Niven
Matt Hickman
>
>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>not hard? :-)
Yes.
Weakness in biology is a major flaw in a lot of science fiction in
general and hard-core SF in particular. The genre tends to be
biased towards physics, astronomy etc and gross violations of
what is known in these sciences is more likely to result in
a rejection slip. Violations regarding what is known
of the biological sciences is often ignored.
By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and
explaining it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores - and Kzin
such stereotypical aggressors explained simply because Kzin are
carnivores (and cats) is comparable to -- in physics--
having the speed of light be 6 trillion miles per second or
saying that time slows down by 1/2 if you are going 1/2 the
speed of light. It can spoil the story by making it more difficult
to suspend disbelief.
To his credit, Niven and the contributors to the Man-Kzin War
series have been adding some depth to the original single-
dimensional concepts of the Puppeteers and Kzin. Sociological
factors have been brought in to explain how primitive Kzin bred
for aggressiveness. Even a "warrior" Puppeteer has been
introduced.
But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents
of the Pak when our biology is so clearly related to other
species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
Matt Hickman bh...@chevron.com TANSTAAFL!
OS/2 Systems Specialist, Chevron Information Technologies Co.
(PeeWee) "Where else could you be?"
(Kip) "A Mental hospital."
She looked big-eyed and the grinned. "Why, Kip surely your grip on
reality is not that weak?"
Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
_Have Space Suit Will Travel_ c. 1958
Raymond Lowe
d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S Goodman) wrote:
>While Niven is usually classed with hard-sf writers, he's extremely weak
>in some areas of science. MOst notably, behavioral biology. Real
>carnivores don't act like the kzinti, real herbivores don't act like the
>puppeteers.
[can't resist]
Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
not hard? :-)
R.
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Tim Miller
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
On 16 Jan 1996 14:35:16 GMT, @ (Matt Hickman) said:
M> In <Xj++wkkC...@HK.Super.Net>, rl...@HK.Super.Net (Raymond Lowe)
M> writes:
>> Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>> "hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your
>> fiction not hard? :-)
M> Yes.
M> [...]
M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
Bzzt. Go back and read some more.
Puppeteers are herd beasts, and in their social structure, there
is an incredible pressure to conform to the group norms; far higher
pressure than humans truly understand. Both Nessus and the
ex-Puppeteer-Grand-Poohbah-from-Ringworld-Engineers say the same thing:
"The majority is always sane."
Louis Wu points out rather blatently that the Puppeteer
instinctive reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a
*fight* response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear
leg for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely
spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
So while one may argue the relative merits of Niven's sociology
in this reard, and the apparant Puppeteer lack of knowledge of
behavioural biology (they misinterpret their own instinctive responses),
any presumed error of Niven's *isn't* there on this one.
However, I'll agree about the Kzin. 8)
M> [...]
M> But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents of the Pak when
M> our biology is so clearly related to other species on this planet and
M> the evolutionary record is so clearly supportive of us evolving on
M> Earth.
He did, in a throwaway line in _Protector_. Brennan-monster
comments that he could make ape-protectors and chimp-protectors if worse
comes to worse.
Now, while that only explains the relations among primates, and
not our biological relationships to other species, one has to remember
that in Known Space, Kzin can eat humans. Humans can eat Kzin food.
Humans can eat Puppeteer food. Humans can eat Bandersnatch, and
vice-versa. I.e., most O2-breathing species in Known Space share a
common biochemistry. One would have to assume that there's a common
space-borne biochemical genesis of all the local species-- and Niven
gives it: remember the Thrint? Their food-worlds were scattered
throughout the galaxy 2 billion years ago. 8)
-- Cerebus <tmi...@ims.advantis.com>
"Even the Pak could be Thrint-food descended."
stev knowles
>By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and
>explaining it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores - and Kzin
>such stereotypical aggressors explained simply because Kzin are
>carnivores (and cats) is comparable to -- in physics--
>having the speed of light be 6 trillion miles per second or
>saying that time slows down by 1/2 if you are going 1/2 the
>speed of light. It can spoil the story by making it more difficult
>to suspend disbelief.
i think you have missed too much in your reading. puppeteers are considered
cowards, even by themselves, but in ringworld, Luis Wu decides that the
tendancy for puppeteers to turn around has more to do with their using their
hind leg as a weapon than in running away. after rereading ringworld, and
halfway thru rereading ringworld engineers (and looking forward to ringworld
throne) i think that there are alot of assumptions that are presetnted in the
books that end up being questioned over time. one thing that seems to be
obvious to me is that the puppeteers are carefully crafting their "image".
it would not really suprise me to find that the average puppeteer is not a
coward, as protrayed, but that the few puppeteers who agree to interact with
aliens are presenting the puppeteers like this, for their own reasons,
possibly to make them a more attractive trading partner to aliens who are
obviously behind them in technology. i would imagine that they coudl sell more
by being everyone's friend, with the customers never having to worry about the
puppeteers turning on them . . . . .
that is one of the things i really like about nivens work, that, like life,
there alot of simple answer for why things are like they are, but usually they
are not totally correct, but often they are correct enough for daily use . . .
i hope that ringworld throne is a huge breakthru, exposing alot of things
we expect to happen, and have even been refered to, as not true.we shall have
to wait and see, but the day i see that book on the shevles, i am going to buy
it and start it right away. i pray that i will not be disappointed;)
stev knowles
precision guesswork, Inc.
Rob Furr
>But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents
>of the Pak when our biology is so clearly related to other
>species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
>so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
And thus we have clearly demonstrated the problem with kit-bashing a Future
History together out of disparate bits. Niven is a master of the One (or Two
or Three) Impossibilities method of SF-writing, in works novel-length or
shorter. _Protector_ has its One Impossibility being "Hey, we're really
Pak!" Which is fine, for one novel. One impossibility is dandy. I believe
more than that before breakfast every day.
Unfortunately, you also throw in, say, _A Gift From Earth_, which has as
*its* Impossibility that "Yup, we got us some psychic powers, we does."
