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

Re: I probably should have clarified that I meant non-nonsensical science.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Your wild-eyed ranter is probably not the guy to be scared of: it's the calm, businesslike, conservative guy with the great big interconnected set of labs funded by the Pentagon under a black box clause, who spends his time quietly administering a bunch of bland-looking projects. The guy whose projects always seem to involve defense against bizarre, lethal, and highly unusual, or unlikely, or unheard-of threats.

I remember reading a comment by someone or other that he could always tell when an epidemiology paper had originated in Fort Deitrick (sp?) because the diseases used vectors that those diseases rarely or never used in nature. "Leprosy spread on bird feathers? Yep, that's the biowarfare guys...."