Trek versus Evolution

[Artabax]

Evolution is just stuff happening. Trek writers believe Evolution has a plan.

In real Life, Survival of the fittest depends upon the environment: Critters living in the marsh will evolve towards webbed feet and oily fur; Critters living in the mountain will evolve warm fluffy fur and pointy hoofs. That ain't Gene's vision. Evolution has a plan.

Dear Doctor Evolution plans to genocide the Civilised and bless the Neanderthals.

Humans, Klingons, Cardassi etc are all descended from alien amoebae.

Tatoo alien White men manipulated the DNA of Native Americans.


Threshold Humans are duty bound to evolve into naked salamanders in a swamp. It wouldn't be so bad ifn we evolve into Salamanders wearing pants living in cities with space tech like the dinosaurs in VOY. No chance! We must "evolve" to the swamp.

Penpals Riker justifies genociding the planet because of the Cosmic Plan TM

Gene's vision of Evolution, we hates it. We hates it forever.

[rickgriffin]

The problem stems from a Modernist misunderstanding of systems. In Modernism, the idea of "progress" from primitive to refined happens almost as a form of destiny--since the better systems outperform the worse, obviously in time things progress towards the better. The problem was that this understanding is incredibly reductive; it leads to things like the belief that Christianity is the "best" moral system because that was the moral system of the West, which kicked off the scientific and industrial revolution and subjugated the world.

This back-reasoning happens a lot any time an idea catches on in the mainstream; a nuanced explanation for a system starts being perceived not as a system but as a force in itself. Matters as a result of a system become inevitable because the system says they are, even if you're taking that system out of its original context entirely. Hence, evolution is no longer a system that requires certain elements in play, but an axiomatic force.

This devolves further when trying to explain differing behaviors of the force, because we tend to anthropomorphize singular forces esp through verbs like "want". We have to do that because forces built on systems are complicated, so in order to explain those behaviors as forces and not as system, we map them to animal or human behavior. Which leads to the force being treated as though it had a will. And if something has will, then it has intent; hence "cosmic plan" and "the inevitable future of the human species" etc.

So you have evolution as system to evolution as force to evolution as willful actor with intent.

[SuccubusYuri]

Well, for one, Berman's vision! Gene was...markedly absent any kind of evolutionary process. Other than the fact he greenlit Vulcan's needing a tiny nuclear reactor in their chests to support all the magical things their bodies did xD

I mean yes Human-liens are smirk-inducing, but, to paraphrase J.M.S. over in B5, it's pretty hard for the audience to empathize with the giant bug thing. Andromeda, originally, tried to get a more diverse pool and on their budget (which was higher than B5's remember)...it looked terrible. The Than eventually got a bit better when they figured out how to costume the bugs (solution; as elaborately as possible), but the mere fact most aliens are humanoid is, really, not a huge declaration of intent from the worldbuilding side of things, as much as it is from the accountant's.

Berman's understanding of evolution...which is to say he played Pokemon once and has a grasp of the basics now, is perhaps one of the most facepalming things of his era.

That said the Discovery era isn't really impressing much. Saru's magical cow-powers almost always infuriate me. It makes sense sometimes, like, when they test the giant cat-bison thing (let's not even start with 'evolving into spore drive'), you could argue, okay, Saru's people maybe have some sense that can read vibrations in their air, and they can differentiate that "this object is not a rock, it is likely alive" and through that, it can sense when a predator is adopting a pouncing stance. That I can get behind as at least being plausible, in some shape or form. But his ability to "sense death" faster than light speed, just by looking at a viewscreen (or, even worse, just warping into a system before the comms officer reports a single thing)? That I take umbridge with. "Well maybe it's just reflexive to his anxiety", well then WHY is it a scientific basis to test shit on? Show tries to have it both ways and it pisses me off xD

[Admiral X]

Honestly, I think that a lot of it has to do with so many of the new age hippie types who fancy themselves as atheists have essentially adopted "nature" as a kind of god. Notice that they use the term itself in much the same way, with Riker at one point even claiming it was the height of hubris to try to change "nature's plan."

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Honestly, I think that a lot of it has to do with so many of the new age hippie types who fancy themselves as atheists have essentially adopted "nature" as a kind of god. Notice that they use the term itself in much the same way, with Riker at one point even claiming it was the height of hubris to try to change "nature's plan."

