Peggy Kolm with the awesome Biology In Science Fiction blog and Stephanie Zvan with Almost Diamonds are co-chairing a panel on science fiction at Science09, and they're surveying science bloggers in advance. If you want to participate, you can post the answers on your own blog, or answer here. The answers will be added to the conference wiki. There doesn't seem to be a deadline, but the conference is in January.

A typical comment comes from Ken at Geo Slice:

Science fiction has both no role in promoting science and [yet] it often serves as a de facto introduction to science for the general public. For writers, I think it’s very rare for promoting science to even be considered when wrting sci-fi...

In the case of science fiction movies and TV, I think that harm often results. Most of the general public wouldn’t consider the various CSI shows as science fiction, but that’s exactly what they are. One consequence is that people serving on juries often expect more than is actually possible from prosecutors and have little understanding of important details and caveats of scientific evidence – so, our legal system is suffering due to missunderstandings that often originate from TV shows.

Sean Craven puts it most concisely:

Most science fiction is, from my limited and biased perspective, fantasy with chrome.

Mike Brotherton, a hard science fiction writer who founded the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers, is also a bit scathing:

I don’t need my science fiction to be so-called “hard” science fiction. I just need it not to be blatantly stupid or fantasy without clearly being fantasy. I mean, too many space-based science fiction stories ignore the laws of physics, and common sense, as it is.... As for the harm, well, there has been a lot of discussion about that, too, following Buzz Aldrin’s comments that unrealistic and unscientific science fiction has dampened interest in the space program. I don’t think his case is overwhelming, but I agree that science fiction has an effect and it isn’t always positive, at least to the public at large that isn’t already a fan of science and discovery.

And then there's geology professor Kim Hannula with All Of My Faults Are Stress-Related:

I don't think science fiction is particularly good at promoting science. (One word: Frankenstein.) An awful lot of science fiction seems to reveal a fear of the unknown, a fear of tampering with nature or with going too far in trying to understand something... Whether it harms the cause of science... well, honestly, I don't think that science should be a cause, really. Science is a sort of organized curiosity about the natural world, and it's sad to live amongst people who are uncurious and afraid of learning new things.

What are your science fiction influences?

My father is Rick Gauger, author of Charon's Ark and The Vacuum-Packed Picnic (which won a Nebula, if I am not mistaken). He read Jack Vance novels to me as bedtime stories, and the intense beauty and strangeness, and the humor, splatted right into waiting neural receptors. So I grew up sneaking all sorts of age-inappropriate stuff off his shelves. Moebius, DEN, Vaughn Bode, Heavy Metal, oldschool Judge Dredd, stuff like that. Seeing Blade Runner's director's cut in theaters when I was about ten was, I'm sure, an intensely formative experience. In my head, that grimy, neon metropolis became shangri-la. i've been seeking it ever since. When I was twelve or thirteen I was briefly obsessed with the X-Files and The Fifth Element. In the latter case, I think I was sniffing out the Moebius designs and the Gaultier couture, so despite it really being a terrible film in most respects, it laid eggs in my skull. Jurassic Park was also a big influence on me, too. I fucking love monsters in general, and dinosaurs in specific.

I would also like to add Red Dwarf to my clutch of early influences, as well as Invader Zim. The latter took me completely by surprise.

What do you hope never to see again in science fiction art?

Hackneyed dialogue, Hollywoodisms, and "hot" people. By Hollywoodism, I mean all of the following:

1. Super-badass vehicle/gun/utility is displayed. character says: "I gotta get me one a deez!"
2. Will Smith says, AW HELL NAWWW
3. Camera zooms in on badass hero, who says something about it being showtime, or possibly time for asskicking, or any number of four-word sentences that make ten year olds vibrate with awe.

As for "hot people," I am tired of pretty, in-shape, unclothed heroes. Pretty people tax the credibility budget, which is the finite amount of willing suspension of disbelief that can be expended by the audience before they start going "that's ridiculous." Look at Aliens. Or any Cameron film from that era. If he had attractive women in his movies, and he did, they weren't "women" in the way that movies define women: harpies, hags, or idiots. Scifi ditto. Ripley was not wearing any fucking mascara. She was a CHARACTER, she wasn't a GIRL. Ditto for everyone else. They were people before they were badasses, or killers, or idiots. This is not a luxury in sci fi. It is a necessity. Cookie cutter characters are unbelievable, and in a wider context of unbelievable things happening (aliens, lasers, spaceships, all imaginary), it is vitally important for as much of the rest of the package to be well-developed and believable. Otherwise, you squander your credibility (remember the budget) on things like how does the heroine keep her lip gloss so fresh in the middle of a reactor meltdown, or why our hero is standing in the middle of a bare hallway while shooting, instead of taking cover like the soldier he is supposed to be. This also applies to costumes. Case in point, Kate Beckinsale is not going to kill any werewolves while wearing a boned corset, no matter how badly fit it may be.

I know you love monsters. So what was the best monster of last year?

That Pallid Man in Pan's Labyrinth was a triumph of design and execution. I was grinning throughout the whole scene. I'm going to give silver medals to the Bouncer-type Big Daddies in Bioshock, and GlaDOS from Portal. Right now I'm incredibly excited about Wall-E, Cloverfield, and Hellboy 2. And Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness.

Do you ever draw Mi-Go, Shuggoths, or Old ones?

I don't do much fan art.

I have some octopus-headed figures here and there, and I was inspired by Ranklechick and His Three-Legged Cat to take a crack at two of the characters, but otherwise I feel deep shame when I'm not working on my own designs. I start to shake, and weep, and chew at my flesh.

What the Heck? [Open the Future]