How reading science articles helps my fiction

I read science articles and textbooks for fun. I blame my avid interest in science directly to my avid reading of Science Fiction – I discovered ‘I Robot’ by Isaac Asimov when I was eight. When I had finished reading all the Science Fiction and fantasy books in my high school library – since I went to the same high school for five years, this wasn’t as great an accomplishment as it first sounds – my lovely librarian pointed in the direction of Asimov’s popular science books.

So, I have a large collection of reference books. I’ve read some of these books multiple times, like Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer. Over the years, parasitology has inspired several of my favourite stories to write; I am a big fan of the poem by Augustus De Morgan:

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on…

Recently, I’ve come across the concept of Survivor Bias. The best example of this was a study done of number of injuries cats presented with in veterinary surgeries, after the cats had fallen from the height of multiple storeys. Strangely, after the 9th floor, the number of injuries were less than those animals that had fallen from lower floors. Now, you might think that the added height gave the cats the opportunity to control their descent and increase their survival. What was really happening is that dead cats don’t get taken into the vet.

Now, I am inspired with the fictional possibilities of this concept. The fiddling of statistics always fascinates me … people think statistics is such a ‘hard’ science. And yet it is one of the easiest to skew the results, using things like survivor bias and sample size and where you chose to take your samples from.

I’m already rubbing my hands with glee.

My April Fool’s Science Page Article for 2005

Ice, Ice, Baby…

The new fashion in diets is the “Chill Diet”.  Its inventor, Elynn Neger[1], theorises that our primate ancestors didn’t know fire, and so didn’t cook their food.  So it is more natural – and healthy – for humans to eat raw foods, and drink nothing but water.  As well, it is a fact that the human body has to work harder to warm up cold foods, so that kilojoules are burnt as the body converts the cold or cool food to body temperature. If you plan to follow Dr Neger’s diet, then all food should be consumed at room temperature, or better yet, chilled.

Dr Neger also recommends cold baths, and in cold climates, short walks in the snow whilst naked or lightly dressed.  Her goal is have her converts burn their extra weight away by making their bodies work hard at temperature regulation.

As always, you should use your commonsense before commencing a new diet.  I know for a fact that Dr Neger is a fraud and a quack.

 

Biography

Dr Elynn Neger was born in the Sixties, and can remember a time when ‘Star Trek’ was Prime Time television.  She managed to survive both the “My Little Pony” and “Cabbage Patch Kid” fads by being too old.  She is not dead yet.

She is a profession troublemaker.

At university, she had a reputation for supporting causes simply to join in the heated debate.  Since obtaining her questionable doctorate in Science (in S.F.A.), she has developed several diets which I would pause to recommend.  Her most current diet is the “Chill Diet”, as mentioned above.

 

Concept of the Month

The April Fool

All Fool’s Day developed as a celebration of the first day of Spring.  Once upon a time, the New Year started on the first day of the European spring.  When the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, changing the date to the first of January. Poor communications meant that that some places were still celebrating the unofficial date for many years, and were considered ‘fools’ the general public.  This evolved into the tradition festival of playing pranks or practical jokes.

 

[1] Please consider this name carefully, taking into account the time of year.

Update from 2005: Weight management is a huge industry worldwide, there are going to be scammers and snake oil salesmen trying to make a quick buck as well. Many years ago, I wrote this ‘quack’ diet up as an April Fool’s joke for my Science Page. About 18 months later, I found it on a ‘serious’ diet page, listed as a proper diet! I contacted the page administrators immediately, and they did take it down. However, it did give me an insight into how easily some people can be fooled by pseudo-scientific language.

However, since I wrote this article, the Ice Diet has become an actual thing!

The Science of the Ice Diet

http://www.shape.com/blogs/weight-loss-coach/why-ice-diet-will-likely-leave-you-burned

 

Scientific Writing seen as a Form of Creative Non-fiction

 

What really defines the genre of science writing isn’t so much its structure, which uses all the same devices as fiction, but its intent.

Lynne Lumsden Green

 

Like any the genre, fictional or non-fictional, the genre of scientific writing is characterised by several markers:

1. It is objective, and so by inference, unbiased. However, simply by picking a topic, a scientist is showing a bias. The impression of objectivity is an artificial construction.
   Any research should be repeatable by anyone with the same equipment and methodology. However, the choice of methodology will affect the results, as will the method used for interpreting the data.
2. It is factual, with no assumptions or guesswork. However, the very choice of the facts can create a bias.
3. The language is formal, and incorporates scientific terms and jargon. This is a style constraint, and both fiction and non-fiction genres have their own styles that vary from genre to genre.
4. Scientific articles are usually written by people with scientific qualifications. However, it must be pointed out that scientists are just people and are capable of getting things wrong just as easily as getting things right.
5. Research should be based upon proving or disproving a hypothesis.

Now…speaking of the concept of what a hypotheses is: a hypothesis is not a law, it is just a theory, a story that explains the known facts in the best way. If another scientist comes up with a theory that explains the facts better, is won’t take long for that to become the accepted theory.

Often, a hypothesis is constructed in metaphorical language, like the Big Bang Theory, Schrödinger’s Cat, and Survival of the Fittest. And that goes against the concept that only poets use metaphors.

In the genre of science writing, the aim is to be an authoritative way of explaining reality.  However, what is real for one person isn’t necessarily real for another. And pseudo-scientists are quite capable of using all these genre markers to good effect.

What really defines the genre of science writing isn’t so much its structure, which uses all the same devices as fiction, but its intent.

 

Advances Towards Self-Healing Robotics

http://www.paperdroids.com/2015/08/04/advances-towards-self-healing-robotics/

Image of Robot by Antoine Cully

Paper Droid science article about Dinosaur Eggs

http://www.paperdroids.com/2015/06/23/stepping-egg-shells-colour-dinosaur-eggs/

Image by Calvin J. Hamilton

My latest article for Paper Droids: A Missing Link Found on the Ocean Floor

http://www.paperdroids.com/2015/05/26/missing-link-found-ocean-floor/

Loki’s Castle

My two latest science articles!

Just to prove that I am not just obsessed with writing and Steampunk. I am also obsessed with writing and science.

http://www.paperdroids.com/2014/12/02/missing-pieces-new-brain-pathway-discovered/

http://www.voyageronline.com.au/christmas-carols/

Tra-la-la-la-la….