From natural theology to scientific materialism: Science fiction and Victorian philosophies of science

During the nineteenth century in Britain, the prevailing philosophy of scientific practice shifted from a design-based natural theology to an empirically oriented scientific materialism. By the 1870s, scientists such as John Tyndall (1820-1893) propounded this new worldview through books and lectures aimed at a general audience, advocating a utopian vision of a world saved by scientific rationalism. Nevertheless, natural theology remained a strong force in popular conceptions of science, where its teleological narratives imposed order on the chaotic and unpredictable universe revealed by scientific materialism. Early science fiction writers from Bulwer Lytton and Samuel Butler to H.G. Wells and Bram Stoker incorporated Tyndall's idealistic "transcendental materialism" as a central theme of the nascent genre, exploring if humanity might thrive in a materialistic universe. However, without the aid of a divine designer to provide stability and purpose, most Victorian science fiction envisioned only dystopian failure, whether it posited a societal utopia, an improved human species, or a changed gender paradigm. Tyndall's transcendental materialist vision was only fully realized a century later in posthumanist works, such as the posthuman feminism of Octavia Butler, where utopia becomes possible not because God exists---but because he does not.