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]

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.