Actual science in science fiction

[james_davis_nicoll]

Not applied sciences, I mean, or feats of engineering but the actual process of science. Is this a suitable topic for SF, by which I mean "can it be the seed for a story?" Or maybe better yet, "how does one use it as the seed for a story?"

One example would be the Steerswoman books. I think part of what makes that possible is that the protagonist is discovering scientific models that we are already familiar with, so the author is not saddled with the problem of coming up with a new scientific model.

I am not fussy about "Yes, this was cutting edge science 200 years ago and it still is today" stories, where whatever bit of pop-science that made the cover of DISCOVER is still new and exciting centuries from now.

Comments

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

Scientists doing science, or stories where the focus is on the science? For the later, some baxter might qualify, although he's going to be mostly applied astrophysics.

For the former: some Jack McDevitt, for archeology and anthropology.
Charles Sheffield must have had someone doing science, but I can't seem to think of anything.
I never read much Robert L. Forward, but I seem to recall _RocheWorld_ as a book mostly about the science of planetary systems. IIRC _Alpha Centauri_ had some scientists doing science as well, I thought, although it was of course mostly background for Barton and Capobianco's gedankenexperiment in social dysfunction.

There is probably a fair bit of short fiction from Analog that fits the bill, most likely involving an iconoclastic lone scientist overthowing the established order.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

There is probably a fair bit of short fiction from Analog that fits the bill, most likely involving an iconoclastic lone scientist overthowing the established order.

Thar most specifically does not fill the bill. It's not how science works.

Cranky British Iconoclast Seeks Steady-State Curious Lab Partner

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

What about Sir Fred Hoyle? Someone has to provide the hypotheses for the other guys to disprove....

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

I did not suggest that that was how science worked. I was suggesting that that was the model of science working that was most likely to grace the pages of Analog, since I suspect such a model is most likely to fit the prejudices of the Analog readership and/or editorial board, who so far as I can tell say "science" when they mean "magic that will make the world as I wish it to be". It’s possible I’m insufficiently charitable to Analog, but there you go.

What follows is neither fair nor altogether accurate:

This brings me to a thought that has been coursing through my brain since James started his recent flurry of posts[1]. There seems to me to be a large and growing amount of hostility toward empiricism within the science fiction community. This may be reflected in the diminishing quantity of science in SF, and especially of good science, the kind that doesn’t support wish fulfillment about the plucky individual doing it on their own without meddling from a society that just doesn’t understand them.

[1] My only basis for what follows is the content of rassf and rasfw, which is as close as I'm likely to get to the "science fiction community" at large. So, a grain of salt and all that.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

This brings me to a thought that has been coursing through my brain since James started his recent flurry of posts[1]. There seems to me to be a large and growing amount of hostility toward empiricism within the science fiction community.

Much as I hate to admit this, there's always been a faction of SF that was hostile to empericism, especially but not exclusively [1] over in the ANALOG wing of SF.

1: If I had not expunged my memories of this, I'd cite a particularly dreary Le Guin short story.

Portrait of the Scientist as a Struggling Artist

[(Anonymous)]

I just struck me that while the iconoclastic scientist slaving away in his lonely lab isn't anything much like the real experimental scientist, it's much closer to the essentially solitary working life of a professional writer.

Analog-style scientist heroes: the original Mary Sue? Threat or Menace?