One thing people forget about science is that it isn’t really there to design or create new inventions but to define or explain the universe that we live in. Anything created comes purely from our understanding of how reality works and making something mechanical that can duplicate the process. The history of science has been a route through misinterpretation, misdirection, disbelief, heresy and damn right lies swayed by prejudice and bias opinion. Hope I didn’t miss anything there. Yet oddly enough, we end up accepting the truths of the universe and arrive at the world of today with many lessons supposedly learnt and the knowledge that we’ve learnt being applied to our technology.

Did you detect an element of pessimism in the above paragraph? Well, a little bit perhaps. I mean, think how different or advanced we might have been had the scientists been believed instead of being denounced from the start. Throughout history there has always been the so-called ‘Establishment’ that doesn’t believe evidence when they see it. In the early days, the ‘Establishment’ was the religion of the time and its fear of losing its command for being the centre of all knowledge when it didn’t know very much at all. It took a lot of persuasion to convince the religious fraternity that the Earth wasn’t the centre of the universe but revolved around a star that was only an insignificant speck in a larger galaxy. Mind you for a long while, if you didn’t go along with their beliefs, it was a way to the torture chamber or shunned from society...if you were lucky to get off that lightly!

Such fears continued until our own time period. Take the development of motorised transport in the early part of the last century. Travelling faster than 20mph would result in death from lack of oxygen was the fear. Interesting thought but only if said vehicle collided with another equally fast vehicle travelling in the opposite direction on the same road. If anything, it was an obstacle put in the path of progress that was instantly disproved when it was broken and the man with a red flag running ahead of a car was out of a job.

After that, less than figuratively, the sky was the limit and beyond. It was also a demonstration of how quickly a false belief could be beaten by proving how wrong it was otherwise. You can’t contest real evidence in front of your face. Had the planets and stars been closer and their orbits easier to watch, no doubt any thought of heresy would have been squashed much earlier. It’s amazing that Albert Einstein ever convinced anyone about relativity and energy conversion theory but then again, wars make it easier for necessity to beat such stoicism. It also depends on having the right people hearing what you have to say in power as well.

If nothing else, this shows how much progress is prevented through people raising any unfound objection they can to prevent something being done, often because they fear the worse than any benefits that could be achieved. The western world literally had to be dragged into technological development against the stubbornness of religious zealots and luddites who never wanted change...largely cos it eroded their authority.

Fortunately, once change happened, things developed exponentially that would make Pandora and her box seem small fry by comparison. The voice of dissent became a minority and science has moved on to greater things as we re-define and expand our knowledge of the universe. Even so, as commented before, Science Fiction films have shown the fears more than the benefits of science over the decades which means that the luddite attitude just adapted to a new form it didn’t actually disapprove of. No doubt it was figuring that it would reach more people that way.

What was even more remarkable is this development didn’t happen world-wide. Without the discovery of oil there, the Middle East for instance, was unlikely to have taken on aspects of western technology they like - like fast cars instead of camels for instance - would have stayed tribal and the sway of religious belief would prohibit level of communication with the western world that would keep it in a lower standard than now. We’d also have started developing alternative means of fuel much earlier as well. The third world states have moderately advanced cities but conditions become increasingly primitive the further you live away from them.

An odd contradiction considering how much these same people think themselves fortunate when they receive the simplest aid during a drought that we take for granted this side of the globe. Yet without advances here, development there is curtailed as well. We might be living in a modern world but there are countries and people that could benefit from some of our developing research.

Currently, we have developed sufficiently in our study of genetics to manipulate the very building blocks of life. To some, this seems to be a step too far as if it’s only a God that is allowed to do such activity. Never mind the fact that breeding is mostly arbitrary and random, throwing up mutations all the time and probably has more bad than good results. If proper science can be used to minimise the distress of the bad results, why should anyone stand in the way of such progress? Such genetic manipulation isn’t there to make monsters after all. It’s there to make the best life possible for those who wouldn’t have it otherwise. The benign uses far out weigh anything bad that can be done. After all, nature has already shown us its failures so we can keep our own mistakes down to a minimum.

The luddite attitude goes back to the fears of the past forgetting that progress, often through trail and error, is what has brought us to where we are today. To have done otherwise would halt our own development and we might as well have waited around for extinction. It is in the nature of mankind to expand no matter how some feel it is bad and should be stopped at any cost. To arbitrary cut off doing any research in areas likely to decrease suffering is foolhardy and ultimately will fail. Necessity tends to win against such odds. Creating stronger crop plants that give a high proportion of grain unhindered by disease means more mouths can be fed and less waste. Plants that can thrive in arid conditions and keep topsoil in place through droughts can only help the third world in the aftermath of droughts. Yet its become a struggle to get that accepted by the general population let alone the manipulation of human DNA through stem cell research to improve the standard of life.

