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Does Bad Science Ruin Science Fiction?

Trick

Auror
I have to agree, to a certain extent, with the article. When you put very little effort into getting the basics right, you lose my respect. But, there's also the combination of sci-fi and fantasy where the rules are blurred. In that case, if you just follow your own rules, I'm happy.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Depends on if they are setting me up to expect good science, I suppose. Some science fiction doesn't bother, and that's okay. It's in space, there are some robots and aliens, but aside from a few Layman-style explanations of the worldbuilding, it doesn't toss around too much in the way of actual science.

But I also adore hard science fiction, which by definition is as scientifically accurate as speculative fiction can be, so inaccuracies in those books are like being slapped in the face by the author. They are jarring, and can definitely ruin a good story in that context.

Of course, I'm hardly as scientifically inclined as Neil deGrasse Tyson or Carl Sagan, so it has to be a more egregious mistake for me to even notice it. Which I think gives authors some leeway. Sure, there are a lot of sf fans who are scientists/science geeks, but there are plenty who are just into good books and cool gadgets. If I write a science fiction story, I'm probably going to be writing more for the latter.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
To add further complication, when it comes to certain subjects, people will pass off their own opinions as scientific or historical dogma regardless of what the data actually say. They will see inaccuracies where none exist.

For example, when the Walking With Dinosaurs movie came out last winter, certain wannabe dinosaur enthusiasts whined that the Gorgosaurus (smaller cousin of T. Rex) portrayed in the movie didn't have feathers, which they claimed was inaccurate. Never mind that all the actual skin impressions from four tyrannosaurid* genera (Gorgosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Albertosaurus, and T. Rex itself) show scaly or otherwise featherless skin. It was like these whiners cared less about real scientific accuracy than their own hipster-like backlash against pop-culture portrayals of scaly dinosaurs.

* Not to be confused with primitive tyrannosauroids like Yutyrannus or Dilong, which have preserved feather-like filaments but lived millions of years earlier.
 
The article doesn't seem to like being read on a phone.

Winging it: it depends on how central the science is. If you're writing something like Star Wars, you can get away with all kinds of junk science. If you're trying to be, I dunno, Robert L. Forward or something, errors matter a lot more.

(Then again, I've noticed that almost everyone who writes like Forward has a college degree in the relevant field--physics, in his case. I imagine that helps a lot.)
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I don't catch too much sci-fi, especially the hard science fiction. But I think you're fine if you stick to the normal science tropes, and don't screw them up, but that the bar for knowing-what-you're-talking-about goes up drastically when you veer away from them.

But it depends. A lot of science fiction technology is fiction for a reason. Some things simply will not be possible, so of course your science will have some hand waving somewhere. The question is whether or not the handwaving gets buried in a paragraph of otherwise good physics.
 

Noma Galway

Archmage
I don't mind if the science is inaccurate, really. I'm not a huge science person to begin with, though. As long as the science in the story is consistent and makes sense in the context of each other, I'm perfectly happy. I'm more unhappy about inaccuracies if they are mythological in nature.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
I'm more unhappy about inaccuracies if they are mythological in nature.
Wait a moment, doesn't mythology undergo evolution and revision all the time? It seems a bit silly to demand accurate portrayals of fiction that's constantly modified over time.

There have been moments where certain liberties taken with mythology irritated me, but those had more to do with how the changes negatively impacted the story than a general belief in faithfulness to any mythological canon (however that be determined). For instance, I didn't like how the water-monster fight got replaced with a seduction scene in the 2007 Beowulf movie, because I wanted to see a Viking kick water-monster butt. However, I am willing to take liberties with mythology myself if I feel it increases the story's appeal.
 
I don't mind if the science is inaccurate, really. I'm not a huge science person to begin with, though. As long as the science in the story is consistent and makes sense in the context of each other, I'm perfectly happy. I'm more unhappy about inaccuracies if they are mythological in nature.

Like how everyone and their grandmother writes Anubis as a bad guy?
 

Aspasia

Sage
It absolutely ruins it for me. I need my science fiction to be as close to actual science -- or within reasonable extrapolation / probability -- as possible. Science fiction is for me "what could be" ... not "what would be awesome to have". No matter how good your story is, if I see FTL travel or messed up genetics or whatever I will lose that immersion in the story. Good storytelling doesn't fix impossibility, at least for me. The coolest scifi gives you an incredible technology that could actually make sense, and shows you how. IMO If you need to have something whose tech just will not work, don't try to justify it with bad science. If you need space ships that travel a certain distance in super short time, don't tell me it's cause FTL ... just don't say anything. Telling me it's FTL breaks that immersion, makes me question the other cool things you've shown me. Silence on the part of stuff that just won't work with good science means perhaps I will accept it because maybe the author knows more physics than me, maybe it can work out. Bad science is the worst. I won't catch it always ... but when I do I'm really annoyed.

Obviously I'm a bit of an extreme case :). I am a scientist. If the author calls it science, I want it to actually be science! I don't read a ton of scifi, actually I'm looking around to find more to read. I stick to hard scifi. I read scifi to blow my mind, amaze me, immerse me in the author's incredible universe. Bad science breaks that for me. Even if the writing is amazing, and I really want to love it ... if you have huge inaccuracies, I just can't.