Which is fine, for one novel. But ... when you combine the Impossibility
from _AGFE_ and the impossibilty from _Protector_, you have problems. If
*we* have psychic powers, then whyinthehell don't the Protectors? I mean,
they're smarter than we are - given that psychic powers exist, the
Protectors would be certain to use the bejeezus out of 'em.
And, eventually, you wind up writing stories with eighteen thousand
Impossibilities *required*, because it's in this Future History that didn't
have its postulates ironed out at the start. You get stasis fields PLUS
scrith PLUS the Pak PLUS psychic powers PLUS psychotic carnivores PLUS
cowardly herbivores PLUS ... and so on and so on ... and eventually, you
wind up with _Ringworld Engineers_.
Be warned, kids. Don't try this at home.
Rob F.
Matt Hickman
>In-reply-to: @'s message of 16 Jan 1996 14:35:16 GMT
>X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
>On 16 Jan 1996 14:35:16 GMT, @ (Matt Hickman) said:
>M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
> Bzzt. Go back and read some more.
>instinctive reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a
>*fight* response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear
>leg for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely
>spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
>to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
IMHO the interpretation of the Puppeteers instinctive
reaction to turn away from danger is a bit of revisionism on Niven's part.
Like solving the stability of a ringworld, he added this intepretation
after it was pointed out that herd animals tended not to be as
stereotypically cowardly as he was portraying them. Note
that Puppeteers were introduced in about 1967 or so and the
story where Louis Wu figures this out was written decades later.
>M> But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents of the Pak when
>
> He did, in a throwaway line in _Protector_. Brennan-monster
>comments that he could make ape-protectors and chimp-protectors if worse
>comes to worse.
The Chimpanzee and human lines diverged from each other over 5 million
years before Niven's timeline has the PAK colonizing Earth. As for the
rest of the primates, it would be more like 20 - 30 millions years.
> Now, while that only explains the relations among primates, and
<snip>
> remember the Thrint? Their food-worlds were scattered
>throughout the galaxy 2 billion years ago. 8)
Then we should be related to the the rest of the mammals on
Earth about as closely as we are related to bacteria or fungi.
The only way I can see to resolve the paradox presented by having
homo sapiens being descendents of Pak would be for proto-humans or
apes from Earth to have been taken some millions of years ago to
the Pak home planet. There they would evolve into Pak (either
naturally or via intervention) then return to Earth as colonists per
_Protector_. James Hogan did something similar to this with in _Inherit the
Stars_ IIRC.
Matt Hickman bh...@chevron.com TANSTAAFL!
OS/2 Systems Specialist, Chevron Information Technologies Co.
He felt her finger tips in his. Then her weight was cradled
against his hand as he swung her by the waist. He was dancing
lightly, beautifully, ecstatically. He was outdoing himself
-- he could feel it.
Fortunately, she landed on top.
- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
_Beyond this Horizon_ (c. 1942)
Sapient Pearwood
>M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
>M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
> Louis Wu points out rather blatently that the Puppeteer
>instinctive reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a
>*fight* response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear
>leg for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely
>spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
>to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
Are you sure about this? I alway though is was Capt. Jason in 'The
Soft Weapon' that postulated the *fight* response after Nessus kicked
Chuft-Captain. I could be barking up the wrong stage-tree though....
Walker on Earth
rl...@HK.Super.Net (Raymond Lowe) writes:
>In article <4deajr$3...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>,
>d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S Goodman) wrote:
>
>>While Niven is usually classed with hard-sf writers, he's extremely weak
>>in some areas of science. MOst notably, behavioral biology. Real
>>carnivores don't act like the kzinti, real herbivores don't act like the
>>puppeteers.
>
>[can't resist]
>
>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>not hard? :-)
would have some bearing on the degree of hardness perceived :-) I think
I would classify Niven as writing 'neat' SF as opposed to hard, as he
really doesn't think a lot of his assumptions through. The oft-discussed
stasis field, for example, simply cannot work the way it is described, his
flashlight-lasers and one-g mining singleships have severe problems with
the implementation, etc. But the tech discussed and, in a marginal way,
how it impacts on the story is 'way cool :-) Does anybody have authors
that fit into the same category? Personally, after reading "Snowcrash",
I was tempted to renew my subscription to 'Thrasher.' And Rudy Rucker's
robots with their EPR mind-gas . . . gimme some of that!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"He deserves death."
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. And many die that deserve life. Is it in
your power to give it to them? Then do not be so quick to deal out death in
judgement, for even the very wise may not see all ends."
Doug52246
>
>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>not hard? :-)
What constitutes a "hard science"? Math? At one point physics (then
called "Natural Philosophy") was a soft science by the definition I
*believe* you're using. Is biology, including behavioral biology, in the
habit of using the scientific method? Are its results testable,
reproduceable, and falsifiable? Yes.
Just because a science is in it's infancy, doesn't make it a non-science.
If we were to take the physics/mathematics/engineering mafia attitude
about biology back to the sixteenth century, we never would have advanced
any of those sciences either.
A (former) *physical* anthropology major who's tired of getting dumped on
by a bunch of HP calculator toting elitists.
Doug...@aol.com
No time/space wasting sig....
Now isn't that a thrill
Paula Sanch
>>instinctive reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a
>>*fight* response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear
>>leg for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely
>>spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
>>to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
>
>Are you sure about this? I alway though is was Capt. Jason in 'The
>Soft Weapon' that postulated the *fight* response after Nessus kicked
>Chuft-Captain. I could be barking up the wrong stage-tree though....
>
Tim Miller
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
On Wed, 17 Jan 1996 04:44:22 GMT, jp...@ix.netcom.com (S. Michael Breen) said:
S> Um, excuse me, but where do you get decades from 1967-1970? Louis
S> noticed the Puppeteer reaction in "Ringword," which was written in
S> 1970.
It's also mentioned in ... Ummm ... what's that damn story name
... sheesh, where's my dang copy of _All the Myriad Ways_ ... err ... the
one with Nessus and the tnuctipun artifact and the covert Kzin warship
... you know, the one that was translated into the Star Trek cartoon
... Oh yeah! "The Soft Weapon." Anyone know the publication date on that
one?