The luddite philosophy is against anything that works against nature yet we’ve been playing amateur genetics for generations with our livestock, pets and plants. It also illustrates our failures included examples being white furred blue eyed cats tend to be deaf and ginger cats are mostly toms. Pure or pedigree breeds tend to be in-bred to ensure that they don’t have any mongrel blood but despite such prettying effects are invariably showing the worse effects like dogs’ disproportionate bodies and poor respiration. They also tend to be so specialised that they aren’t really much good for anything but grooming and standing pretty. Hardly revolutionary or helping the species.

Do something positive with a plant to make it immune to a particular blight and luddite reaction is to ban on the spot despite the fact that such crops could also benefit the third world countries as well as our own. Do something positive with human stem cell research and the instant cry is that it will lead to cloning humans as if that is where all such research is leading. The production of Dolly the sheep was more to prove organic living tissue could be formed than purely for making a clone. The lessons learnt from Dolly has already shown that the length of the strands of a chromosome will determine the age of any cloned material which wouldn’t have been known otherwise. Correcting that in non-clones is going to improve the lot for all our bodies, especially as its just working out how to grow a particular protein.

What I find most interesting, as a diabetic, regarding stem cell research is the possibility of taking some of my own cells, which is my own property and have the right to decide what happens to them, to create insulin-yielding cells that can be injected back into my body and to generate insulin again. In a more radical move, adjusting my stem cells could also sort out whatever the problem was with my pancreas in the first place, especially as it's regarded as a problem with the auto-immune system. Such a regime would cure a lot of auto-immune related diseases as well as my own.

As much as I’ve adapted to injecting insulin three times a day, to have such a restriction removed from my life, not to mention removing other complications caused by diabetes in later life has to be something to look forward to not stopped. It’s also the tip of the iceberg of benefits that can be done to people with cancer and otherwise incurable diseases at this time. This is even a bigger breakthrough than the discovery of penicillin! To have some people who don’t have any life-threatening problems dictating what medical research can and can’t be done to alleviate the problems of the living is a grave injustice and really needs more voices shouting back in return. Even more so because if such research was allowed to go on today it would be possible well within all our lifetimes.

No doubt these same people watch something like the latest batch of ‘Star Wars’ films and think that this is the future of cloning without realising that cloned humans is still a pretty hit and miss affair and not likely to produce perfect duplicates of existing individuals let alone having similar personalities. With the research centring on what can be done for the living, clones if anything are hardly going to be high on any list other than with people with too much money to spend and too mean to share the regular genetic pool for more than one generation. The real money to be made is in solving medical conditions, especially as it will reduce the burden on the medical services around the world.

All right, I’d also be the first person to admit that I wouldn’t be surprised if some human clones weren’t created at some point but this isn’t the be all and end all of stem cell research. Equally, I can’t see it being used to drastically change the world either. Too many people prefer the old-fashioned way of procreation than to choose this method so it’s unlikely to catch on in a big way. The odd clone will be a curio for a while until the next big news item comes along. With personalities different to the sire or dam, they won’t be seen as being like the original. No one worries about ‘test tube babies’ any more because they aren’t perceived as anything but people.

There is always the scream whenever something new is likely to change the way we live our lives. The real question is whether it is because people are afraid of change more than the benefits that might be derived from it. Yes, there is an argument to not do anything too recklessly and ensure that the motivation is stronger than personal or company greed but to stop research purely because it doesn’t match a small group’s personal ethics seems very undemocratic in the western world.

To this minority, there is the feeling that the door to such research has already been open too far and they are doing their darndest to shut it again. What worries them most of all is if their fears are proved unfounded and that scientists and even politicians are sensible with what they do & they find there power base is chipped further away. If common-sense hadn’t prevailed, we wouldn’t be standing here now as a nuclear war would have destroyed us all. It didn’t need a luddite attitude to see that. Oddly enough, it’s Science Fiction film depiction that showed where this would lead that might have permeated into the public conscience. Then again, no one wins a nuclear war might also have had something to do with it.

The same can’t be said for stem cell or cloning. What films there have been about clones tend to be impractical in terms of how quickly they are brought to maturity and invariably played for laughs as much as implausibility as the idea of having spares of yourself hanging around. Hardly a demonstration of fear after all these years. Then again, Hollywood luddites are probably no longer there as the accountants who run the companies don’t see them as a risk.

