‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The War of the Worlds’ are science fiction novels that were written by Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells respectively who were both English authors. These two novels were written in the 19th century when science and technology were not as advanced as there is today but it is believed that maybe some of their ideas could have influenced technology as it is today. Shelley’s novel is about a young scientist Frankenstein who so obsessed with science that he created a creature that resembled human beings but much bigger and stronger, and also more intelligent (Shelley, 2018). Wells’ novel is about how aliens, ‘Martians,’ from the planet of mars invaded England and defeated the British forces only to be killed later by a bacterial infection (Wells, 2005). These Martians were more like machines rather than human beings and were highly intelligent with very advanced artillery. Even though both novels not in any way related, the role of science and technology abstracted from them have a lot of similarities on how they contributed to science many years later.
Dangers That can be Caused by Misuse of Science and Technology
In the first book, Frankenstein uses his knowledge in science to create a humanoid which causes devastating pain in his life by the loss of life of his family members and friends. His biggest mistake is that he did this experiment without first researching the effects of his work. He was so eager in making human being by using non-living matter using unorthodox way without first understanding what kind of a creature he was creating. Even though he had planned on creating a beautiful being, it turned out to be an ugly creature that even terrified him. When the monster realized that its creator has abandoned it, it turned its wrath on those close to Frankenstein. The story tells us of how the monster tried to force him to create a female version of the monster and when he refused, it killed his family members and his friend which landed him in prison (Shelley, 2018).
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The story tells us how science could be used in the wrong way and cause a devastating outcome. Imagine if Frankenstein bowed to the demand of the creature and created a female creature. With such strength and also being huge, these monsters could have replicated and would have posed a big threat to humans all over the world which could have lend either to human extinction or they could have been turned to slaves. Even though this is just a story, it paints a good picture of how errors done in the name of science can cause more damage than good for example, nuclear power which is a great breakthrough in science is often used as a weapon which causes massive damage and loss of lives. Just like Frankenstein, a lot of scientists these days alter the environment thorough their work which usually affect a lot of people.
In the second book, we sew how humans are disadvantaged in the presence of the Martians because they cannot match the kind of technology that the Martians have. If we focus on the Martians, they use their technology for the wrong use and cause a lot of destruction and loss of lives to human (Wells, 2005). The Martians could have used their technology in trying to figure out how they could restore their planet to be stable again instead of invading another one, and this led to their death because of the bacterial infection.
Influence of These Stories to Modern science
These two novels used a new level of creativity which was not imaginable in that era which raised curiosity among some scientist who later based their work on these ideas. In the first book, Shelley created the idea of man creating another human being (Shelley, 2018). Even though no scientist has been able to develop human being from scratch, they have made great strides toward achieving this. Today science is able to make human clones, develop fetus outside the womb, transplant body organs among other operations. The idea of creating human opened new doors for studying the human bodies that have led to the discovery of how most diseases could be healed by understanding how they affect certain parts of the body.
The ideas extracted in the second book can be traced in several fields of modern science starting from astronomy, weapons and armor, space travel, and many more. Wells’ idea that Martians are inhabitant beings of Mars, strengthened the spectroscopy theory that every planet has its own species that have developed according to the composition and the condition of the planet. The idea led to more study of the Mars, and currently, Mars is the most studied planet in the universe with the scientists trying to find ways of how it can be habitable. So we can say, scientists may have gotten the ideas of finding other habitable planets from this stories and are doing research to rule out anything that can be lead to loss of life like how the bacteria did to the Martians. The novel may have inspired scientist in exploring the universe to check the presence of life outside our universes and whether they have a new form of intelligence that would be helpful to human.
Wells also made a huge impact that to the space travel because it is from his ideas that influenced it to be possible. The story says that the Martians traveled to Earth in cylinders which had been fired by huge space gun (Wells, 2005). This story inspired a 16-year-old Robert Goddard who spent almost all his life studying and building rockets that could travel to space. Even though he was ahead of his time, Goddard was able to develop a formula of powering up rockets to space. He developed an engine that could use oxygen and nitrogen to power up and how a rocket could be built of segments so as in order for it to reach the into space. Goddard’s work was actualized 61 years later when the first rocket landed was shot to space. Up to date, all space travels have been made possible by the work done by Goddard who was inspired by this book to do so.
