Talk:Generation ship

Graphic for article

I was wondering if this (highly fantasized) graphic would be appropriate for the article? I am the author and the license is already Creative Commons. Thanks. ➧datumizer  ☎  07:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Unless there is a specific concern or inaccuracy against it, I would say go for it! --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

"normal family life"?

That expression seems culture-dependent, what is normal family life? --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 21:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's intended to be that specific. That sentence is about genetic diversity, so I think it means "normal family life" as opposed to "being bred like livestock".

A biologist or a farmer could probably go into detail about what you'd have to do to keep a population going if it's not large enough for a "normal family life", but I don't think the article would benefit from going too deep on that subject. ApLundell (talk) 23:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Fact and fiction

On one side we have the topic of the use of generation ships in real life, which has its advantages, disadvantages, difficulties and challenges. On the other side, we have generation ships used in works of fiction, which may try to reflect the real issues, but it is a completely different topic. Besides the inherent need to fit into a narrative, science in fiction is easier than real-life science: you can introduce fictional technologies, you can handwave or even ignore intractable problems, you can provide solutions that may sound reasonable to the unsuspecting reader but be complete bullshit for real life, etc. As a consequence, fiction has no place in articles about real-life science, unless it is treated as fiction and nothing else.

I'm explaining this because of the section "Social breakdown". It explains something that may happen, and cites as a reference a review of a sci-fi book, and later adds "this and that book also talk about this". I removed that, it was restored asking "How is leaving two uncited sentences better than text with cites, not just of fiction, but critical discussion of same?". Yes, unreferenced stuff is bad, but real-life stuff referenced on fiction is worse. And the book review is equally irrelevant: it is "critical discussion" of a work of fiction and nothing else.

If the section can not be referenced with references that deal with the real life topic, we may need to delete the whole section altogether. I would prefer not to get there, but the section as it is can not stand. Cambalachero (talk) 15:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Especially given that there are no other references to fiction in the article, this content is noticeably out of place. The excerpt has merit, but not in this article. Dan Bloch (talk) 00:57, 22 May 2024 (UTC)