...huh. I think I might agree with you. Brings to mind SFDebris's comment in one of the Godzilla reviews.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I mean yes Human-liens are smirk-inducing, but, to paraphrase J.M.S. over in B5, it's pretty hard for the audience to empathize with the giant bug thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvcmgKkkOA0

Wall_E go us to emphathize with a trash compacter that had goggles for eyes and a minimalist egg. If you can't empathize with a giant bug, either you are heartless, or the creators need to Git Gud.

[CharlesPhipps]

Evolution and Star Trek have a lot of if's and's and but's.

The whole "Klingons, Cardassians, Humans, and so on are all related" was blasted by some people for supporting intelligent design but it was the usual case of idiot-savants on the internet trying to read the forest for the trees. It wasn't making a political statement, it was to try to satisfy fans who wondered why the hell everyone was a humanoid that looked basically human. The DEEP THOUGHTS OF THE SHOW that people read into it being contrasted with its effect as a television series' internal logic.

There's also some fascinating stuff about evolutionary theory as a form of carrying on information and more going on there than simply pure accident (because it follows rules and rules move it to certain directions).

But once you pull the Jenga block of evolution, you start to get a lot of tumbling stuff down. Why do they not do trahsumanism? Why do they not interfere in cultures when if there's no "natural development cycle" for genes then why is there one for culture?

And so on.

I, for one, simply go with, "Sometimes the show has really crappy science."

I also point out the whole "Sky People" thing wasn't really on Star Trek except for the fact they got taken in by a con man. Jamake Highwater is one of the worst people in the world as he was a "professional fake Native." He sold himself as an expert on Native American culture when he was a white guy pretending to be various tribes. He served constant streams of warmed over stereotypes and racism to whatever white people would believe it despite actual Native Americans repeatedly pointing out he was a huckster.

Guess who Voyager hired as an expert?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamake_Highwater

So we can blame the Sky People on him.

[Riedquat]

I mean yes Human-liens are smirk-inducing, but, to paraphrase J.M.S. over in B5, it's pretty hard for the audience to empathize with the giant bug thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvcmgKkkOA0

Wall_E go us to emphathize with a trash compacter that had goggles for eyes and a minimalist egg. If you can't empathize with a giant bug, either you are heartless, or the creators need to Git Gud.

They rely on being able to express human-relatable expressions. R2D2 sometimes succeeding in getting a bit of personality is more impressive.

The problem with aliens is of course making them both plausible-looking and not taking inspiration from humans, or at least other forms of life on Earth (just how much variety are you going to get for starters?) And of course it's an awful lot simpler to hire some human actors and slap bits of makeup on them. Just what does a plausible intelligent alien look like? I've not a clue, and neither has anyone else, beyond concepts like "it must have some means of manipulating its environment" and "constrained by the same laws of physics as us" (no appeals to ignorance with "but that's just based on our limited knowledge!")

As for evolution in Trek, unfortunately most of its facepalming references appear to be down to fairly common misconceptions, nothing more.

Chuck did a good piece on all of this once. IIRC it was in the Star Trek IV review.

[CharlesPhipps]

Well, we know how environments can produce alien lifeforms via evolution.

We call them animals and insects.

We don't have any idea that they wouldn't look like something we know because we don't know if life CAN be produced that goes in a different direction--so we must rely on our imagination.

A bunch of weird old Dominion looking aliens simplifies alot.

[SuccubusYuri]

I mean yes Human-liens are smirk-inducing, but, to paraphrase J.M.S. over in B5, it's pretty hard for the audience to empathize with the giant bug thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvcmgKkkOA0

Wall_E go us to emphathize with a trash compacter that had goggles for eyes and a minimalist egg. If you can't empathize with a giant bug, either you are heartless, or the creators need to Git Gud.

yeah, it has goggles for eyes. Eyes. The most important feature. Which is why the bug things from District 9, a story ABOUT this very bias, made sure the bug things had baby-doll eyes like a fucking puppy.

I mean there's the bit Mr. Plinkett did on "Avatar" that mathematically breaks down this concept and why the Navi were meticulously designed to be both alien AND fuckable in order to generate greenbacks. And if you think that movie would have done as well if the aliens had been Chumblees, I would go so far as to say you're being intellectually dishonest.