Comment by yogthos

I disagree that it undercuts the point in any way. The original story didn't appear out of a vacuum, the human consciousness that wrote the story was itself borrowing extremely heavily from the sum total of human ideas. It was shaped by the culture it developed in, formed its model of the world based on existing scientific advancements and technology of that society.

Extending the idea to a different context based on new material conditions is as human as it gets really.