-- Cerebus <tmi...@ims.advantis.com>
"It's around here somewhere..."
Kevin B. O'Brien
(Doug52246), wrote:
>A (former) *physical* anthropology major who's tired of getting dumped on
>by a bunch of HP calculator toting elitists.
Remember, people go into physics because they are afraid of tackling
*really* hard problems.<g>
Kevin B. O'Brien
ko...@ix.netcom.com
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest." Mark Twain
Graham McIntosh
Didn't Brennan postulate atomic piles going critical (with no
protectors to maintain them), and the breeders mutating into the
various primate forms. I would say that the link pin is that the fossil
record has to be assumed to be sketchy, and evolutionary trees as
understood by Man assumes a link between the early fossil record and
recent primate evolution, and so a link is drawn.
Graham
Tim Miller
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
On 17 Jan 1996 15:02:32 -0500, tmi...@carfax.ims.advantis.com (Tim Miller) said:
Me> It's also mentioned in ... Ummm ... what's that damn story name
Me> ... sheesh, where's my dang copy of _All the Myriad Ways_ ... err
Shoot. Make that _Neutron Star_. 8(
-- Cerebus <tmi...@ims.advantis.com>
"It's amazing what 9 hours sleep over 2 days can do your memory."
Tim Miller
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
On 16 Jan 1996 21:25:34 GMT, bh...@chevron.com (Matt Hickman) said:
M> The only way I can see to resolve the paradox presented by having homo
M> sapiens being descendents of Pak would be for proto-humans or apes
M> from Earth to have been taken some millions of years ago to the Pak
M> home planet. There they would evolve into Pak (either naturally or
M> via intervention) then return to Earth as colonists per _Protector_.
M> James Hogan did something similar to this with in _Inherit the Stars_
M> IIRC.
Nah, it's easier than that: We're all tnuctip gengineered
speciae! 8)
-- Cerebus <tmi...@ims.advantis.com>
"Haven't you read 'Down in Flames'?"
S. Michael Breen
>IMHO the interpretation of the Puppeteers instinctive
>reaction to turn away from danger is a bit of revisionism on Niven's part.
>Like solving the stability of a ringworld, he added this intepretation
>after it was pointed out that herd animals tended not to be as
>stereotypically cowardly as he was portraying them. Note
>that Puppeteers were introduced in about 1967 or so and the
>story where Louis Wu figures this out was written decades later.
<delurk>
<blink. Looks at copyright and printing status on his copy of
"Ringworld...">
Um, excuse me, but where do you get decades from 1967-1970? Louis
noticed the Puppeteer reaction in "Ringword," which was written in
1970.
<relurk>
--Malaclypse
Dana Crom
Tim Miller <tmi...@carfax.ims.advantis.com> wrote:
>In-reply-to: barny.s...@dial.pipex.com's message of Tue, 16 Jan 1996 22:02:06 GMT
>X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
>
>On Tue, 16 Jan 1996 22:02:06 GMT, barny.s...@dial.pipex.com (Sapient Pearwood) said:
>
>S> Thus Tim Miller spake unto us:
>M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
>M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
>
> >> reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a *fight*
> >> response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear leg
> >> for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely spread
> >> head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper to
> >> be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
>
>S> Soft Weapon' that postulated the *fight* response after Nessus kicked
>S> Chuft-Captain. I could be barking up the wrong stage-tree though....
>
> No, he points it out there as well.
>
> Louis notices the reaction during the scuffle with the natives
>wielding shadow-square wire. Nessus kicks the heart out of some native's
>chest before running like hell and getting his head cut off. Louis
>points it out to Nessus later and is given the response of "The majority
>is always sane."
And in the first chapter of _Ringworld_, Nessus refers to the incident in
_The Soft Weapon_. Remember the scene when they go to collect Speaker-To-
Animals?
"It was I who . . . kicked a Kzin named Chuft-Captain . . ."
(From memory - but accurate enough, I think)
Whether he'd written _TSW_ at that time, I don't recall - he may have
filled in the details later (books at home, me at work). But he had
*already* established that Puppeteers, in some cirmcumstances, were
capable of fighting back.
Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
Cape Buffalo, Rhinoceros, and similar critters. I seem to recall that
many of the Great White Hunter types rated the "cowardly, herbivorous"
Cape Buffalo the most dangerous animal in Africa. Though anyone who
has ever handled cattle would have a pretty good clue; I once read
that, in the number of fatalities per year, the most dangerous animal
on the North American continent is . . . the domestic dairy cow. Someone
alert Steven King! ;-)
--
-----------------------+------------------------+------------------------------
Dana Crom DoD #0679 | Silicon Graphics, Inc. | Smile - let them *WONDER*
da...@morc.mfg.sgi.com | (415) 390-1449 | what you've been up to . . .
John Tomlin
Tim Miller <tmi...@carfax.ims.advantis.com> wrote:
[snip]
>M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
>M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
>
>
>is an incredible pressure to conform to the group norms; far higher
>pressure than humans truly understand. Both Nessus and the
>spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
>to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
There is also a rather throw-away comment by Nessus(?) that while the
Puppeteers cannot speak for other species, they _know_ that there is no
life after death for them. Hence their concern with prolonging this one.
***********************************************************************
John Tomlin (tom...@almaden.ibm.com)
If I could speak for my employers, I'd be a lot richer.
I can't imagine why they would want to speak for me.
(temporarily) http://or.stanford.edu/~parallel/tomlin.html
***********************************************************************
Erik Max Francis
> Unfortunately, you also throw in, say, _A Gift From Earth_, which has as
> *its* Impossibility that "Yup, we got us some psychic powers, we does."
> Which is fine, for one novel. But ... when you combine the Impossibility
> from _AGFE_ and the impossibilty from _Protector_, you have problems. If
> *we* have psychic powers, then whyinthehell don't the Protectors? I mean,
> they're smarter than we are - given that psychic powers exist, the
> Protectors would be certain to use the bejeezus out of 'em.
