Independent Reading Journal 11-17-08

Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow edited by Reginald Bretnor. Harper and Row. 1974.'

In 1972 a book entitled The Limits to Growth was published. This book is a study conducted by MIT students on the future of our society (the society of the early 70s). I, like Bretnor find this idea to be interesting. According to their research with the help of computer models and statistics, the study concludes that a catastrophic disaster awaits humankind within a century. So 34 years later we have less than 70 years to go. This conclusion was based on a population increase which goes virtually unchecked as well as natural resource consumption and pollution. Some saw this book as a "mathematically accurate forecast of doom," while others brushed it aside as meaningless. I, like Bretnor, remain skeptical of the accuracy of computer models in the early 70s when trying to compute the end of the world as we know it. What Bretnor uses this example to do is to distinguish science from science fiction. Over the years the line has blurred, but Bretnor redraws the line. He says that science fiction writers do not predict the future the way these MIT students did. Science fiction writers show many possible futures. Science fiction creates the future from imagination. Not from statistics and computer models.