BOOK REVIEWS

Visionary of 2001, and Way Beyond

KENDRICK FRAZIER

Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! Collected Essays 1934-1998. Arthur C. Clarke. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999. ISBN 0-312-19893-0. 558 pp. Hardcover, $35.

first happened upon Arthur C. and inspired millions of other people combination. He has written of Clarke's nonfiction back in the early from all walks of life. imagined civilizations eons in the 1950s when I somehow found in my Clarke even shaped the Space Age in future and the future of our own civ- I a very direct way. In a now-famous junior high school library in Windsor, ilization (Childhood's End, Songs of a Colorado, a copy of the wondrously 1945 paper, he proposed placing into Distant Earth), but he always does it named Journal of the British Inter- with crisp, informal, economical planetary Society. Clarke had recently prose and a centered sense of reason been the society's chairman and wrote and clarity that somehow makes the frequently for its journal. ARTHURC. incredible seem understandable. Here was a man with his eye and Clarke and his friend Isaac Asimov mind on the future, and that was for CLARKE had a whimsical running dispute over me. Ever since tlien, I have considered who was the greater science writer and Clarke, through his published writ- science-fiction writer. They eventually ings, an intellectual and literary com- settled it with their Clarke-Asimov panion and guide. 1 realize he has treaty. Clarke's 1972 book Report on played the same role for countless Planet Three subsequently offered this other people worldwide. dedication: "In accordance with the No one has been a more cogent terms of the Clarke-Asimov Treaty, the futurist. No one has been a more effec- second-best science writer dedicates tive proponent of space exploration and this book to the second-best science- the inevitability of the human spirit Greetings fiction writer." finding its way into space. Wernher von Carbon Based Bipeds! Clarke began his writing career in the Braun was prominent in the role for a LLC I r.IJ hasAYs [j 1930s and it continues today, so it is not key period in the fifties and sixties, and surprising that a volume representing his so were Willy Ley and science fiction 1934-1998 nonfiction essays over that entire span, greats like Robert Heinlein and Ray even if it is highly selective, must be Bradbury, and in later decades many geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles rather large indeed. Greetings, Carbon- planetary scientists, leading among above the equator and equidistantly Based Bipeds! Collected Essays 1934-1998 them Carl Sagan. But from the 1940s around Earth communications satel- is that welcome work. Clarke says he long on, Clarke influenced generations of lites which would provide global televi- resisted entreaties to undertake the mam- scientists, engineers, thinkers, and sion and radio services to all nations. moth task of trying to trace a literary creative artists. Gene Roddenberry's Star That happened almost sooner than he career "spanning almost seven decades." Trek television series—"Arthur literally could have expected. A persistent editor urged him to assemble made my Star Trek idea possible," In both his science fiction and his a representative selection of his non- Roddenberry once said—and Stanley nonfiction, Arthur Clarke has always Kubrick's (and Clarke's) 2001: A Space combined soaring imagination with Kendrick Frazier is Editor of the Odyssey movie then in turn influenced clear-eyed rationality. It is a rare SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

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fiction writings in a single volume. "The Cold War, suggesting more efforts to ics how earlier widely accepted stories of success of my friend Martin Gardners anticipate asteroid impacts, and dis- alien meetings turned out to be ludi- splendid anthology The Night Is Large cussing global warming. All as expected. crous fabrications." [reviewed in SI, November/December But I was astonished when I first read In a timely comment, he calls "par- 1996] has demolished die last of my fee- the paper in Science to see that it con- ticularly ludicrous" the "widespread ble excuses," Clarke says in the preface. cludes by proposing that Pons and idea (a la Independence Day) that for several decades some supersecret branch of the United States has had alien space- craft—and aliens!—in its possession. Arthur Clarke has always combined soaring Anyone who will believe that will imagination with clear-eyed rationality. believe anything." Clarke says he has known many of the people who would need to be involved in such a cover-up, and he can assure readers that such a He notes that Gardner divided his Fleischmann's cold fusion claims will be secret "would have a half-life of about anthology into sections devoted "to his vindicated and they "will be the only sci- forty-eight hours." many interests: science, an, philosophy, entists ever to win both the Nobel and He also can't take reports of alien religion, and so on. But not being such a the Ignoble Prizes." This must be a rare contact seriously because the described polymath (who is?), I have put my essays lapse in good judgment in Clarke, but occupants of alien craft are always essen- in chronological order." he clearly believes it, because he repeats tially humans (with a few cosmetic vari- That works just fine. The 110 arti- the prediction in the anthology's final ations). "Genuine extraterrestrials cles, essays, reviews, book introductions, essay, "The Twenty-First Century: A would be really alien—as different from short notes, and profiles range over all (Very) Brief History," published in us as the praying mantis, the giant of Clarke's interests: futurology, space February 1999. squid, the blue whale." exploration, space technology, extra- The anthology's first discussions of As for finding life elsewhere in our terrestrial intelligence, science commu- UFOs, I was surprised to find, go way own solar system, he still (along with nication, science fiction writing, science back to 1953, when Clarke critically and many planetary scientists) holds out that fiction movies, science and philosophy, effectively reviewed "a fraudulent book," the best hope is not on Mars but science and religion, pseudoscience and Flying Saucers Have Landed, and later beneath the ice floes of the oceans on fringe-science, undersea exploration, participated in a BBC television pro- the Jovian satellite Europa, a theme in and everything in between. I'd recom- gram on flying saucers. He knocked Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey, the mend just dipping in at any point. I authors George Adamski and Desmond fourth in the series of novels that started started widi some of his short tributes to Leslie for nonexistent scholarship, gulli- with 2001. famous colleagues and peers: Willy Ley, bility, and inclusion of "flying saucer" The anthology includes a lively dis- Chesley Bonestell, Robert Heinlein, photos that are obvious artifacts. Clarke, cussion of Clarke's involvement starting Isaac Asimov (that one also appeared in with some help from Scotland Yard, was in 1964 with Stanley Kubrick develop- the Fall 1992 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER), even able to refake Adamski's pictures, ing the ideas behind the 2001 movie Robert Bloch, Buckminster Fuller, and show that at least one of his saucers (originally titled Journey Beyond the Frank Paul, and Carl Sagan. In only a must have been inside the tube of his Stars), co-writing the screenplay, and few sentences, Clarke manages to cap- telescope. Such books, he complained, authoring the novel. Kubrick was deter- ture some of the essence of each of these do a disservice by scaring serious mined to make the proverbial "really fellow visionaries. researchers and people with intellectual science fiction movie, says The fourth entry is that classic 1945 integrity away from a field that "could Clarke. "What we were trying to create Wireless World article proposing com- be important." In his introductory note, was a realistic myth." (For a much fuller munications satellites. (Following the Clarke says "he never imagined" that the report see Clarke's 1972 book The Lost lead of Stephen Hawking, whose editor topic of UFOs "would be even more in Worlds o/200l.) told him each equation would halve the news four decades later." One of the few real forerunners to sales, Clarke has expunged the paper of Sure enough Clarke was back four- 2001 was the 1950 movie Destination equations.) One of the last is his Science and-a-half decades later with another Moon, which as kid I remember having and Society essay in the June 5, 1998, lively critical discussion, "More Last some of the same impact on me as the Science, lamenting scientific illiteracy Words on UFOs" in the Times of later Kubrick movie. Clarke provides an among policymakers, lambasting cre- London in 1997. He recalls the Adamski appreciative and perceptive contempo- ationism, commenting on the end of the nonsense and reminds "the UFO fanat- rary review of that movie that acknowl-

