The Evolution of Human Science

This short-short was written for the British science journal Nature. Throughout the year 2000, Nature ran a feature called "Futures;" each week a different writer provided a short fictional treatment of a scientific development occurring in the next millenium. Nature happens to be a distant corporate cousin of Tor Books, so the editor in charge of "Futures," Dr. Henry Gee, asked Patrick Nielsen Hayden to suggest some possible contributors. Patrick was kind enough to mention me.

Since the piece would appear in a scientific journal, making it about a scientific journal seemed like a natural choice. I started wondering about what such a journal might look like after the advent of superhuman intelligence. William Gibson once said, "The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed." Right now there are people in the world who, if they're aware of the computer revolution at all, know of it only as something happening to other people, somewhere else. I expect that will remain true no matter what technological revolutions await us.

(A note about the title: this short-short originally appeared under a title chosen by the editors of Nature; I've chosen to restore its original title for this reprint.)