I've never heard this argument for the invalidity of Known Space -- but one
thing to keep in mind is that humans are _not_ Pak breeders; they evolved from
them (obviously, according to Known Space chronology). Pak breeders are _Homo
habilis_; modern humans are _Homo sapiens sapiens_. One could handwave that
the psychic gift appeared after _Homo habilis_.
--
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE && uuwest!alcyone!max, m...@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
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_Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt._ && GIGO Omega Psi && http://www.spies.com/max/
"Out from his breast/his soul went to seek/the doom of the just." -- _Beowulf_
Kevin B. O'Brien
(Raymond Lowe), wrote:
>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>not hard? :-)
Could someone explain to me how the easiest sciences got called the
"hard" sciences?
Curious in Ann Arbor,
Robert J. Sawyer
and explaining it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores ..."
Actually, that's NOT the explanation given in RINGWORLD. Rather, Niven
proposes that the instinctive Puppeteer reaction to a frightening
situation is to turn around -- in order to free up the hind leg for
kicking; indeed, in RINGWORLD, Nessus kicks a person's heart out
through his spine by adopting this instintive posture. The Puppeteer
"cowardice" evolved psychologically in civilized times, with the
Puppeteers no longer facing physical threats on a routine basis, but
still adopting the turn-and-apparently-position-oneself-to-flee
approach just as a dog today will walk in a circle, trampling down
non-existant grass, before lying down on a kitchen floor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
R O B E R T J . S A W Y E R
author of THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT (HarperPrism, May 1995;
serialized in ANALOG as HOBSON'S CHOICE)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Furr
Paula Sanch <Paula...@emich.edu> wrote:
>
>>And, eventually, you wind up writing stories with eighteen thousand
>>Impossibilities *required*, because it's in this Future History that
>>scrith PLUS the Pak PLUS psychic powers PLUS psychotic carnivores PLUS
>>cowardly herbivores PLUS ... and so on and so on ... and eventually, you
>>wind up with _Ringworld Engineers_.
>
>impression I've gotten from his comments in prefaces and suchlike.
>Considering the longterm development, I think he's handled it rather
>well. If you don't like his work, (I presume) nobody's making you buy
>the books. There are lots of other authors' books in the bookstore.
Um.
For one thing ... I like and admire Niven. For another, I'm pretty much
paraphrasing Niven himself: He has stated, although tracking down the quote
might be difficult, that after a while, Known Space became clogged with
impossibilities and too many superstrong materials, etc., etc., etc., which
is why for a while there he was writing stuff like _The Integral Trees_,
the _Draco Tavern_ stories, and _The Legacy of Heorot_, and not more Known
Space stuff.
Whether or not he did a good job of pulling various bits together is
irrelevant: the point remains that after a while, your universe is *going*
to get clogged with too much stuff, unless you're very careful. Happened to
Niven, happened to DC Comics, happened to Asimov.
(Also, "Happening like Topsy" is an idiom with which I am unfamiliar. Could
you provide a translation?)
Rob F.
Paula Sanch
> ...
>Unfortunately, you also throw in, say, _A Gift From Earth_, which has as
>*its* Impossibility that "Yup, we got us some psychic powers, we does."
>Which is fine, for one novel. But ... when you combine the Impossibility
>from _AGFE_ and the impossibilty from _Protector_, you have problems. If
>*we* have psychic powers, then whyinthehell don't the Protectors? I mean,
>they're smarter than we are - given that psychic powers exist, the
>Protectors would be certain to use the bejeezus out of 'em.
Um, have you ever heard of mutation? We're smarter than the Pak breeders
because our brains have evolved, right? The mechanism of evolution is
mutation.
>And, eventually, you wind up writing stories with eighteen thousand
>Impossibilities *required*, because it's in this Future History that didn't
Erik Max Francis
> Are you sure about this? I alway though is was Capt. Jason in 'The
> Soft Weapon' that postulated the *fight* response after Nessus kicked
> Chuft-Captain. I could be barking up the wrong stage-tree though....
No. Jason Papandreou was essentially just commenting on how crazy it must have
been for a puppeteer to charge an armed Kzin.
It was Louis Wu in _The Ringworld engineers_ that actually postulated the dual
flight-fight reflex, when he saw Nessus use this trick against some Ringworld
natives.
Erik Max Francis
> And in the first chapter of _Ringworld_, Nessus refers to the incident in
> _The Soft Weapon_. Remember the scene when they go to collect Speaker-To-
> Animals?
>
> "It was I who . . . kicked a Kzin named Chuft-Captain . . ."
>
> (From memory - but accurate enough, I think)
>
> Whether he'd written _TSW_ at that time, I don't recall - he may have
> filled in the details later (books at home, me at work). But he had
> *already* established that Puppeteers, in some cirmcumstances, were
> capable of fighting back.
He had. "The soft weapon" was written in (checking the copyright page of
_Neutron star_) 1967. (_Neutron star_ itself is copyrighted 1968.) _Ringworld_
(I said _The Ringworld engineers_ in the last message -- duh, not what I meant)
was 1970. (And _The Ringworld engineers_ was 1980.)
Stephen Holland
-> Um, have you ever heard of mutation? We're smarter than the Pak
-> breeders because our brains have evolved, right? The mechanism of
-> evolution is mutation.
Intelligence would probably have evolved in breeders because they
needed it to survive after the protecters died off. Mutation might
play a role, but probably a minor one compared to simple survival
pressures. Breeders who didn't develop enough inteligence
to survive died off while those who did survived.
-> I think that Known Space happened like Topsy, or at least that's the
-> impression I've gotten from his comments in prefaces and suchlike.
-> Considering the longterm development, I think he's handled it rather
-> well. If you don't like his work, (I presume) nobody's making you buy
-> the books. There are lots of other authors' books in the bookstore.
Niven did a remarkable job of holding the Known Space timelines and
history together. It just became too big to keep consistant. Besides,
while internal consistancy is important it is not the main reason
for writing a story. There are sereral minor details in Kingsbury's
Man--Kzin Wars stories that don't mesh with what Niven has said, but
they don't make the stories any less interesting.
