Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [127]
Reviewing episodes of the original series of Star Trek today, one is struck by the almost absurdly simplistic design of set and costumes (made worse by the cartoonish colors of the sixties-era clothing). Yet the show resonated across generations to become one of the most remarkable television phenomena in the medium’s history. The reason is relatively simple: Roddenberry was an enlightened storyteller who baldly addressed the deepest issues in science, religion, philosophy, politics, and current events. He was adept at placating television executives and advertisers, while simultaneously maintaining a commitment to promoting science and humanism. David Alexander was one of Gene Roddenberry’s closest friends and was handpicked by Roddenberry to be his authorized biographer. One might thus expect a dearth of dirt. But no, it is here, warts and all, although to be fair, additional warts have been added by others since the original publication of Alexander’s biography in 1993. The entertainment journalist Joel Engel, for example, has painted a far less flattering portrait of Roddenberry in his 1994 biography, Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek. For me, anyway, little of this dirt matters in the overall impact of the man and his humanistic philosophy. Knowing that he sometimes took credit that was arguably due others, or that he had an extramarital affair, or that his disputes with writers and network executives were not always handled with perfect professional aplomb only adds to the humanness of this humanist. So he was morally obtuse on occasion—I hold up Roddenberry and his literary corpus not as a moral beacon toward which we should strive, but for what we can learn from his creative visage of our future.
The contingencies of Roddenberry’s life unfolded within the necessities of his times, starting with the Second World War, in which Roddenberry served as a bomber pilot flying unprotected B-17 sorties in the South Pacific. After the war he found employment as a commercial pilot for Pan Am and was involved in the single worst flight disaster in Pan Am’s history. Remarkably, Roddenberry survived the horrific crash, and as a consequence he was flooded with thoughts on death, God, and the meaning of existence. Roddenberry’s two marriages, his ambitious but naive start in television, his struggle to launch Star Trek and then keep it on the air after the second season, his battles with studios over the films and novels based on his series, and many more anecdotes show that Star Trek could never have been so successful if it had not been produced by a man whose life experiences gave him an insight into human nature appreciated by the millions who tuned in to get more than just science fantasy. In short, the contingencies that constructed the necessities of Roddenberry’s life show conclusively: no Gene Roddenberry, no Star Trek.
Roddenberry was, first and foremost, a humanist who used science to communicate his deeper intentions. Raised a Baptist, in his early teens he grew skeptical of certain theological claims, such as the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. “I was around fourteen and emerging as a personality,” he told David Alexander for an interview in The Humanist. “I had never really paid much attention to the sermon before. I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was Communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, This is a bunch of cannibals they’ve put me down among.” The scales fell from his now skeptical eyes. God became “the guy who knows you masturbate,” Jesus was no different from Santa Claus, and religion was “nonsense,” “magic,” and “superstition.” For Roddenberry, science holds