Essay about Science and Realism - 933 Words

Science and Realism In the course of this semester, we have read a number of stories that have one common element: science. In most of the stories, the science was hypothetical, but accurate, for the time and usually played an important part in the story. Today we know that most of these ideas range from simply being wrong to flat out impossible. When I say science I am referring to the sciences that are of a physical nature such as biology, chemistry, and physics. Psychology is also a science, but one of a mental nature. The few books that we had that dealt mainly with psychology will not be dealt with in this paper. The first book from the semester was Mary Shelly s Frankenstein. In the story, Victor Frankenstein builds a body†¦show more content†¦If such creatures to be brought into existence today, their construction would have to begin on the genetic level. As of this time, I dont believe that we have the technology to create such creatures. The third story of the semester was Robert Louis Stevensons The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This story involved a chemically induced physical transformation. Acid could be said to have the same effect of course, but this transformation involved the restructuring of Dr. Jekyll s entire body such that he was shorter, stronger, and more gnarled looking. As with The Island of Dr. Moreau, we know today that for such a transformation would need to be induced at the genetic level. At the time in which this story was set, the knowledge, much less the technology, did not exist for such a thing to be done. The next science related book that we read in the class was The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. This book was an insult to the genre. The first two stories we were subjected to involved whirlpools. While they are interesting phenomena, whirlpools do not qualify as science fiction. The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaal is one of the few stories with anything resembling science. The ideas Hans has about flying a hot air balloon are at least vaguely scientific. After Hans Pfaal, the next story was The Balloon-Hoax. This was the only other vaguely scientific story by Poe. AfterShow MoreRelatedRealism And Its Impact On The Mind Independent Existence Of The World935 Words   |  4 PagesTraditionally, realism is associated with any position that endorses belief in the reality of something. Thus, one might be a realist about one s perceptions of tables and chairs (sense datum realism), about tables and chairs themselves (external world realism), or about mathematical entities s uch as numbers and sets (mathematical realism), and so forth. 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