--
============================================================================
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UseNet(noun): A network that allows small points to become global conflicts.
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Tim Miller
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0
On Tue, 16 Jan 1996 22:02:06 GMT, barny.s...@dial.pipex.com (Sapient Pearwood) said:
S> Thus Tim Miller spake unto us:
M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
>> Louis Wu points out rather blatently that the Puppeteer instinctive
>> reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a *fight*
>> response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear leg
>> for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely spread
>> head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper to
>> be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
S> Are you sure about this? I alway though is was Capt. Jason in 'The
S> Soft Weapon' that postulated the *fight* response after Nessus kicked
S> Chuft-Captain. I could be barking up the wrong stage-tree though....
No, he points it out there as well.
Louis notices the reaction during the scuffle with the natives
wielding shadow-square wire. Nessus kicks the heart out of some native's
chest before running like hell and getting his head cut off. Louis
points it out to Nessus later and is given the response of "The majority
is always sane."
-- Cerebus <tmi...@ims.advantis.com>
"And later he points it out to Herdmaster in _Ringworld Engineers_."
Matt Hickman
>bh...@chevron.com (Matt Hickman) wrote:
<snip>
>>that Puppeteers were introduced in about 1967 or so and the
>>story where Louis Wu figures this out was written decades later.
><blink. Looks at copyright and printing status on his copy of
>"Ringworld...">
>
>Um, excuse me, but where do you get decades from 1967-1970? Louis
>noticed the Puppeteer reaction in "Ringword," which was written in
>1970.
Wrong again (sigh). I was thinking that particular episode
was in a a later story. My apologies.
Matt Hickman bh...@chevron.com TANSTAAFL!
OS/2 Systems Specialist, Chevron Information Technologies Co.
Mistakes are the only certain way to learn.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
_Glory Road_ 1963
Bernard Peek
ko...@ix.netcom.com "Kevin B. O'Brien" writes:
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> howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netnews
> From: ko...@ix.netcom.com (Kevin B. O'Brien)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
> Subject: Re: Niven
> Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 07:43:56 GMT
> Organization: Papoon for President
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> References: <177109640S...@mizzou1.missouri.edu>
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> NNTP-Posting-Host: ana-mi1-04.ix.netcom.com
> X-NETCOM-Date: Tue Jan 16 11:43:01 PM PST 1996
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>
> Our correspondent in Tierra del Fuego reports that doug...@aol.com
> (Doug52246), wrote:
>
> >A (former) *physical* anthropology major who's tired of getting dumped on
> >by a bunch of HP calculator toting elitists.
>
> Remember, people go into physics because they are afraid of tackling
> *really* hard problems.<g>
Recommended reading for any SF fan that thinks physics problems are
hard is _Sophie's World_ by Jostein Gaarder.
I'm just reading the last few chapters so I can't give a definitive
opinion, but so far I'd rate it highly. I'm not sure I'd nominate it
for the Hugo, but if I did I think it's eligible for the Best Novel
and Best Non-Fiction awards.
--
Bernard Peek
I.T and Management Development Trainer to the Cognoscenti
b...@intersec.demon.co.uk
Andy Williams
>In article <4dj1va$k...@orphan.emich.edu>, Paula Sanch <Paula...@emich.edu> writes:
>
>-> Um, have you ever heard of mutation? We're smarter than the Pak
>-> breeders because our brains have evolved, right? The mechanism of
>-> evolution is mutation.
>
>Intelligence would probably have evolved in breeders because they
As the above poster noted, mutation is the mechanism of evolution.
>needed it to survive after the protecters died off. Mutation might
>play a role, but probably a minor one compared to simple survival
>pressures. Breeders who didn't develop enough inteligence
>to survive died off while those who did survived.
Yes but how did they manage to "develop" this intelligence?
Unless you are proposing a major revision to the theory of evolution,
mutation is, once again, the mechanism by which this takes place.
Andy Williams <Team OS/2>
andy...@esslink.com http://www.esslink.com/~andywlms/
Woodhams
>>[can't resist]
>>
>>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>>not hard? :-)
>What constitutes a "hard science"? Math? At one point physics (then
>called "Natural Philosophy") was a soft science by the definition I
>*believe* you're using.
I would define hard sciences to be those in which mathematical
formulae can be used to predict results to a very high degree of
precision. They generally study systems with relatively few parameters
that are easily controlled in experiments. As another poster said, the
"hard" sciences are the easy ones.
> Is biology, including behavioral biology, in the
>habit of using the scientific method? Are its results testable,
>reproduceable, and falsifiable? Yes.
I agree it is science. Some (most?) behavioral biology is not "hard"
science because behavior of organisms is determined by too many
factors to be able to isolate and control each individually. The
predictions are less precise - I can predict how long it will take an
object to fall much better than I can predict which tree a bird will
chose to nest it.
>Just because a science is in it's infancy, doesn't make it a non-science.
>If we were to take the physics/mathematics/engineering mafia attitude
>about biology back to the sixteenth century, we never would have advanced
>any of those sciences either.
I haven't seen this "mafia attitude", but I'm looking from the other
side of the fence. Could you give examples? If hard scientists say
what you are doing is not worth while because you can't give
mathematical results/predictions that work as well as the "hard"
sciences, then you have cause for complaint. If they are saying that
your results are not as precise and should be interpreted with great
care, they are merely stating facts, and not inhibiting the
advancement of your science.
>A (former) *physical* anthropology major who's tired of getting dumped on
>by a bunch of HP calculator toting elitists.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What a nice description! I'm flattered.
>Doug...@aol.com
>No time/space wasting sig....
^^^^^^^^^^
"Space-time" is the normal term, as any REAL scientist would know! :-)
> Now isn't that a thrill
Michael W the also .sigless
Stephen Holland
-> I've never heard this argument for the invalidity of Known Space --
-> but one thing to keep in mind is that humans are _not_ Pak breeders;
-> they evolved from them (obviously, according to Known Space
-> chronology). Pak breeders are _Homo habilis_; modern humans are
-> _Homo sapiens sapiens_. One could handwave that the psychic gift
-> appeared after _Homo habilis_.
