{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1998", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1998, "subject": "BaD sCienCe", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-12-01T21:07:27+00:00", "last": "1999-12-02T20:26:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "1999-12-01T21:07:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) BaD sCienCe", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm trying to think of a major science fiction work in which the\nsensawunder science has held up . . .\n\nI keep thinking of poor old Larry Niven, who was about as close to the\nnon-classified source of Big Science as a fiction writer could be; in one\nsense he seemed to be in the position of being a \"bard of Big Science,\"\nhearing the jargon from the white coats, then bringing it down to the\ncommon reader like Prometheus carrying fire from the gods to humankind . .\n. yet \"Neutron Star\"? RINGWORLD? (Although, as a sop for the topic: the\nmini-black holes that he used in some short stories are kissing cousins to\nthe sort of black hole I envision at work in Old Sun.)\n\nOr Paul Park, who dusted off Tommy Gold's discredited theory on hydrocarbon\nformation (Park's \"sugar rain\"), as well as tucking in a few earlier age\nskiffy artifacts like a car that runs on gunpowder (I thought that Park\nmight have actually thought something up with this item, until I saw a\nliterature survey and learned better). Sharing this trait with Gene Wolfe;\nmaybe Wolfe's motto should be \"Never let science get in the way of story.\"\n(But with Wolfe I also sense that he is impishly playing with the fickle\nnature of science vogue.)\n\n(Alas! Paul Park left me behind in CELESTIS when he had an orbital\nbeanstalk in place on a tidelocked world, without a breath to spare about\nthe extra kinks that this puts in the engineering exercise . . . I have a\nhard time seeing a geostationary orbit around a tidelocked world . . . and\nif the orbital elevator is reaching all the way out to a Trojan Point, well\nof course I'd like to hear about it.)\n\nHas anything held up any better than FRANKENSTEIN, which was written\nvaguely in the science of its day by a non-scientific wisp of a girl?\nAfter being discredited in the early part of the 20th century, has Mary\nbeen validated because in the late 20th century it is an everyday occurance\nto ressurrect the (recently) dead with electrical discharge?\n\nIt is also peculiar to me that scientists get to \"discover\" ideas (or claim\nthem or name them, which is perhaps the most important in the end) first\nlaid out in sf. For example, the so-called \"Dyson Sphere\" is really a\nStapledon Light Trap; Martyn Fogg gets to work out the mechanics of\n\"stellificating\" Jupiter without a mention of Arthur C. Clarke; etc. Which\nis fair, in the sense that the scientist is working with his calculator for\nan afternoon or whatever, figuring out this and that, and furthermore, a\nsupposedly scientific paper will be tarnished by any sort of mention of\n\"inspiration by genre,\" but still: I think it is a two way street between\nscience and sf, yet it is constantly portrayed as a one way street, or\nworse, a high tower and a slimy ghetto. Which is true, of course:\ncharlatans and bonefides on both sides.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Damien Broderick", "address": "d.broderick at english.unimelb.edu.au" }, "date": "1999-12-02T17:24:40+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) BaD sCienCe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At 09:07 PM 1/12/99 -0700, mantis wrote:\\" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "in the sense that the scientist is working with his calculator for\nan afternoon or whatever, figuring out this and that, and furthermore, a\nsupposedly scientific paper will be tarnished by any sort of mention of\n\"inspiration by genre,\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wonder of the usually forgotten Fred Hoyle might sneak in here? Great\naudacious ideas (for his time), clunky but serviceable fiction warpped\naround them. THE BLACK CLOUD is the canoincal instance, of course, but I'm\njust halfway through COMET HALLEY which I've never seen anyone else in the\nworld mention. Came out in 1985. Amazingly CPSnovian in its corridors of\npower emphasis, even as it recycles the dusky dusty cloud and fills it with\nsmart bacteria. (One of the refrains of the book is the intemperate\nhostility of establishment science, Royal Society, et al, to wonderful off\nthe wall discoveries. Poor Fred.)\n\nDamien Broderick" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "jlhenley at erols.com" }, "date": "1999-12-02T20:26:00+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) BaD sCienCe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Michael Andre-Driussi\n\nI keep thinking of poor old Larry Niven, who was about as close to the\nnon-classified source of Big Science as a fiction writer could be; in one\nsense he seemed to be in the position of being a \"bard of Big Science,\"\nhearing the jargon from the white coats, then bringing it down to the\ncommon reader like Prometheus carrying fire from the gods to\nhumankind . . . yet \"Neutron Star\"? RINGWORLD?