Wells idea that the Martians had developed machines that did not have wheels but had joints which facilitated movement can be traced in today, where humans have been able to robots. Also, the idea of the Martians using chemical weapons was later used in the world wars where poisonous gas was used in killing a great number of human beings. The idea that Martians used machines to fight their battle may have contributed to the construction of armored fighting vehicles that have been used in many battles. Humans have gone a step higher in developing unmanned machines such as drones which are used in battles whereas being controlled by someone who is far away from the battle zone.
Lastly, Wells describes that the machines used lasers that they used to destroy anything in their way (Wells, 2005). The idea of laser remained a fantasy in almost the whole of the 20th century and still, now it has not been incorporated in today’s fighting machinery. Use of laser is currently being researched and tested in space and there is a high possibility that it will be used in future as a weapon. Therefore, we have seen that these two stories have a great influence on technology since the time they were created and they may be their influence will be much more, for example, the creation of human from non-living matter or by the discovery of aliens somewhere in the universe.
Role of Natural Selection
Natural selection refers to survival for the fittest where a superior race or the one that is more advanced in evolution is able to control or dominate over other inferior races. In the first book, we see the monster trying to use its superiority to control Frankenstein to do what it wants. The humans are unable to defeat it since it was more powerful than they were (Shelley, 2018). If Frankenstein bowed to its demand and created a female version of the monster, the monsters could have grown in number and they could have dominated over the human species. In the second book, natural selection appears in a well-developed chain. First, in this era, British Imperialists were referred to as the superior race because they had colonized a lot of countries around the world than any other country. They boasted of having the greatest and the most advanced forces which helped them in controlling others.
The invasion by the Martians change everything and their superiority turns to inferiority. The Martians enter the scene as having superior intelligence that was able to create advanced weapons that caught which humans couldn’t much with (Wells, 2005). They use this superiority to conquer and control the humans and do whatever they saw fit. This shows despite being more evolved than humans, Martians used their highly advanced technology to their advantage for survival purposes. The story also shows us that the Martians also used their advanced technology to search for planets that were habitable and were able to space travel at that era. It shows that if they didn’t have such level of technology, they would have gone to extinct like any other species which is unable to from its place of origin if that place becomes inhabitable.
Prediction on Human Evolution
Human evolution is usually slow and may take centuries to happen. It is mostly caused by environmental changes and humans evolve by adapting to these new changes. The evolution can also be made faster by interference caused by human activities. We can learn several scientific theories from the book. First, Frankenstein tries to create a human version using non-living matter (Shelley, 2018). If this creature was able to reproduce with a normal human being, then their offspring could have formed a completely new evolved species of human that could have different characteristics than those of their parents. They could be less like monsters but bigger and stronger than humans.
In the second book, Wells shows us that may be the more we evolve, we may lose some of our ability such as emotions because of our overdeveloped brains. Also during evolving, the human may focus more developing the brain which may lead to loss of other body organs such as; teeth, hair, stomach, having short legs among other changes. This may cause deformity of the human body as we know it and may highly depend on machines for its survival (Wells, 2005). The book also warns us that the human may evolve in a way that they will exhaust the available resources on earth which may cause it to be inhabitable to them also may lead to the extinction of other species that depends on the same resources.
In conclusion, these two books may be seen by readers as a normal book meant for entertainment but anyone who interprets them scientifically may learn a lot from them. Though the writers wrote them as horror or science-fiction books, anyone who reads them in this era sees a lot of resemblance to what is happening now. Most books that were written long ago and whose ideas were thought to be imaginary contributed a lot in shaping the world as we see it today. This is because they inspired men of science to work on these ideas which most of them were achieved while others are still on the way. The books also can be used by scientists as lesson not to be more ambitious on their work because they can cause a lot of pain not only to themselves but to their family as well as to the general public.
References
Shelley, M. (2018). Frankenstein. In Medicine and Literature, Volume Two (pp. 35-52). CRC Press.
Wells, H. G. (2005). The War of the Worlds. 1898. The Complete Science Fiction Treasury of HG Wells , 265-388.