There are two ways to get around this problem that I can think of
off the top of my head.
1) My pet theory lately has been that telepathy is NOT a result
of intelligence but a is anti-corrolated with intelligence. In other
words, the smarter a species is, the less likely it is to harbour
telepathy. This idea came to mind when I noticed that the people
who claim to be psychic in supermarket tabloids tend to come
across as idiots. :-)
2) A more serious proposal. In one of the Man--Kzin War stories
Dean Ing proposed that Neanderthals were telepathic while
homo sapiens were not. This can be explained if Neanderthals evolved
naturally on Earth while homo sapiens evolved from breeders. The
small degree of telepathy seen in Known Space humans would then be
due to genes picked up when our ancestors cross-bred with
Neanderthals.
Graydon
: Didn't Brennan postulate atomic piles going critical (with no
: various primate forms. I would say that the link pin is that the fossil
: record has to be assumed to be sketchy, and evolutionary trees as
: understood by Man assumes a link between the early fossil record and
: recent primate evolution, and so a link is drawn.
Firstly, if you're just going to stick a comment at the front, delete the
post to which you are replying.
Secondly, humans share a whole lot of DNA with other primates; if you
want to postulate that we're an alien species, you then have to explain
why we're related to lemurs, whom we _know_ have been busily evolving on
Madagascar for a Long Time(tm).
The only possible explanation is that someone made Pak out of
proto-humans, Gods know why. I suspect that there is a good story in
there somewhere.
--
saun...@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.
Erik Max Francis
> There are two ways to get around this problem that I can think of
> off the top of my head.
>
> 1) My pet theory lately has been that telepathy is NOT a result
> of intelligence but a is anti-corrolated with intelligence. In other
> words, the smarter a species is, the less likely it is to harbour
> telepathy. This idea came to mind when I noticed that the people
> who claim to be psychic in supermarket tabloids tend to come
> across as idiots. :-)
But at what level of intelligence does telepathy pop up, and at what level
does it fade away? My cats, for instance, aren't terribly bright, and they
certainly aren't psychic. (Unless your version of psychic powers includes
following me into the kitchen, even when I'm going to feed them.)
Besides, this would tend to indicate that Pak breeders would be more strongly
psychic than humans (they're _Homo habilis_, which is rather dumber, after
all), which was exactly why the question was raised regarding why Pak
protectors _aren't_ psychic.
> 2) A more serious proposal. In one of the Man--Kzin War stories
> Dean Ing proposed that Neanderthals were telepathic while
> homo sapiens were not. This can be explained if Neanderthals evolved
> naturally on Earth while homo sapiens evolved from breeders. The
> small degree of telepathy seen in Known Space humans would then be
> due to genes picked up when our ancestors cross-bred with
> Neanderthals.
That's interesting, but still there's too strong a genetic link between humans
and all the other primates on Earth (indeed _all_ other life on Earth) to have
_Homo neanderthalis_ by local and _Homo habilis_ be transplanted.
--
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE. && m...@alcyone.darkside.com || m...@alcyone.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- && 1love && folasade
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. && GIGO Omega Psi && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
Nancy Lebovitz
Graydon <saun...@qlink.queensu.ca> wrote:
>Graham McIntosh (tos...@dircon.co.uk) wrote:
>: Didn't Brennan postulate atomic piles going critical (with no
>: protectors to maintain them), and the breeders mutating into the
>: various primate forms. I would say that the link pin is that the fossil
>: record has to be assumed to be sketchy, and evolutionary trees as
>: understood by Man assumes a link between the early fossil record and
>: recent primate evolution, and so a link is drawn.
>
>Firstly, if you're just going to stick a comment at the front, delete the
>post to which you are replying.
>
>Secondly, humans share a whole lot of DNA with other primates; if you
>want to postulate that we're an alien species, you then have to explain
>why we're related to lemurs, whom we _know_ have been busily evolving on
>Madagascar for a Long Time(tm).
>
by the colonizers only choosing planets which are a *really* good match
for themselves. Sturgeon was a master of hand-waving.....
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
12/95 updated calligraphic button catalogue available by email
Fishman Michael
>But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents
>of the Pak when our biology is so clearly related to other
>species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
>so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
Since the Pak of Pakhome are clearly gene-engeneered species,
why can't the genetic source be Earth primates?
Actually, compared to others, Niven has an exemplary record
of not mucking up biology. Remember this Analog series, what
were based on ``an enzyme that breaks CO2 -- releasing oxigen''.
Todd O. Howard
>Rob Furr wrote:
>> Unfortunately, you also throw in, say, _A Gift From Earth_, which has as
>> *its* Impossibility that "Yup, we got us some psychic powers, we does."
>> Which is fine, for one novel. But ... when you combine the Impossibility
>> from _AGFE_ and the impossibilty from _Protector_, you have problems. If
>> *we* have psychic powers, then whyinthehell don't the Protectors? I mean,
>> they're smarter than we are - given that psychic powers exist, the
>> Protectors would be certain to use the bejeezus out of 'em.
>I've never heard this argument for the invalidity of Known Space -- but one
>thing to keep in mind is that humans are _not_ Pak breeders; they evolved from
>them (obviously, according to Known Space chronology). Pak breeders are _Homo
>habilis_; modern humans are _Homo sapiens sapiens_. One could handwave that
>the psychic gift appeared after _Homo habilis_.
It seems to me that this argument doesn't really hold water, since the Pak
routinely exterminated mutations on their homeworld (the core). If a
breeder smelt bad, whack. No more breeder. When the Pak moved out to
earth, they eventually died off, and mutations no longer got "cut off at
the root", which gives us plenty of time (well, maybe not "plenty", but
some anyway) to develope psychic powers on our own.
Todd
Raymond Lowe
doug...@aol.com (Doug52246) wrote:
>>[can't resist]
>>
>>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>>not hard? :-)
>
>What constitutes a "hard science"? Math? At one point physics (then
>A (former) *physical* anthropology major who's tired of getting dumped on
Wow - is this group humour impaired or what? I +DO+ put a smiley at the
end, as in "this is a joke".