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's a deep lesson in \"Neutron Star\" about \"realism\" in SF, particularly\nso-called hard sf. Jerry Pournelle pointed out that the the science in\n\"Neutron Star\" was so accurate that the story could never happen: if 20th\ncentury writers and scientists understand tidal forces, you can bet that\n30th century spaceship pilots and manufacturers understand them. So the\ndead scientists never put themselves in that position in the first place,\nthe puppeteers never wonder what happen to them if they drop acid and do it\nanyway (no moon? phooey! if you can calculate gravity you can derive the\nexistence of tidal forces), and no matter what, Beowulf Schaffer doesn't\nput himself that deep in harm's way.\n\nSo even for its time, \"Neutron Star\" was one of the least realistic stories\nin science fiction. Pournelle resisted drawing the larger lesson about\n\"hard science fiction\" and realism, but I commend Norman Spinrad's essay,\n\"Rubber Science,\" as the text for the advanced course. IIRC (been 15 years\nsince last I read it), Spinrad argues that the disciplines of science\nthemselves change over time - there never used to be molecular biology or\npsychopharmacology, frex, and there's no reason to believe that paradigms\nand even fields of study won't keep changing into the future. Hence the\n\"realistic\" thing for the sf writer to do is to invent entire new sciences\nfor his worlds and, realistically, these \"rubber sciences\" can owe only so\nmuch to our contemporary understandings of the laws of the universe -\notherwise we play the future false. Spinrad had no illusions that the SF\nwriter's rubber sciences would turn out to be the real sciences of the\nfuture, only a conviction that, say, an imagined 25th century where\nscientists understood the universe in terms of \"the best thinking of\nscientists of today\" was absurd." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " (Although, as a sop for the topic: the\nmini-black holes that he used in some short stories are kissing\ncousins to the sort of black hole I envision at work in Old Sun.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "John Varley loved these things too - in at least one of his 70s stories,\nthe mini-black hole talked. Before too much longer Hawking announced that\nthe little critters would have to have half-lives measured in nanoseconds." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(But with Wolfe I also sense that he is impishly playing with the fickle\nnature of science vogue.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey, interesting idea!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Has anything held up any better than FRANKENSTEIN, which was written\nvaguely in the science of its day by a non-scientific wisp of a girl?\nAfter being discredited in the early part of the 20th century, has Mary\nbeen validated because in the late 20th century it is an\neveryday occurance\nto ressurrect the (recently) dead with electrical discharge?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Held up scientifically? \"Zero Gee,\" by Ben Bova, from AGAIN DANGEROUS\nVISIONS II. About two shuttle passengers who do the nasty in orbit (joining\nthe \"zero gee\" club). It's basically a mimetic story now by Delany's\ndefinition of mimetic fiction (the set of all stories that have not\nhappened but could). Even the celebrity culture sociology of this story\nholds up pretty well, though it's not exactly a landmark of the literature,\nand that may tell us something.\n\n\"Cold Equations\" is vague enough about its underpinnings (how starships go,\ne.g.) that it might still be \"live.\" McCaffery and other PoMo types dismiss\nit as essentialist and phallocentric and other bad things. What they don't\ndo is acknowledge that it's a fairly deliberate critique of their premises\nthat maybe they don't have an answer for.\n\nBut probably that very vagueness (how starships go) contributes to its\nlongevity - the less specific you are about the scientific underpinnings of\nyour story, the less vulnerable the underpinnings are to new issues of\n_Nature_. Much of what drives \"Rogue Moon\" remains vital stuff in today's\nculture; the least compelling parts are the details about tape drives and\nsuch.\n\nMoral: in the long run, the scientific accuracy of an SF story means next\nto nothing. It will survive on story value - like anything else - if it\nsurvives on anything. I still recall Varley's little black holes with\nfondness and I'll probably reread TBOTNS before the Librarians have their\nnext festival." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it is a two way street between\nscience and sf, yet it is constantly portrayed as a one way street, or\nworse, a high tower and a slimy ghetto. Which is true, of course:\ncharlatans and bonefides on both sides." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Does the \"slimy ghetto\" bit still have any currency? I mean, outside the\nfainthearts on this list who were worrying a few weeks ago what (gasp) some\nassistant lit professors might think about the covers of Wolfe's books? \nI think Disch is right: science fiction has pretty much taken over the\nculture, and the culture is cool with that.\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n *****************************************\n\"It ain't the knife thru your heart that tears you apart\n it's just the thought of someone sticking it in\"\n -- Graham Parker, \"Protection\"" } ] } ] }