The Sprout Bank Show
2004-10-16

Melvyn Sprout: Good evening, and welcome once again to that most high-brow of arts programmes, the South Bank Show. With me tonight in the studio is ancient SF writer Arthur C. Asimov, author of such classics as Ten Past Eight: Odyssey Two, and what is considered to be the definitive work on applying make-up, The Foundation Trilogy. Mr Asimov, welcome.

Asimov: Thank you, Melvyn. It's great to be here on the West Bank Show.

S: That's South Bank, not West Bank. The West Bank is somewhere completely different.

A: I know. I was doing a clever spoonerism.

S: Right. Now, you've often argued the case that science fiction is a useful tool for predicting the future. Care to elaborate on that?

A: Well, as you know, Melvyn, I predicted the use of electronic pocket calculators in my 1962 novel The Great Martian Star-Beast Awakes, so I think that, yes, SF can indeed predict the future. Though we do get it wrong now and again! [chuckles]

S: But SF is more often wrong than it's right.

A: Maybe, if you take SF as a whole, but not if you're selective.

S: I see. So what you're doing is proving that SF can predict the future by ignoring the cases when it doesn't? If that's how you're going to do it, wouldn't it be quicker to just select one accurate prediction and extrapolate from that: "this is SF, it correctly predicted the future, therefore all SF predictions are accurate."

A: No, but...

S: I'm not finished! Suppose I predict that there will be a full moon within the next month. Would that make me a good prognosticator? No, it wouldn't: All I'd be doing is looking at the pattern of full moons and assuming that the pattern will continue. These people who claim to be psychic or able to predict the future really bug me. Some time ago I was talking to a friend about Prince Charles, and my friend said, "It was predicted that he'd never become king." Well, that's a completely rubbish prediction, because if he does become king, no one will remember, and if he doesn't, then the predictor can say, "See? I told you so!"

A: If I can just...

S: No, you can't. This is my show so I'm in charge. It's like those people who cheat when playing Solitaire! What's the point of that? Wouldn't it save them time if they just didn't bother playing? They could just tell people that they played and won; that would have the same result. The same goes for people who use cheats to get high scores in computer games. Why don't they just make up a big number and pretend that's their score? In fact, they could save money by not buying the game in the first place and just lie to everyone about how well they can play it. In fact, that also applies to those who play the stock market; it's all just numbers anyway, so they might as well lie about how well their portfolio is doing.

A: Er... I don't know about that. I'm really only here to promote my new book.

S: Yeah, yeah. There's a new book out with your name on it in big letters and someone else's name in little letters. Which means that they did all the work and your only contribution is to lend your name to it and do the talk shows, right?

A: Oh.Um... Well, yes.

S: Hah! Didn't see that one coming, did you? I rest my case! Thank you, and good night!