Science Fiction and the Ethics of Science

The modern Science fiction (SF) has advanced hand in hand with science: SF provided inspiration and a safe sandbox for gedankenexperiments and discussions of the ethics of progress - particularly relevant today. The panel will concentrate on what influence the latest discoveries - particularly in astronomy - have on the SF and on how the changing societies and sensibilities that SF picked up early, like the preservation of the environment, influence scientists and the general population: a few example are the turn to renewable energy sources, the reduction of science travel, etc.