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A major theme of science fiction and of speculative biology is to convey a message of optimism or pessimism according to the author's worldview. [5] [6] Whereas optimistic visions of technological progress are common enough in hard science fiction, pessimistic views of the future of humanity are far more usual in fiction based on biology. [4]
Evolution has been an important theme in fiction, including speculative evolution in science fiction, since the late 19th century, though it began before Charles Darwin 's time, and reflects progressionist and Lamarckist views as well as Darwin's. [1] Darwinian evolution is pervasive in literature, whether taken optimistically in terms of how ...
Speculative evolution is a subgenre of science fiction and an artistic movement focused on hypothetical scenarios in the evolution of life, and a significant form of fictional biology. [ 1] It is also known as speculative biology[ 2] and it is referred to as speculative zoology[ 3] in regards to hypothetical animals. [ 1]
Darwinian literary studies (also known as literary Darwinism) is a branch of literary criticism that studies literature in the context of evolution by means of natural selection, including gene-culture coevolution. It represents an emerging trend of neo-Darwinian thought in intellectual disciplines beyond those traditionally considered as ...
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
Genetics is a young science, having started in 1900 with the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel 's study on the inheritance of traits in pea plants. During the 20th century it developed to create new sciences and technologies including molecular biology, DNA sequencing, cloning, and genetic engineering. The ethical implications were brought into ...
The homunculus is commonly used today in scientific disciplines such as psychology as a teaching or memory tool to describe the distorted scale model of a human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space human body parts occupy on the somatosensory cortex (the sensory homunculus) and the motor cortex (the motor homunculus ).
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. [ 1] Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. [ 2] Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a ...