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Originally Posted by Damburger
I touched on this in another thread, but I think its important enough to warrant it's own discussion.
I find a lot of science fiction using different species of aliens to represent different races/viewpoints/aspects of human kind. This seems to me to be tacitly supporting the notion of biological determinism, a pseudo-scientific notion that character can be determined entirely by genetics. |
Different species do have different behavior because of different genetics. Some species (such as ants) have very little scope for learned behavior, so their behavior is largely determined by genetics. Other species have more room for learned behavior, but genetics plays a significant factor for all.
I don't see any problem with the rather obvious point that genetics affects behavior. However, I'd certainly like to see better attempts at portrayal of truly alien behavior (even in written stories, many writers have mostly human aliens).
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Consider the episode of Deep Space Nine where a young Jem'Hadar is raised by humans, yet they ultimately have to let him go because - despite being a fully sentient and rational creature - his 'nature' makes him incapable of living in civilised society.
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Are you suggesting that it is impossible that an alien species might be incapable of living in human society?