God, aliens and why Science Fiction can explain the mysteries of creation

Science: Fictions, Faiths And Futures Lecture

The Fermi Paradox is the celebrated conflict between the fact that, given the sheer size of the cosmos, there is a high probability that alien civilizations exist and the complete lack of evidence that such civilisations do exist: the absence of contact. The proposer of the paradox, Italian astronomer Enrico Fermi, put it this way in 1950: "Where is everybody?" Science fiction has addressed the paradox in various ways: this talk will address it as an aspect of science fiction's engagement with the logic and transcendence of God.

About the speaker

Adam Roberts was born in London two thirds of the way through the last century. He currently lives a little to the west of that same city. He is the author of twenty-six SF novels, most recently Frankenstein Rex (Victor Gollancz 2026). He is also the author of various works of non-fiction, including The History of Science Fiction (2nd ed Palgrave 2016) and A Short History of Fantasy (Bloomsbury 2025).

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