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This morning, Eileene sought my advice on an issue troubling her, involving some online bickering about whether some TV show or other deserves criticism for its dubious “science.” I’m not entirely sure exactly what specifics of bad science are in question, or which show is under discussion, or even exactly what the problem was, because Eileene wasn’t entirely coherent, but the issue might be solved by establishing what qualifies as good or bad science fiction.

You have to be careful to define your terms when arguing science fiction, because the very words “science fiction” mean radically different things to different people. (Establishing clear definitions alone might solve the dispute.) For purists, science fiction is fiction about science, including technological applications of scientific principle and explorations of what the world would be like if natural law as we understand it were different. Properly speaking, science fiction does not include several themes which often get labeled “science fiction,” including:

• Futuristic utopia/dystopias, unless the imagined society depends conceptually on scientific speculation (1984).
• Stories which employ high-tech tropes, but are not at all about scientific speculation (Star Wars). Aliens, spaceships, and death-rays do not, in themselves, qualify unless the story depends on their existence and explores these tropes as scientifically interesting. Such stories place an emphasis on gee-whizzery instead of science, and are often called “space opera,” whether or not they actually take place in space. It is possible, though tricky, to write science fiction without technology beyond the stone age, including death rays, etc. (Niven’s “Not Long Before the End”)
• Stories which use buzzwords like psychic powers, radiation, and genetics—often nicked from true science fiction—to justify its elements without actually addressing the science behind these buzzwords (any superhero comic book involving radiation-induced superpowers). Genetically heritable telepathy is not science fiction just because it sounds more futuristic than oracular visions or “the witch’s sight;” if you don’t describe the mechanism underlying this telepathy, you’re not writing science or, technically, science fiction; you are writing fantasy, sometimes called “science fantasy.”

A less doctrinally pure concept of science fiction includes these and similar departures from science-as-story.

Such definitions, of course, have their weaknesses. For one thing, they’re extremely fuzzy at the edges. What’s the difference between an author who wants to explore societies which, like the Confederacy, embrace anachronistic notions of nobility and employ inefficient modes of technology to enforce that anachronism, and a hack writer who just likes knights and dragons and wizards, so he writes a story about an alien planet where heroes, aided by psi-active advisors, pick up their laser-lances, mount their robo-horses, and ride out to slay genetically and ecologically implausible giant lizards? There is a difference, though it is one of degree.

Another problem is that true scientific validity is almost impossible. Natural laws are deeply intertwined, to a point where, if you break one scientific rule to play the game of “what if,” you almost immediately make a recognizable universe impossible. What if the gravitic constant were variable? Well, probably there wouldn’t be any chunks of matter larger than an atom. Tough to write a decent story about that, except perhaps an apocalyptic discovery of a method for making the gravitic constant vary, and what happens when some idiot genius throws the switch. Even good sci-fi writers make mistakes, sometimes dramatic ones: Jules Verne calculated the force necessary to propel a spaceship to the moon by cannon, but failed to realize the impact would turn the astronauts inside to jelly. Whoops! The life Robert L. Forward imagines on a neutron star in Dragon’s Egg almost certainly can’t exist, but he pretends it can because, without it, he has no story at all. The difference between honest mistakes made while pursuing scientific “what ifs”, mistakes made deliberately because there’s no other way to pursue a particular “what if,” and mistakes made by a writer who simply doesn’t care are significant, although they, too, are a matter of degree.

A third problem is that science fiction can be true and pure without being good, and vice versa. Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine is scientifically plausible but remains a tedious, almost constipated read, while the original Star Trek series has some entertaining episodes despite employing utter crap science.

Neither the vague boundaries of science fiction nor the fact that bad science can be fun, however, mean that anything goes in sci fi. Much of the value of science fiction lies in the exploration of science; that’s the whole point of the genre as distinct from the rest of literature. Sci fi fans like to see some hard science now and again, just for the sheer exercise of it: what if a dinosaur-killer meteor hit earth today? What if we could condition people at birth to be content in a rigid caste system? What if we could travel back in time and alter historical decision points? Even the best writer won’t get the answer exactly right, but he gets points for plausibility—or loses them for implausibility. When a writer too transparently ignores his own premise or simply proves too transparently ignorant of natural law, he commits two sins: he misses the sheer interest of exploring the ramifications of his premise wherever they lead, and he risks breaking the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief. (This morning, Eileene circled around the issues of how a walking corpse, unable to give artificial respiration because it doesn’t breathe, can nonetheless speak despite the fact that speech requires breath, and how that same walking corpse, lacking tissue regeneration, avoids collapsing in a pile of goo within a few days, especially after damaging his body by engaging in fisticuffs.)

This, too, is a matter of degree: different audiences have different thresholds at which willing suspension of disbelief is broken. The more scientifically sophisticated, the more sensitive to inconsistencies and bad science. A ten-year-old might have no trouble with a walking, talking android (played by a human actor); a machinist may wonder why it employs such an inefficient design and how it got such realistic skin; a Nobel-caliber cyberneticist may suffer from knowing that its model of artificial intelligence is mathematically impossible. When Doctor Who jiggers a super-science beam to close a time-space continuity in episode 10, a casual viewer may think that’s fine, but a fan who pays more attention may be forced to wonder why the good Doctor didn’t do that back in episode 5, when it would have been so much easier than sneaking into a Dalek-controlled space station and getting a dozen humans killed in the process. For the fan, such inconsistencies spoil the verisimilitude, and make it obvious that the Doctor can always do just enough to win in the end, no more, no less, whether or not it makes the least bit of sense. When the writers will clearly cheat to reach a happy ending after precisely two harrowing setbacks and a final showdown, dramatic tension evaporates.

Despite being a matter of degree, however, inconsistencies and bad science in science fiction are always cause for complaint, although small transgressions deserve only small complaint. These twin sins hurt any sci fi narrative, by denying the audience proper dramatic tension and by undermining the most appealing aspect of sci fi, the intellectual exploration of internally consistent alternatives to the natural law and technological limitations we understand. Small scientific inconsistencies spoil some of the fun for at least a portion of the audience. Excessive scientific inconsistency renders a story worthless to everyone but small children and the ignorant. Some inconsistencies are minor quibbles; others are significant errors; some are just plain stupid.

No, don’t expect me to sort all the bad science out into those categories; sci fi fanboys are far too quarrelsome to make that effort worthwhile.