None of this applies to fantasy at all. When I read fantasy, I know nothing is supposed to "make sense" at least scientifically ... I can throw away that critical part of myself that likes to analyze these things. I know, the author knows, there isn't supposed to be science here. And so I can suspend disbelief and really enjoy the book no matter what impossibilities it presents. Scifi is, in my view, supposed to make sense. So when there is an impossibility, it doesn't look intentional, it looks like a mistake, like not enough research was done. I know not all scifi is hard scifi, and that's perfectly fine, it's just not for me :).
 

Jabrosky

Banned
Like how everyone and their grandmother writes Anubis as a bad guy?
Isn't Sutekh (Set) the one usually seen as the big villain of Egyptian mythology? Then again, I can see people getting the aardvark and jackal god confused since their faces look vaguely similar in the Egyptian art style.

That said, the giant serpent Apep was actually the closest thing in Egyptian mythology to a totally evil god. Even Sutekh helped Ra fight him every night.
 

Noma Galway

Archmage
And wasn't the serpent the embodiment of chaos? I'm a bit rusty on that one.

I've seen Valhalla portrayed as Thor's hall before. I don't remember where, but that aggravated me to no end.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I took a moment to read through the article more thoroughly.

In terms of science that's just bad, you need trendsetters to change the tropes and create better ones. It's just like everything else, the genre evolves over time. You have people who push, people who follow, and a few who are "popular" enough to set the standard for the general public that "knows nothing." You've just got to keep pushing by writing better stories with better science until it trickles through the genre.
 
It absolutely ruins it for me. I need my science fiction to be as close to actual science -- or within reasonable extrapolation / probability -- as possible. Science fiction is for me "what could be" ... not "what would be awesome to have". No matter how good your story is, if I see FTL travel or messed up genetics or whatever I will lose that immersion in the story. Good storytelling doesn't fix impossibility, at least for me. The coolest scifi gives you an incredible technology that could actually make sense, and shows you how. IMO If you need to have something whose tech just will not work, don't try to justify it with bad science. If you need space ships that travel a certain distance in super short time, don't tell me it's cause FTL ... just don't say anything. Telling me it's FTL breaks that immersion, makes me question the other cool things you've shown me. Silence on the part of stuff that just won't work with good science means perhaps I will accept it because maybe the author knows more physics than me, maybe it can work out. Bad science is the worst. I won't catch it always ... but when I do I'm really annoyed.

I don't see how someone could stay within this while writing, say, a story about the trade of goods between Earth and an alien planet. It can be taken as a given that the aliens are outside a reasonable distance for relativistic travel, even if the term "FTL" is never used, and it would be pretty harsh to say that story can't or shouldn't be written.

Personally, I just use alternate interpretations that bend the rules. There was an interesting one a few years back that proposed that the maximum speed of light might alter upwards along "strings" through space, allowing spacecraft to match the altered speed with minimal relativistic effects so long as they moved along the strings. This interpretation was never exactly popular, and it's now considered unlikely, but it's still a neat little springboard.
 
In my experiences, bad science ruins my willing suspension of disbelief. I remember playing Halo and hearing Cortana say that a fusion core destabilization would create an explosion hotter than the bloody sun, and I actually had to pause the game and leave for awhile to regain my desire to play again. Now, when known science is sketchy, there is always room to give, such as with the concept of warp travel in Star Trek or light sabers in Star Wars. But if the science is cut and dry and someone breaks it without even providing a reasonable explanation, I, at least, will have a problem with it.
 
I don't know about ruining the genre in general, but personally speaking bad science ruins a book for me.

If a writer can't take the time to do even basic research I can't be bothered to read them.

Example: Gravity no longer is present on Earth, but no one is floating about. >.>
 
Well, I meant just really blatant things. Like mentioning a god but having him be a completely different god.
See I think mythology is something to play with. Unlike hard science. Religion and mythology are not set in stone. Most of these stories come from cultures and languages long past. Pick one aspect of the original story and twist it at will. No need to stick to the original format. Soft science and or pseudo science does not need that type of strict adherence.
 

Aspasia

Sage
I don't see how someone could stay within this while writing, say, a story about the trade of goods between Earth and an alien planet. It can be taken as a given that the aliens are outside a reasonable distance for relativistic travel, even if the term "FTL" is never used, and it would be pretty harsh to say that story can't or shouldn't be written.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say such a story can't or shouldn't be written, only that it's not for me. Hence all the qualifiers I put in my response ... I know not everyone wants to or can stick within such stringent boundaries, I'm not saying that scifi all needs to be hard scifi. Personally, I don't read stuff that uses bad science as justification. Bad science ruins the story for me. Not everyone is as hard-line about this as I am, which is fine. There are all types of readers, and writers too. Maybe that story about trade between Earth and aliens breaks basic science, maybe it's not hard scifi. That's great. I won't enjoy it maybe, but that's just me. I know I fall on the extreme side of this -- it just means that I pick out more hard scifi. Maybe a particular story can't, or even shouldn't be written with such stringent requirements in mind. No problem -- just I won't be the best reader for that story.

At some point every scifi writer has to extrapolate from what we know currently. Not everyone knows all of science, if the author slips in a bit of tricky not-so-realistic engineering I probably won't notice. Mess with basic science concepts or my field? Yes I'll notice, and I won't be happy. But hey, that's just me. I'm the kind that wants extensive appendicies in the back of the book explaining all the science so I can geek out and appreciate the work the author has put in -- and how cool science is! I like, and need, accuracy in my scifi. Other readers prioritize different things. It's all good.
 
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