posted
I had an idea for a short story that was inspired by an idea my husband had. I started mentally plotting out the characters, but, anxious to avoid the problems that occured in the piece I submitted here, I talked over the science of the idea with my incredibly smart, very sciency, geeky, computer programming husband.
After a while of trying to map out the foundation for this idea, he interrupted me with a shake of the head and said, "No. Now we're starting to get into pseudoscience."
Now, I don't usually write science fiction. I really enjoy it, but I'm just starting to write it. So, my question is *drum roll*:
When does science fiction turn into pseudoscience?
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Well, this may not be exactly what you're looking for, but here's a pretty good article showing the full spectrum from very hard to very soft science-fiction science: http://www.orionsarm.com/intro/grading.htmlPosts: 1517 | Registered: Jul 2003
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It's not pseduoscience if you're not trying to fool someone into thinking that it is science, and as you were working on a piece of fiction, I would think that was obvious.
It's not pseudoscience if you are following the scientific method, even if you ARE trying to determine the relationship between Atlantis and aliens.
It IS pseudoscience if:
you do not follow the entire scientific method, including throwing out cherished assumptions, hypotheses and beliefs and then profess that you have.
you do not either test your assumptions, or make the assumptions visible to the reader.
you do not provide all the information necessary for third-party independent review and re-work.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited August 02, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited August 02, 2004).]
posted
That's why they call it science FICTION, Keeley. It's your story and your world, so you get to make up whatever science you want. And rest assured, if your "science" isn't exactly plausible, there is an audience of readers who could care less. I, for one, prefer my science fiction (when I read it) to be pretty extremely sparse on the scientific explanations. If I wanted to hear a treatise on light particles vs. light waves or the theoretical workings of a faster-than-light drive, I wouldn't read a story, I would read a treatise.
But I can see how "bad science" would annoy a scientific person. Kind of like the way bad grammar and spelling annoy us English majors.
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited August 03, 2004).]
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This was my favorite part of the article that EricJamesStone provided the link to.
quote:Speculative description of very advanced technology also necessitates a certain amount of "handwavium", but again, this is part of the imaginative exercise that is science fiction.
I'm a big fan of handwavium.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
You know, if you're talking about some hypothesized substance which theoretically could exist but has not been available to human science, then "handwavium" isn't pseudoscience at all.
It's simply reasonable speculation.
By the way, Keeley, are you saying that your idea was actually listed as one of the "hard" SF ideas, or simply not listed as one of the "soft" ideas?
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Survivor, it wasn't listed, but the topic that sounded like the idea we were discussing is listed as ultra-hard SF. We were discussing the plausibility of a "waystation" between planets. It's an interesting idea to me (I'd have to share the full conversation to explain why), though it could be incredibly lame if it's not thought through.
Mary, I'm a fan of handwavium, too. My problem is I tend to love it too much.
quote:Oooh! Bad husband! Spank him!
*raises eyebrow* Sorry, not into that. But I will share the rest of your comment with him. And yes, I was being pretty rigorous about the science. Unfortunately, it's a rare thing for me lately.
To give closure to this anecdote, it turns out that what my husband meant was he didn't want to discuss the topic anymore because he felt we'd reached the limits of what we knew and further research was required before we resumed our discussion. After looking at the data, I concur with my husband's findings.
posted
Psuedoscience isn't a big concern in an SF novel. Psuedoscience is genuine scientific research that has been carried out with a bad methodology -- most frequently results that are published which cannot be reliably reproduced (e.g. the famous "cold fusion" debacle), or the interpretation of reliable results in a way that isn't supported by the evidence (e.g. the suggestion that asymmetric capacitor "lifter" devices produce a form of anti-gravity, when ion thrust is a much more realistic explanation for why they work). This is real psuedoscience -- making conclusions that aren't warranted by the evidence.
Science fiction almost inevitably includes conclusions not warranted by the evidence, because it usually postulates future science for which we don't have evidence yet.
Of more concern is technobabble, the use of scientific buzzwords in a nonsensical fashion to confuse the reader into believing something can happen that would otherwise be impossible. Think of the worst star trek episodes, where problems are solved by reversing the polarity of the tachyon emitters in the forward deflector array, or whatever.
Avoid this by setting out rules for how your universe works, giving clear examples to the reader, and then sticking to it. As long as your world is consistent and doesn't appear to just break the laws of science as we know them wilfully, then most readers will accept it happily.
Oh, and despite what the site linked above says, FTL warp drives don't _necessarily_ violate causality. There are interpretations of relativity where this problem doesn't arise, and they haven't necessarily been disproven. e.g.: if an object in FTL transit is considered to be cut off from the rest of the universe (causally speaking) until it reduces its speed below c, then everything's fine.
Besides, there are documented quantum effects that appear by all reasonable analysis to violate causality and can be reproduced in labs. I don't believe that our current understanding of time and causality is an accurate view of the way the universe really works.
quote:We were discussing the plausibility of a "waystation" between planets.
If you mean a "cyclic transport" (essentially a space station with an eccentric orbit that takes it near both planets on a regular basis), then it was hard SF. If you mean a waystation that was literally between the two planets, then it is "pseudoscience" for the purposes of SF (which is to say, non-science pretending to be science).
For any true FTL drive, the causality implications are rendered invalid. The causality implications are achieved by assuming that the FTL frames of reference will be experiencing time backwards, and thus are only logically valid for relativistic FTL, which is physically impossible for other reasons.
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Keely, you may be interested in Space Elevator's too. Apparently NASA is moving forward on this as of this year but I can't seem to access the article on us.cnn.com (it was from June 25, 2004, or so).
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Has anyone read Steel Beach? There's this great scene where the main character (1st POV) meets this scientist whose talking about an advanced spacecraft repair. I don't have it in front of me, but the scene goes something like: ---- "Is there anyway to fix it?" I asked. He said, "We just need to alter the whatchamacallit to connect with the dojig, via the whosiwhatsit. Then we can blah, blah, blah to the thingy." Or words to that effect. ---- You get the idea. I thought it was a brilliant.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Mary, I love that quote. Must read Steel Beach now.
Jules, thanks for the reminder about technobabble. Someone mentioned on a Star Trek bulletin board my husband visited that it was one of things that killed The Next Generation (TNG). Of course, a lot of things killed TNG, but only one is germain to this discussion.
Robyn_Hood and Kolona, thanks for the links. Very interesting stuff. It's a hard concept for me to visualize, but, man! It sounds awesome.
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My problem is I tend to love it too much.
