The Science In Science Fiction

"The Sky People."

Sometimes science fiction is about science:

"'The scientific method is only a means of learning. It is a...a perpetual starting afresh.'" (p. 21)

Ruori pauses to think, then invents an appropriate phrase. In his time, many people think that:

"'...science was the cause of the old world's ruin.'" (ibid.)

- or that it consisted of (almost magical) formulae for:

"'...making tall buildings or talking at a distance.'" (ibid.)

In the long aftermath of the War of Judgment, science would be identified with some of its effects, not with its method.

Tresa admires the Maurai without understanding the basis of their success:

ships that sail fast, almost into the wind;

full fishing nets;

whale ranch herds darkening the sea;

farming the ocean for food and fiber;

Ruori's shirt crafted from fishbones;

a spacious house for every family;

a boat for nearly every family member;

literate children;

printed books;

no sickness;

no hunger;

everyone free;

el Dio smiles!

Ruori explains:

application of science to wind, sun and life;

genetic engineering of seaweed, plankton and fish;

forest management;

solar energy;

wood, ceramics and stone replacing metal;

airfoils;

the Venturi law;

Hilsch tube;

force, heat and refrigeration from wind;

paramathematical psychology.

Sf is about the present:

"'The ancients exhausted the world. They mined the ores, burned the oil and coal, eroded the land, until nothing was left.'" (p. 21)

And The Time Machine projected Victorian class divisions into devolved human species in 802,701 A.D.

But sf is also about the future. How might science be applied differently? (Anderson's Maurai History.) Future paradigms will be different. (James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time.)