Things Sci-Fi gets wrong all the time

coutelier:

Like I’ve said, I’m not really nitpicky about sci-fi.  It only bothers me if fiction isn’t internally consistent, or occasionally if something seems to be the result of a lack of research (a character that’s a doctor, or forensics expert, or Vampire hunter, thinking the human heart is located on the left side of the chest, for example – literally one google search was all you had to do).  But anyway, I thought for fun I would just start listing some other things that sci-fi gets wrong all the time.

Such as Cryogenics.  Cryogenics is basically the study of extremely low temperatures – how to produce them and what happens to stuff when it’s very cold.  Freezing people in order to revive them later is Cryonics.  But for years and years sci-fi writers have used the former to mean the later.  But although not technically correct, language is determined by usage and when people hear ‘cryogenically frozen’ they understand what it’s referring to.  So I guess it’s not a big deal.  Thanks for reading anyway.

In sci-fi, bold explorers often set out to the stars in search of other sentient life forms.  Which is weird, because you don’t really have to go that far to find sentience – it just means having the ability to sense and feel.  Dogs are sentient.  Hamsters, horses, cats, even people in the comments section on youtube are sentient, but what they’re not is sapient – having the ability to think and reason.  That’s what these explorers are really after (although there are other species on Earth with capability in that regard too, like crows and dolphins, who just refrain from commenting on youtube).