The Flavors of Science in SF: A Taxonomy

For several years now I've been working casually on just that: a classification of the types of science in sf that would be more detailed than the obvious correct vs. incorrect vs. gray area / fudged.

This first version was prepared for a panel at Arisia on the science in sf films and hence draws all its examples from them, but I think it works just as well for sf literature, as well. I full intend to expand it with examples from the literature and submit it to NYRSF.

I'm quite pleased with this: I think there a couple of fresh insights and I like some of the terminology (category 5 took the full two years and half a dozen attempts to get right). I'd love to get some feedback, so if you think this is interesting, feel free to pass a link on to others who might not be reading this blog.

Science in SF: A Taxonomy

1. Best Science. This is the first type of Actual Science, in which the laws of science as we know them are obeyed and form the basis for a believable speculation or extrapolation whose details are either given or easily inferred. In Best Science, the story explores the likeliest extrapolation or implications of the known science. The quintessential example in film is Gattaca. The space sequences in 2001: A Space Odyssey (up until the encounter with the monolith stargate) are Best Science.

2. Also Science. A variety of Actual Science in which the extrapolation or interpretation of scientific law is not likely, but is still possible, and is chosen for story or thematic reasons. If we were extrapolating the likeliest outcome of android technology, we would never give them three-year lifespans, but that bit of Also Science is probably justifiable and is absolutely central to the story of Blade Runner. In 2001, the notion that aliens may have interfered benevolently with our evolution is Also Science. (Originally, Best and Also Science were called True and Unlikely Science, respectively.)

3. Speculative Science. Science itself is incomplete and evolving. In Speculative Science, either missing science is invented (e.g., some currently unknown aspect of neuroscience, especially the nature of consciousness), or a plausible revision of current science is proposed. As with Actual Science, the details are given, the dots connected. It’s very common in written sf but hard to do in film, because it requires so much exposition. The best recent example of Speculative Science in film is the invention in Primer.

4. Magic Science. While no laws of current science are broken, there is an explanatory gap that is filled in by essentially evoking Clarke’s law that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from you-know-what. Magic Science usually implies the discovery of new science or technology, but unlike Speculative Science, it doesn’t specify what it might be, let alone give us the nuts and bolts to chew on. Klaatu’s ability to make “the Earth stand still” is Magic Science, as is the Krell machine in Forbidden Planet. That the monoliths in 2001 are capable of remotely affecting the minds (and perhaps even the DNA) of the man-apes is Magic Science.

5. Better Than Science. This is Magic Science with a crucial difference: the current laws of science are actually broken, whereas Magic Science simply exploits the fact that they are incomplete. Anti-gravity, FTL travel, and time travel—all these classic sf tropes that violate physics as we know it, but not a plausible revision of same, are usually treated as Better Than Science. The stargate in 2001 is Better Than Science, as are warp drives in Star Wars and Star Trek and jumpgates in Babylon 5.

6. Fake Science. This is a very broad category (subject to further division) that includes almost any idea that is presented to us as science but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny: not only are the laws of science as we know them violated, there is no possible revision of those laws that will make the science work. Mutations caused by radiation, and almost all the science in comic-book adaptations are Fake Science, but so (upon close scrutiny) is the global sterility in Children of Men. Like Magic Science and Better than Science, Fake Science may be offered without explanation, or it may be accompanied by hand-waving or fundamentally meaningless jargon.

7. Never Mind the Science. This is an important sibling to Fake Science; the difference is that the gross violation of scientific law is not presented to us as a scientific idea, but it is instead a (usually fundamental) story aspect whose impossibility is ignored by convention. That exposure to gamma rays could turn Bruce Banner into The Hulk is Fake Science, but that the Hulk is absurdly stronger than allowed by the laws of physics is Never Mind the Science. All movie monsters that are so large that their bones could never support their mass, such as Gojira, are Never Mind the Science. Explosions in space are a ubiquitous and fairly trivial example.

8. Wrong Science. Scientific laws are violated for no story purpose whatsoever, apparently because the screenwriters simply didn’t know better. Almost everything in the Armageddon trailer (which convinced me to not bother with the actual movie) is Wrong Science.

There are three modifiers that can apply to many or most of the above categories.

Super Science. This is a violation not of the content of science but of its form and practice. We are shown a scientific breakthrough or invention that in the real world could never be accomplished by these people, and/or that quickly, and/or with those resources and/or budget. Tony Stark’s construction of the first Iron Man suit is Super Science (the suit itself has a Better Than Science power source and is otherwise a mixture of Magic and Fake Science). Like well-done Fake Science, we are used to accepting Super Science by convention.

Anachronistic Science. Tomorrow’s science is portrayed as happening in the present, or current or future science happens in the past. All steampunk is Anachronistic Science. The memory-erasing machine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is Anachronistic Science with Best and Speculative elements (although the movie demonstrates why we’ll probably never bother implementing such technology even once it becomes feasible).

And finally, the all important …

Bad Science. An attempt is made at one of the above categories, and although the science isn’t demonstrably Wrong, it still doesn’t work for you; it takes you out of the story and makes you wince at its stupidity. That’s Bad Science. Whether Speculative Science strikes you as Bad usually depends on your scientific knowledge. With the other varieties, Bad Science seems ultimately a matter of taste. That the alien mothership in Independence Day apparently runs the Mac OS is Fake Science, but for many it’s Bad Fake Science. Botching the hand-waving explanation is a classic form of Bad Science; The Force in the original Star Wars trilogy was (like almost all psi powers in sf) simply Magic Science, but the introduction of midichlorians in the prequel trilogy struck many as a turn to the Bad Side, in that the explanation added nothing. In fact, a good criterion for identifying Bad Science is that fixing it would improve the story—if Jeff Goldblum’s character had to struggle to interface with the alien OS, that could have been exciting and funny and needn’t have taken more than twenty seconds of screen time.

Some Other Examples:

Minority Report. It argues that there is a predetermined future which can nevertheless be altered by free will, and I think that’s excellent Speculative Science, but someone with a different favorite interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (e.g., Everett rather than Bohm) might think it Bad. Either way, however, that there might be precogs who could see that determined future is pure Magic Science.

The Prestige. Tesla’s machine is Anachronistic Super Better Than Science.

Star Trek. The reason why Red Matter stands out is that it’s Fake Science used where Magic Science or Better Than Science was expected. Which is to say that there’s probably an infinite number of more credible ways of blowing up an entire planet, but they went for Cool and Dumb.

Avatar. A key scientific idea is that a planet or moon with an extraordinary strong magnetic field might produce an ore that is a natural room-temperature superconductor, but with a composition so complex that it still defied artificial manufacture. You have to know more about the physics of superconductivity than I do to decide whether that’s Speculative or Better Than Science, but (at least in the theatrical cut) the movie actually omits all that detail and presents it as Magic Science.