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edges its then-unprecedented visual SKEPTICAL INQUIRER and in the first SI Both Clarke and Asimov, it seems to qualities and attention to scientific anthology, Paranormal Borderlands of me, are right. detail. Science, Prometheus Books 1981). Clarke's essay "Credo" was new to To my mind Clarke's most memo- Asimov accepts Clarke's Law but he me and another pleasant surprise. Had rable nonfiction pieces are the two opening chapters to his 1962 book Clarke knocked authors George Adamski and Profiles of the Future. I am pleased to have a copy of die 1973 revised edition Desmond Leslie for nonexistent scholarship, personally inscribed by Clarke. In gullibility, and inclusion of "flying saucer" introducing those two chapters in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!, Clarke photos that are obvious artifacts. agrees that Profiles of the Future "may be my most important work of non- notes the human tendency to embrace I known of it a year ago, I would have fiction." The whole book, subtitled "An anyone who propounds comforting, tried to include it in SKEPTICAL Inquiry Into the Limits of the pseudoscientific beliefs such as astrol- INQUIRER'S July/August 1999 special Possible," is rewarding reading, issue on Science and Religion. but those first two chapters are Clarke's skeptical views about must reading to anyone, we religion arc clear from his sci- skeptics especially included, who ence fiction novels such as The tries to think about the future. Fountains of Paradise, but I They are titled "The Hazards of found this 1991 essay a wise and Prophecy: The Failure of Nerve" perceptive discussion of narrow and "The Hazards of Prophecy: and broad concepts of God, the The Failure of Imagination." "hijacking of morality by reli- They remind us how, "With gion," his refusal to take seri- monotonous regularity, appar- ously "all dogmas and revela- ently competent men have laid tions whose acceptance demands down the law about what is faith," and how science can technically possible or impossi- eventually achieve truthful ble—and have been proved answers to profound questions utterly wrong, sometimes while that dogmas can only pontifi- the ink was scarcely dry from cate about. Along the way their pens." Clarke notes how appalled he is It was in this first chapter that that so many bookstores and Clarke formulated his now newsstands are "poisoned with famous Clarke's Law: mind-rotting rubbish about astrology, UFOs, reincarnation, When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that some- ESP, spoon-bending, and espe- thing is possible, he is almost cially 'creationism,' . . . which certainly right. When he states implies that all the marvelous that something is impossible, he and inspiring story of evolution, is very probably wrong. so clearly recorded in the geo- Arthur C Clarke Clarke's Third Law, "Any suf- logical strata, is all a cosmic ficiently advanced technology is indis- ogy, flying saucers, creationism, and practical joke." tinguishable from magic," is even more life after death. So he offers as a coun- Spending some hours with Greetings, widely quoted. terpoint to Clarke's Law his Asimov's Carbon-Based Bipeds! is a wonderful Both serve highly instructive warn- Corollary: way to learn where our modern scien- ings against making absolutist state- When, however, the lay public rallies tific and technological society came ments, but I urge those who might round an idea that is denounced by from, where it might be going, and to take them too literally to also consult distinguished but elderly scientists delve into the rich mind and thoughtful and supports that idea with great fer- Isaac Asimov's witty and equally mem- insights of one who has helped shape vor and emotion—the distinguished orable essay, "Asimov's Corollary" but elderly scientists arc then, after and explain both the past century and (reprinted in the Spring 1979 all, probably right. the ones to come.

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