John W. Campbell favored human superiority. Isaac Asimov avoided conflict with Campbell by leaving aliens out of the Foundation series.
Poul Anderson, of course, covered both options in different works. Somewhere on the blog, we list ways in which human beings are superior in After Doomsday.
In Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy, human beings, just being inducted into the Milieu, already show that they will be metapsychically superior to the other member races. We recognize this as a familiar theme in sf.
In CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, humanity is the one Fallen race.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
While of course Poul Anderson examined both sides of the issue of human superiority/inferiority, he was inclined to be skeptical of such notions. His view was that, after a certain point, "supreority" as regards mere intelligence, tends to reach a plateau and to stop increasing. Because there was no evolutionary utility in a massive increase of intelligence beyond what we have now.
We such ideas in the collection THE GODS LAUGHED, where stories like "The Martyr" and "Turning Point" shows us other races more intelligent than ours. The collection also includes "Peek! I See You!" showing us human and alien races at about the same level of brain wattage.
As for humans being metapsychically superior to other races in Julian May's SAGA/INTERVENTION/MILIEU books, that is somewhat lessened by humans continuing to be as quarrelsome, flawed, and imperfect as ever.
Sean
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