Looking for something to watch on TV? Discovery’s Science Channel is premiering a new show tonight at 10 EST: Prophets of Science Fiction. Each week, narrator Ridley Scott will examine a different seminal sci-fi author and discuss how his or her stories “altered reality” and continue to impact scientific thought and research today. Tonight’s premiere episode? Arguably, science fiction’s birth mother: Mary Shelley.
This first installment of Prophets of Science Fiction does more than simply provide back-story for the confluence of events (many of them tragic) that lead Shelley to imagine Frankenstein. It also explores how fertility specialists, microbiologists, and neurologists today ethically grapple with the central themes posited by Shelley almost 200 years ago–How is life defined? and What are my responsibilities to any life that I create?
Future episodes will include authors like Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, and Jules Verne. Check it out!
This sounds so cool. I hope it’s available streaming somewhere accessible to people who don’t get Discovery Science…
Discovery puts some of their programs on their website. Give that a try. If that doesn’t work, there are always people out there recording and posting everything; a little internet sleuthing will probably work.
I’m watching it now, and I have to say this is definitely worth the watch. I’m really looking forward to future episodes