The age old question for those of us involved in Engineering and science has been: does the collective imagination of writers and producers influence us as inventors, or does our inventions fuel the fictional creations of the creative?
The most popular argument given, although somewhat of a joke now, has asked: did the early works of Gene Rodenberry and his “wagon train” to the stars, Star Trek, influence a generation of engineers and scientist, or was it their influence that gave him the creative outlet to create such a series that even today, it enjoys a franchised success rivaled by no other, still fueling the imagination of the creative, and the scientific….
Though I believe that the real answer is somewhere in the middle, and each group truly influences the other, it is interesting to see the world changing before our eyes, as harkened by the news that the actors and writers from the current re-imaged Battlestar Galactica are meeting with the UN to discuss issues such as human rights, children, and the global problem of armed conflict, among other issues.
Sometimes it is nice to realize that the human race is, and can, grow up.
Link to the news article.