Science in Science Fiction Report

Science in Science Fiction Report

Film: The Pod Generation

The 2023 film The Pod Generation tells a story based on near-future societies, whereby couples are able to use pods as wombs to gestate their babies. The idea of using artificial wombs has been used in several science fiction movies before, but they all originated from the 1932 novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, whereby embryos are incubated in pods in efforts to increase populations and also divide them into different classes (Huxley, 1932). In The Pod Generation, the pods help the plot by highlighting several issues, including gender roles, bodily autonomy, how reproduction is corporatized, the need for convenience, and parenting.

Currently, there are several research efforts being put toward developing artificial wombs with the success of having developed extra-uterine systems referred to as biobags in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (Oei, 2025). Additionally, fluid systems and artificial placentas have also been developed (Usuda et al., 2022). Nevertheless, fully efficient artificial wombs are yet to be developed mainly because the womb has a lot of biological complexity that is challenging to replicate outside the body of a female human being (Oei, 2025). Further, testing these artificial wombs on human beings poses a lot of ethical and legal concerns.

Since this technology is new, it leaves many potential misuses. For example, reproduction becomes a commodity that anyone with the means can access, which opens up the children to vulnerabilities based on who uses the pods, for instance, child traffickers or child predators. Additionally, seeing how even without artificial wombs some governments have been able to prevent reproduction (Milwertz, 2024), the introduction of this technology could only leave people more vulnerable to such kinds of human rights abuses.

Furthermore, the realization of this technology could lead to more socioeconomic inequality because not everyone will be able to afford it. Seeing how convenient it will be for those who can afford it, it will place those who cannot at a huge disadvantage, which will further widen the already huge socioeconomic divide between the rich and the poor. Secondly, the idea of eugenics is highly debated to lead to more inequality as society’s biases about human ideal traits are achieved.

References

Huxley, A. (1932). Brave new world. Harper & Row, Publishers. https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/BraveNewWorld-and-BraveNewWorldRevisited/Brave-New-World_-_Aldous-Huxley.pdf

Milwertz, C. N. (2024). Accepting population control: Urban Chinese women and the one-child family policy. Taylor & Francis.

Oei, G. (2025). The artificial womb: Challenges and solutions. In The Artificial Womb: Life Saving for Extreme Premature Babies (pp. 93–101). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85905-2_9

Usuda, H., Saito, M., Ikeda, H., Sato, S., Kumagai, Y., Saito, Y., Kawamura, S., Hanita, T., Sakai, H., Kure, S., Yaegashi, N., Newnham, J. P., Kemp, M. W., & Watanabe, S. (2022). Assessment of synthetic red cell therapy for extremely preterm ovine fetuses maintained on an artificial placenta life‐support platform. Artificial Organs, 46(4), 653–665. https://doi.org/10.1111/aor.14155

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You have freedom to explore an example of how scientists are trying to follow or catch up with science fiction. What appears to be impossible today, may be possible tomorrow.

Science in Science Fiction Report

Imaginative futurism in science fiction novels tends to begin as predictions of technologies that are not yet realized. In this assessment, students research a technology or scientific plot device that originated in science fiction and is now currently being explored by the scientific community today. Recent examples include robot vacuum cleaners, full-body scanners, weapons using high-energy light, and the ubiquitous cellphone. Examples for the future that are starting now are space travel for citizens, development of wireless electricity, deviating asteroids from Earth and mining asteroids.

Your report may be in the form of a PowerPoint, quote from a novel, link to a science fiction movie scene, or verbal recording on D2L for submission of this report. Use your imagination and have fun with it!

In this assignment, you will research cutting edge science projects that were first imagined in science fiction TV, film, or novels. This assignment includes:

Pick a current project being investigated by scientists that started as an idea in science fiction.
Describe how the idea was first used in science fiction. Why was it used? Did the technology serve to help the plot or as a gimmick?
Research the science behind the technology. Why does the technology not already exist and what are scientists trying to figure out?
Since science does not provide an ethics for the use of the technology, how might the technology be misused by people with unethical standards? Is there a science fiction work that has explored the unethical use of the technology and what was its message? If not, predict how the realization of the technology may polarize society by giving some an advantage over others without the application of ethical principles or core values.
Your information must include published works in which your example appears, as well as mentioning the organization(s) that are investigating the corresponding technology. For example, if your chosen plot is space travel, you must reference at least one book/movie/short story/television series in which space travel technology is presented, AND at least one specific organization that is trying to develop the technology today.