In the podcast I throw out one of my random statistics about medical students rejecting the theory of evolution. Anyway there isn’t actually a study on this that I can find, but there is an article on this problem available here.

We continue the science fiction and politics thread we started in the blog last week. Rosie joins me and Charlie for this podcast. We discuss the nature of the relationship between science fiction and politics from two angles. First we discuss the nature of science fiction’s political messages. And secondly we discuss real world politics that involve science fictional concepts.

One of the most interesting treatments I’ve seen regarding extraterrestrial original of genetic and organic material was Fred Hoyle’s 1983 book “The Intelligent Universe.” He draws some intriguing correlations between weather conditions and sudden epidemics of “mutated” microbe strains, and has much to say about bacteria-like structures found in meteorites, that orthodox science (at that time anyway) tended to ignore.

Should contemporary SF *always* be politically oriented? Heaven forbid. SF is many things, and attempting to force it to become an instrument of political change — as opposed to philosophical transformation or existential shock — is futile. The genre wants to be free, and so do its authors.

MT: Is there a place in the real world that gave you the impression that it was ripped out of the pages of a science fiction story?

Continuing on with the transhumanist vein there’s a very interesting discussion paper published by Demos and the Wellcome trust available for download here discussing arguments both for and against various life / longevity / intelligence enhancing technologies. The potential social and political impacts of some of these future technologies are truly mind boggling and raises the possibility that within the next few decades the world could become a truly strange place.

Charlie and I headed up to London last Sunday to attend Copyfight. We interviewed users’ rights activists and some speeches at Speakers Corner. The show was a nightmare to edit but the whole experience was a real blast nonetheless. We hope you enjoy the show. We sure as heck enjoyed making it.

The third episode of the podcast is a day late. Apologies for the delay, but it will be up late tonight. You can either check back to download it or even better subscribe (don’t be shy) by copying this into your podcatcher software’s “Add a Feed” field:

It’s been a pleasure over recent years to see two of my great loves the Internet and Politics getting together. And predictably it isn’t established political parties leading the way but Joe Mouseclicker. Blogs have changed journalism and still have a long way to go. But I’ve been pinning my biggest hopes on some kind of groupware that empowers the masses at the expense of the political parties.

Red rain may be the menstrual flow of the Hindu goddesss of smallpox, who’s had very little to do lately. She enjoys flying over the state of Kerala because of its ancient matriarchal tradition. Prior to the British Raj, land passed matrilineally in Kerala. This was a good idea, because women in pre-Raj Kerala could take many lovers.