Childlike Wonder and the Truths of Science Fiction

Abstract

Childlike Wonder and the Truths of Science Fiction Madeleine L'Engle (bio) For the last hundred years, the number of people who read fantasy and science fiction has been growing. One of the baffling things about this group—baffling to those who are not hooked on the genres—is that it has no age limits. Afficionados usually start reading as children and continue throughout their lives. I blundered into science fiction when I was a child, with the works of H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and E. Nesbit. I have read it ever since. In science fiction I found the questions about the meaning of life that all of us ask sooner or later. Children have always been interested in these cosmic questions and riddles which adults often attempt to tame by placing into categories fit only for scientists or adults or theologians. Only recently have fantasy and science fiction been published with age levels in mind, and readers seem to be ignoring such labels. Science fiction and fantasy appeal to a certain kind of mind and not to specific stages of development. On the surface, science seems to be the most rational of all disciplines, relying solely on intellect without need of the intuitive self. Simple equations—or at least simple in appearance—neatly encapsulate great problems. E = mc2 clearly teaches that "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared." Yet this equation has become so familiar that we forget its wildly imaginative implications. The world of contemporary science, of astrophysics and cellular biology, is itself so fantastic and poetic that it almost seems like fiction. A star that is known as a degenerate white dwarf, or another known as the red giant sitting on the horizontal branch—they sound more as if they come from fairy tales rather than from serious books on astrophysics, such as White Holes: Cosmic Gushers in the Universe (Dell, 1977), by John [End Page 102] Gribbin, an astrophysicist who sometimes cites science fiction writers in his studies of astronomy. Science fiction, we must remind ourselves, often relies upon contemporary science. Space technology and places such as Cape Canaveral, Mount Wilson, or Alamogordo frequently appear in science fiction; and scientists, as well as writers with no particular scientific training, write science fiction. Fred Hoyle, the English astrophysicist, write both science fiction and articles for academic journals. Why does a man such as Hoyle bother with fiction when he is so successful in the "real" world of science? The answer is that science depends as much upon the imagination as upon the intellect. Like a poet, the scientist uses inspiration and intuition. In The Double Helix, the book about the discovery of DNA, James D. Watson, who received the Nobel prize for his work in genetics, says several times, "It's so pretty, it's got to be true." Inadvertently he echoes Keats's "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." If a scientific equation is "ugly" the scientist is suspicious; the scientist, like the artist, appreciates aesthetics and balance. Lay people often envision scientists in white coats, perched on stools in immaculate laboratories, clipboards on their laps, working out problems. Most scientific discoveries, however, come in a flash, often when the scientist is not in the laboratory at all. Einstein's theory of relativity came to him full-blown, and only later did he work out the equations to prove it. Then, because he was a genius but not very good at mathematics, he made several mistakes that other scientists had to point out to him. Both the scientist and the science fiction writer understand that imagination, improvisation, and intuition are as important as rational thinking. For a good many centuries we have denigrated the subconscious, intuitive self and elevated the conscious, intellectual self. We have forgotten that the conscious self is only that small tip of the iceberg, whereas the subconscious self is the larger part below the surface. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in God in Search of Man (Harper Torchbooks), writes that out of his religious tradition comes "a legacy of wonder." Heschel is talking of "The Religious Man" [End Page 103] but he could equally well be talking of the writers and...