Radio Times p.72, 4-10 December 1971
I feel that Jonathan Miller should not have talked authorittively about science fiction in his lecture "Alternative Worlds" (Writers in Society, 11 November, BBC1) if he was practically unacquainted with the genre.
He did not even define what he meant by the term. For example, one of the more popular definitions is 'any story that could not happen without some basic scientific fact or theory' - andl clearly Proust does not fit in here.
The fact that SF is written for many different purposes seems to have escaped him. In the United States, a large proportion of SF is political and in any other literary form would be classed as 'un-American.' Sometimes scientists write SF to express an interesting idea, which is (as Oppenheimer put it) 'technically sweet,' for their own and other scientists amusement. Dr. Asimov's 'Thiotimoline' stories are an example.
Dr Miller may have read some good SF at some point, but from what he said I am sure that he has not bothered to read what other writers have written n the subject - such as Kingsley Amis, in New Maps of Hell.
Dr Miller made no constructive comment on how the excitement of science could be conveyed to non-scientists. He merely destructively equated Doomwatch (which aims to instil social awareness of the dangers of our technological society) with the space opera Star Trek. It must be frutrating for Dr Kit Pedlar when someone does not immediately see the main point of his television series.
P.M. Sargent
Richmond, Surrey
The RADIO TIMES People item on 'The mind of Jonathan Miller' said that Jonathan Miller 'has always been fascinated by science fiction.' Yet in his televised lecture he said that he didn't like science fiction, and when preparing the lecture he asked the producer for some science fiction to read.
Dr Miller hardly mentioned andy 'mysterious worlds invented by science fiction writeres' and di not seem to know of any except those of Verne and Wells. He said nothing at all about 'new wave' SF, or of writers like J.G.Ballard who deal with 'inner space' - that is, the mind. His knowledge of SF would seem to have ended before the genre really began with Hugo Gernsback in 1926.
Incidentally he talked about people being 'mathematically iliterate,' and suggested that members of the audience who didn't know about the structure of a cell ought to feel ashamed - yet in al illustration from The Goon Show he mentioned 2/6 change from £1 when an article cost 18/6. He hasn't even decimalised yet!
Dr Miller said that no one ever learnes about science from science fictions. Well, I have learned from it, and still do.
Worst of all, he likened science ficton to pornography as being boring. The imagination of writeres of science fiction goes far beyond that of any scientific research. Boring? Never, Science fiction is mind-stretching, which is why so many people read it.
(Rev.) Leonard S. Rivett
Malton, Yorkshire
On 11 November the BBC gave Dr. Jonathan Miller a substnatial amount of screen time in which to ait his views aboutscience fiction.
I now want a serious answer to this question: what other subject would the BBC be prepared to have discussed in front of millions of Viewers by someone who, on his own admission, knows sweet Fanny Adams about it?
John Brunner
Science Fiction Foundation, London, NW3
Jonathan Miller was invited to reply, but does not wish to comment. - LETTERS EDITOR
I was 17 years old when I wrote this letter: my first publication. It was the leading item in the letter section (there were also two other shorter letters on other subjects). At this time, some TV programmes were still in black and white and there were three channels: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. The Radio Times, which cost 5p, covered only the BBC channels. The pound sterling had been decimalised 9 months or so previously (15 February 1971).