Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs [Paperback]

James A. Herrick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2008

What does science have to do with science fiction? What does science fiction have to do with scientists? What does religion have to do with science and science fiction? In the spiritual vacuum of our post-Christian West, new mythologies continually arise. The sources of much religious speculation, however, may be surprising. Author James Herrick directs our attention to a wide range of scientists, filmmakers, science fiction writers and religious philosophers and discovers there the role that science and science fiction have played in such mythmaking. From scientists such as Francis Bacon, Francis Crick, Carl Sagan and Freeman Dyson, to filmmakers such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, to science fiction writers such as Olaf Stapledon, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, Herrick finds a curious collusion of science with science fiction for promoting and justifying alternative spiritualities. The rise of these new mythologies, he argues, is no longer a curiosity at the edge of Western culture. This alchemy is catalyzing a religious vision of new gods, a new humanity, and alien races with superior intelligence and secret knowledge. This new mythology overshadows the realms of politics, science and religion. Should we follow such visions? Does science endorse these mythologies? Are we being offered a spirituality superior to the Judeo-Christian tradition? This book will help you decide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With a remarkable array of carefully assembled documentation, James Herrick demonstrates how the porous boundary between science fiction and 'speculative science' has produced a new guiding myth in the West, allegedly capable of reenchanting the cosmos. Coming in the wake of numerous books that have snidely dismissed Christian belief as a lot of wishful thinking and superstitious hooey, Scientific Mythologies is a refreshing and revealing reminder of the odd forms a longing for transcendence can take when the God who actually did come down from the heavens is rejected. Christopher Hitchens, phone home!" (Ken Myers, host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal )

"Scientific Mythologies is a well-researched and well-written analysis of the role of science in science fiction. Both master scientists and tellers of tall tales are here. From Francis Bacon to Carl Sagan, from Mary Shelley to Steven Spielberg, Herrick moves from fact to myth and myth to fact. Fascinating from beginning to end." (James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door )

"Dr. Herrick gives us a fascinating, detailed, well-written and well-documented account of the alien worldviews that have emerged through the genre of science fiction. I know of no other work that addresses this counterfeit ideology from a deeply informed Christian perspective." (Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, Denver Seminary )

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: IVP Academic (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830825886
• ISBN-13: 978-0830825882
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Reasonable Guide to Scientific Mythologies, November 12, 2008

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George P. Wood (Springfield, MO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs (Paperback)

Length:: 4:37 Mins

This is my video review of James A. Herrick, Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008). If you'd like to dialogue about this book, please feel free to email me.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, June 27, 2008

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Book Guy (Rye Brook, NY United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs (Paperback)

I expect this will be the most important book on the Christian worldview published in 2008. The breathtaking thesis of the book is, in retrospect, so obvious that one could kick oneself for not seeing it before: science fiction and futurist speculation (dressed up as science) are in fact a new myth created to undermine the narrative of the Christian worldview. Here myth is the key idea: a narrative a culture tells itself in answering the great questions: who are we? where do we come from? what is the problem and the solution? SF culture, and the speculative science of leading lights such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, exists to answer all of these questions, but in a way radically at odds with the West of Augustine and Aquinas. Despite some flaws (James Cameron directed the first Terminator movie, not just the second; yes, Star Trek's John de Lancie may be a white male, but the Guinan character, equally old and powerful, is played by a black woman, Whoopi Goldberg; only an American insouciance about European history would describe Irishman Liam Neeson as "British"), the brilliance of the thesis and the detailed exposition wins out.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exploring Scientistic Faith, April 18, 2011

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Ratonis (Lincoln, Nebraska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs (Paperback)

James A. Herrick's "Scientific Mythologies" is one of the more interesting cultural perspectives written from a Christian point of view that I have read in quite some time. Herrick pulls together into a fascinating synthesis many elements of the contemporary spiritual/intellectual conversation that are often viewed as disparate and separate considerations--popular culture/literature, science/evolution, UFOs, Gnosticism, and New Age outlooks. This synthesis speaks to the formation (or contemporary refinement) of the centuries-old worldview of total immanence of divine powers which was radically challenged by the Hebrew-Christian view of one God and Creator who is both transcendent and immanent. Along the way, Herrick calls attention to a grand array of works of science-fiction, speculative science, film, utopian philosophy, and theological reflection.

I would not exactly call this book a work of Christian apologetics, although the author does appeal to the reader's sense of balance and rationality. A key question he poses is: why is a worldview that posits extraterrestrial wisdom and often wild speculation about the future regarded as credible by so many people who, at the same time, reject the Christian vision and gospel, rooted as it is in historical settings, known cultural history, and human witness? Herrick might have done more to defend the Christian worldview, but that does not really seem to be his purpose here. Rather, he wants to alert the reader to the swelling influence of a spiritual worldview that is promoted as being in accord with "science," and therefore superior to traditional "supernaturalism." In this, he does a uniquely fine job.

Some principle threads stand out for me. First, if anyone does not believe that evolution is a spiritual doctrine, thinking that it is just "science," then they should read this book. Herrick clearly demonstrates the mythical dimensions of evolutionary visions and that evolutionism constitutes a big-time, major spirituality posing itself as an alternative to Christian concepts of God, Creation, and Redemption. Herrick sheds light on the fact that racial assessments of various peoples (racism) and themes of racial superiority run deep within the evolutionary gnosis and utopianism embraced by so many of the thinkers and writers who define it.

Another intriguing connection is drawn between science-fiction and actual science. Herrick discusses how notable scientists not only were inspired by science-fiction (e.g. Werner von Braun, Carl Sagan) but wrote science-fiction themselves. On reflection, I would characterize this book as an in-depth analysis of contemporary "scientism," or the belief that science and science can really address the deepest questions of humanity and provide all the answers to the human quest for meaning as well.

Extraterrestrial gnosis, belief in the Future, and the coming of trans-human entities (either through earthly scientific experiment or extraterrestrial manipulation) provide the context and the players in the worldview fostered by science-fiction and speculative science. For people like me who grew up in the 1950s, it is interesting to see celebrated films of that era contextualized into Herrick's larger argument (e.g. "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "When Worlds Collide"), and how similar themes play out in subsequent entertainments ("Star Trek," "Blade Runner," "The Matrix.")

The author outlines the elements of belief without commenting over-much on whether there is any evidential strength underlying the scientific mythologies of which he writes. He does not ask, for example, if there is any reality behind the UFO phenomenon and some of its more disturbing aspects, such as the experiences of alien abduction claimed by many. This is really a separate subject, perhaps awaiting treatment in a different book that would weigh in the balance the relative credibility and believability between the scientific mythologies and Christian truth claims.

This is a very good book. The subject matter is intensely interesting to anybody who has curiosity about the way people think, and brings into sharp focus important directions in the professional world of science and powerful symbols in the popular culture.