The fear of the unknown is something that can affect us all, whether it's walking through a dark tunnel to falling from a great height. What will change the world is the man with the light or a parachute to glide down to safety. For everything that is done there has to be an element of risk. To experiment is to test the limits or boundaries of what the universe can do. Lessons learnt from genetic manipulation might well lead to other things like ensuring calcium levels in the bones are maintained in space flight being one of the most useful if we are ever to leave this planet. It might be the only way to ensure we have manned space travel in the long term. Whether or not it is capable of dismissing old age is debatable but we might all have a better quality of life before we pop our clogs.

As I commented at the beginning of this editorial, we are still learning how the universe ticks. No longer are we arbitrarily thrown about by the whims of nature but taking a greater control of the environment and ourselves. If there is such a thing as an omnipresent god out there, then surely it would have given some sort of sign that we were doing something wrong. Nope! Not been struck by lightning! Still here. If it’s us verses the universe then I’d rather stand with understanding the universe and make it work for me than against or do nothing.

Be happy. Be safe. Enjoy the rest of the website.

Thank you and good night

Geoff Willmetts

editor: SFCrowsnest.co.uk

PS My Mum’s beating me to it now having a frozen shoulder. At least the baby sparrows are happy and blackbirds love strawberries.

Thought To Ponder: According to a recent documentary on Channel 5 in June in the UK, flying saucers and other UFOs are not alien but terrestrial in nature. Most of them being part of the US Black Projects program. The conspiracy theorists are going to love it cos the CIA was behind the cover-up all the time. At least until a little grey man comes forward and puts things right & says they’re wrong.

(Less Serious) Thought For The Month # 1: Don’t you think the sequel to ‘Smallville’ should be called ‘Metropolis’?? Continuing this theme and considering all the cities in the DC Earth have their own super-heroes, shouldn’t be also have series called ‘Gotham’ and ‘Central City’?? Good thing TV producers aren’t planning to do this with Marvel cos they’d all have to be called ‘New York’.

(Less Serious) Thought For The Month # 2: Predators like hot climates, don’t they? So, why in the upcoming film ‘Aliens Vs Predator’ do they have a stronghold in the Antarctic?

PS If you’ve survived this far in the editorial, let me reiterate something from the website newsletter and the above editorial. As you can see from the main page, we have one of the biggest SF/fantasy/horror monthly reviews columns on the Net. Our success has increased the number of books that comes in and our policy is to read everything before giving a review. We roadtest books so you have some idea of what you’re letting yourself in for when all you’ve got to go by is the cover and promotional blurb. That means actually reading the product and telling others what you think.

  Apart from the ability to put words into sentences, you also need to know how to précis, either know or do a little research on associated subjects and can express opinions constructively expressing good and bad points. I did say you have to love books and willing to read beyond your favourite authors, didn’t I?

  If you like reading books in the genre, think and can show you can write a decent review and, most importantly, live in the British Isles (sorry, expense, time and distance travelled prohibits elsewhere), contact me below for my ‘Reviews Flyer’ - put this in the subject ebox and we’ll see if you’ve got what it takes. We can’t pay you but a review for the price of a book has to be a good incentive. We have one of the most popular SF review columns on the Net. Think you’re up to writing a review or do you think it's a hard thankless task?? If you think the former and can write, then you’re really going to think you’ve landed your hands in the biscuit tin. If you want to avoid all this sport that’s going on this summer, then now’s the time to do something a little more constructive with your time.

PPS: For those keeping track, I’m still about 17 months (early November 2002) behind with going through the ebook samples, although I have removed some who’ve gotten published elsewhere. Thank you for your patience but let me know if you’ve sold elsewhere so I can reduce my pile or if you’ve changed address, especially e-mail address. I can’t give you my comments unless either is up to date. Currently, doing spot-checks to see if you’re still there when I reach your sample in the pile is making it easier on my time and catching up on the slush pile.

  This isn’t much of a repeat, just to show you’re not forgotten. Those sending in ebook samples, be prepared for a long wait and read the Guidelines elsewhere on this website. They are there to help you do some of the right things and reduce the number of times I’m repeating myself over silly grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. It makes editing a lot easier if any editor has less work correcting poor English which should have been sorted out in the first place. There’s an old editorial adage, if you can’t aim for perfection why should an editor nurse-maid you to that state? If you’re a writer, then you should understand the words and grammar of the job you’re supposed to be writing or are you considering it as mundane and boring as any other job to get right? Fall in love with making every sentence the best you’re ever letting anyone else read it and read up and understand the rules of grammar. Be prepared to put a story away for a few weeks and go back to it for a self-edit. A lot of the time, errors will just stare you in the face when you didn’t see them the first time round. Once you know where your weaknesses are, they can be sorted and allow you to move a little higher up the ladder towards making your material look its best.

  Please don't confuse this with my short story slush pile which is kinda low at the moment. We’re always willing to give short story writers a chance to be seen if they can withstand my scrutiny even if we can’t pay for their efforts.