The first archetype is represented by Thomas Carlyle in his Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History: “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here. At the other end heroes are historical artifacts of their culture-ordinary people thrust into positions of power and fame that might just as well have gone to others. At one end of the spectrum heroes are “great men”-seminal thinkers, brilliant inventors, creative authors. Historians and biographers have explained the origin of the heroic in two dramatically different ways. Read Michael Shermer’s bio at the end of this article. Shermer used the occasion to consider the role of the individual-the hero even-in history, and how one person really can make a difference, which surely Gene Roddenberry did.Ī version of this tribute article was originally published in Skeptic magazine 3.1 in 1994, under the title “The Thinker on the Edge of Forever,” and republished in Shermer’s 2005 book Science Friction, a collection of articles and essays from the previous decade. As such, David was granted access to Roddenberry’s private archives, and he treated his charge with respect, even while revealing the man’s very human flaws. David was a humanist and skeptic and deeply involved in both movements when Roddenberry chose him as his biographer.

Shermer penned this essay in 1994 upon the publication of his friend David Alexander’s biography: Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry. Star Trek was launched in the US on September 8, 1966, 50 years ago tomorrow, which also happens to be Michael Shermer’s birthday, so he remembers it well-hooked on the show and the concept and all that it stood for from the beginning.

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