Sheesh...
R.
--
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PC consultant for hire! | rl...@hk.super.net Raymond C. Lowe
Help-Desk, Project Management, |
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Erik Max Francis
> From "The Soft Weapon:"
>
> "He wanted to do it again. Nessus had the blood lust."
>
> Whether or not Jason deduced it, it seems likely that *Niven* had.
But Nessus is insane.
I don't see how this relates to puppeteers' instinctive reaction to turn away
from an enemy, freeing up the hind leg for attack.
Walker on Earth
dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu (Darrin Lee Bright) writes:
>>Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
>>comparable to having a character state 'eff equals em ay squared'.
>I think the real problem here is anal retentive fans. If science has
>taught us anything, it has taught us that we know nothing for an
>absolute fact, and human beings make mistakes.
>If you read Known Space and loved it, great. It is supposed to be
>entertaining. But if you're trying to look too deeply into everything,
>and percieve the World-As-We-Know-It as the World-We-Imagine, then
>methinks you've missed the whole point and are looking outside the
>framework rather than at the pieces as they are presented.
The poster you are responding to is questioning whether or not Niven
writes hard SF, not whether they enjoy his stuff or not. Hey, when
I was a teenager I thought he was great _and_ that he was one of
the top hard SF people around. Now that I've got all that physics
subsumed into my head, well, let me be kind and just say that I
think he's pretty good at what he does :-) I think that what he does
best could be most aptly characterized as 'neat' or 'cool' SF.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"He deserves death."
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. And many die that deserve life. Is it in
your power to give it to them? Then do not be so quick to deal out death in
judgement, for even the very wise may not see all ends."
Rob Furr
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>Sapient Pearwood wrote:
>
>> Are you sure about this? I alway though is was Capt. Jason in 'The
>
> have been for a puppeteer to charge an armed Kzin.
From "The Soft Weapon:"
"He wanted to do it again. Nessus had the blood lust."
Whether or not Jason deduced it, it seems likely that *Niven* had.
Rob F.
Kevin B. O'Brien
>There is also a rather throw-away comment by Nessus(?) that while the
>Puppeteers cannot speak for other species, they _know_ that there is no
>life after death for them. Hence their concern with prolonging this one.
So much for whether you can prove a negative.<g>
Darrin Lee Bright
Tom Lane <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon) writes:
>Fortunately for Niven, a likely candidate for a seeding agent already
>exists in the Known Space universe. Yup: the Slaver/tnuctip empire.
>Let's postulate that they seeded bacterial-level life on every potentially
>habitable planet in the galaxy. A motivation's not hard to find: long
>term planning for future slaves. Or maybe the tnuctip did it in order
>to ensure life would survive, when they knew they might use their
>doomsday wipe-out-every-sentient-lifeform-in-the-galaxy weapon.
It is a well established theory that the Slaver "algae-food" was most
likely what all of the sentient Known Space races developed from. I
like the Tunuctip idea, the more I think about it, the more it seems
obvious to me that the Tnuctip did *NOT* get wiped out by the Thrintun
doomsday device.
If a race is intelligent enough to OUTWIT a race of TELEPATHS, then I
deem it extremely likely that they knew about the Thrintun doomsday
device, and knew a way to avoid it or counter it. The technology
existed at the time to counter the doomsday device - Kzanol and the
Thrint from the Man-Kzin wars lived through it by getting trapped in a
stasis field. I'm sure the tnuctip knew about this, and used it to
their advantage. It is also hinted that the Tnuctip knew more about
hyperspace than anyone, and may have even found a way to live in
hyperspace, or some analog thereof.
Does anyone remember the story about Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?
Has anyone seen any connections to this in Known Space? Lets assume the
Tnuctip are still around, and they want to breed some sentient races.
Lets say they start with the same building blocks - slaver algae-food -
but set up different breeding programs on different planets. Being
masters of genetic engineering, they can mold and cultivate any race
they want, so they create several different ones. Cat-like Kzinti,
Ape-like Humans, Bird-like Pieren (sp?), Gonzo-like puppeteers...
Anyway, maybe the different races in the galaxy are really just a large
genetic breeding program set up by the Tnuctip to breed a better turnip.
--
"Uh...yeah, I uh... suck blood all the time..." - The Tick
--
* * * Darrin Bright - Duck Ezra - Muse of Tedium * * *
= = ============================================ = =
Leonard Erickson
> Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
> up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
> Cape Buffalo, Rhinoceros, and similar critters. I seem to recall that
> many of the Great White Hunter types rated the "cowardly, herbivorous"
> Cape Buffalo the most dangerous animal in Africa. Though anyone who
> has ever handled cattle would have a pretty good clue; I once read
> that, in the number of fatalities per year, the most dangerous animal
> on the North American continent is . . . the domestic dairy cow. Someone
> alert Steven King! ;-)
Having been in the situation of trying to carry a calf back to the
barn, while *six* other people tried (mostly successfully) to keep mama
from shoving one of her horns into my guts, I don't think we *need* Mr.
King to deal with it.
Besides, you want a *real* nasty herbivore, try elephants. Nothing in
it's right mind attacks a healthy, adult elephant. Especially since the
rest of the herd tends to join in...
Leonard Erickson leo...@qiclab.scn.rain.com
(aka Shadow) sha...@krypton.rain.com (preferred)
FIDO: 1:105/51 Leonard....@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org
Alice Holt
Dana Crom says :
>Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
>up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
>Cape Buffalo, Rhinoceros, and similar critters.
But here you are falling into exactly the same trap you are accusing
Niven of. Just because Niven postulates one herbivorous sentient species
that practices cowardly behaviour does not mean that they all must.
Herbivores display a huge range of behavioural strategies, from
Rhinoceri to Gazelles.
I always though of puppeteers as Gazelle like, they are small, light,
swift and agile. I hardly think you would describe cape buffalo in
these terms, so why would you expect pupeteers to behave like them?
