(urth) Wolfe Vindicated Again!

[Jeff Wilson]

On 12/16/2011 9:53 AM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
> I think I should say what I think regarding GW's science (and history
> and mythology).
>
> Some apparently believe GW to be some sort of expert physicist and
> biologist (and historian, and mythographer), who cannot make any
> mistakes or ignore any facts. That's obviously untenable. NOBODY can
> know everything Mankind knows today, and never make mistakes, and even

However, it is possible for an educated person to stay abreast of 
general established science, available popular science literature, and 
the abstracts of past and new developments in their fields of interest. 
I would hope that the science relevant to a science fiction story they 
plan to sell would count as within those fields of interest.

> For instance, the Sun's visibility from
> Blue may or may not agree with current astrophysics, but our knowledge
> of astrophysics is not only seriously in its infancy, but the only way
> it will progress significantly is if most of it is wrong [and we come to
> be able to observe more of the Universe than it allows us today].

Star visibility isn't astrophysics, it's just plain physics. We have 
very well worked out distances and apparent vs absolute magnitudes of 
nearby stars and have had for over a century now. This of course does 
not restrict a writer of fiction, but a writer of believable science 
fiction needs to have a bit more care with its inherent appeal to the 
authority of science for suspending disbelief and at least suggest by 
implication a reason for deviating from science as the astute reader is 
likely to know it.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >