar
system and effectively appear to move from one point to another faster
than light. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|  Russell  D.  Campbell        : Stupid questions do not exist.   |
|  rcampb@u.washington.edu      : Only stupid answers to innocent  |
|  (206)543-0846 @UW in Seattle : questions.                       |
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| Anyone can have an opinion, but very few people ever bother to   |
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