{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.027819548872180452, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009022556390977444, 'mean_word_length': 5.368421052631579, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred

and humanities, indispensable for understanding anything of what it is to be human. Sideris endorses Carson’s condemnation of authoritarianism in industry, science, and government, reminding the public that power lies with them (188). Here she might have given more attention to populism’s recent threat to science (antivaccination beliefs and climate change denial spring to mind). Her democratic model of science will only function well if the demos has the desire to seek wisdom and knowledge, especially as she recognizes the value in a civic mind and a community of learners (192). Her ideal of learned ignorance could address this problem, however, particularly its ethic of contemplation: acquaintance with the biological world should come first through an experience of nature and only secondarily through the laboratory (178). Sideris makes a vigorous case that experiential wonder must be non-exploitative, creating space for empathy (201), and her model of communal responsibility, personhood, and agency that rejects the heroic human of the Epic story is appealing. In summary, Sideris’s book has wide appeal: a timely, accessible, and thoughtful account of how wonder attentive to humble ignorance can resist hubristic science and promote a robust environmental ethic.