Graydon (saun...@qlink.queensu.ca) says :
>Secondly, humans share a whole lot of DNA with other primates; if you
>want to postulate that we're an alien species, you then have to explain
>why we're related to lemurs, whom we _know_ have been busily evolving on
>Madagascar for a Long Time(tm).
I'm afraid this thread is getting a bit boring. Protector is a work of
fiction. We know that humans are not actualy evolved from an alien
life form transplanted from the galactic core. Niven wondered what it
might be like if we were, and wrote Protector to explore the possibilities.
How can you expect it to stand up to rigorous analysis? That would be like
rubbishing a work of historical fiction by searching through historical
records and newspaper clippings and proving that it never happened.
Simon Hibbs
Robert J. Sawyer
>> "hard" sciences?
The hard/soft distinction isn't between levels of difficulty; rather, it's
between types of data. Physics uses "hard" data -- data experimentally
derived, which other researches can confirm by repeating the experiment.
Psychology, on the other hand (for instance), uses "soft" data. It's
impossible to precisely reproduce a psychological study, because the
original participants are changed by having participated, and other
participants may react differently.
Nancy Lebovitz
>
>It seems to me that this argument doesn't really hold water, since the Pak
>routinely exterminated mutations on their homeworld (the core). If a
>breeder smelt bad, whack. No more breeder. When the Pak moved out to
>earth, they eventually died off, and mutations no longer got "cut off at
>the root", which gives us plenty of time (well, maybe not "plenty", but
>some anyway) to develope psychic powers on our own.
>
mutations affected their smell? I can't believe that all (or even
most) mutations would affect the way one smells.
Loki
: Wow - is this group humour impaired or what? I +DO+ put a smiley at the
: end, as in "this is a joke".
Off-hand, it sounds like the people who felt targeted by that joke have
been subject to a lot of other 'jokes' on the subject and have long
ceased to find it entertaining. :)
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"Victims ... Aren't we all."
Darrin Lee Bright
Graydon <saun...@qlink.queensu.ca> wrote:
>
>Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
>comparable to having a character state 'eff equals em ay squared'.
I think the real problem here is anal retentive fans. If science has
taught us anything, it has taught us that we know nothing for an
absolute fact, and human beings make mistakes.
If you read Known Space and loved it, great. It is supposed to be
entertaining. But if you're trying to look too deeply into everything,
and percieve the World-As-We-Know-It as the World-We-Imagine, then
methinks you've missed the whole point and are looking outside the
framework rather than at the pieces as they are presented.
Known Space doesn't make a lot of sense. There are contradictions,
problems, and mistakes. But hey, its just literature... to be read and
enjoyed, not over-analyzed.
>People are going to complain, just like they will if you write an
>historical novel in which Napoleon Bonaparte is six foot eight, blond,
>and strikingly handsome.
Hollywood does this all the time. Anyone see _The Scarlett Letter_?
>Genres have boundaries; transcending the genre-box is one thing,
>staggering blindly through a wall quite another.
Transcending the genre??? I think you're looking for perfection in an
imperfect world. Have an irish coffee or two and relax.
William A. Emanuelsen
Crom) wrote:
>Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
>up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
>Cape Buffalo, Rhinoceros, and similar critters.
My guess would be that he came up with cowardly herbivores specifically as
a foil to the Kzinti who are ferocious carnivores. Rather than being a
slam against herbivores or being an obviously incorrect extrapolation with
reference to known Earth herbivores, he just used literary license to
create conflict. All in the name of a good story.
--
William A. Emanuelsen
emanu...@courier6mac.aero.org
Graydon
: I'm afraid this thread is getting a bit boring. Protector is a work of
: fiction. We know that humans are not actualy evolved from an alien
: life form transplanted from the galactic core. Niven wondered what it
: might be like if we were, and wrote Protector to explore the possibilities.
: How can you expect it to stand up to rigorous analysis? That would be like
: rubbishing a work of historical fiction by searching through historical
: records and newspaper clippings and proving that it never happened.
Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
comparable to having a character state 'eff equals em ay squared'.
People are going to complain, just like they will if you write an
historical novel in which Napoleon Bonaparte is six foot eight, blond,
and strikingly handsome.
Genres have boundaries; transcending the genre-box is one thing,
staggering blindly through a wall quite another.
--
Edward V. Wright
rl...@HK.Super.Net (Raymond Lowe) writes:
>In article <4deajr$3...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>,
>d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S Goodman) wrote:
>
>>While Niven is usually classed with hard-sf writers, he's extremely weak
>>in some areas of science. MOst notably, behavioral biology. Real
>>carnivores don't act like the kzinti, real herbivores don't act like the
>>puppeteers.
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. I don't think it's so much that Niven is weak
on behavioral biology, but that he tends to use it in a rather stereotyped and
two-dimensional fashion. However, Niven's human characters also tend to be
rather two-dimensional. I like Niven, but I don't think that characterization,
human or alien, is his strong suit.
>[can't resist]
>
>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>not hard? :-)
Biology is a hard science. Check any university catalog. You'll find it listed
as a science department, along with physics, chemistry, geology, etc. The
"soft" sciences -- psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, etc.
-- are listed under "social science." (Well, some universities now list
psychology under "sciences" also, but that's another matter, grumble, grumble.)
--
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
and do not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.
Cecil Rose
>Dana Crom wrote:
>> And in the first chapter of _Ringworld_, Nessus refers to the incident in
>> _The Soft Weapon_. Remember the scene when they go to collect Speaker-To-
>> Animals?
>>
>> "It was I who . . . kicked a Kzin named Chuft-Captain . . ."
>>
>> (From memory - but accurate enough, I think)
>>
>> Whether he'd written _TSW_ at that time, I don't recall - he may have
>> filled in the details later (books at home, me at work). But he had
>> *already* established that Puppeteers, in some cirmcumstances, were
>> capable of fighting back.
>He had. "The soft weapon" was written in (checking the copyright page of
>_Neutron star_) 1967. (_Neutron star_ itself is copyrighted 1968.) _Ringworld_
>(I said _The Ringworld engineers_ in the last message -- duh, not what I meant)
>was 1970. (And _The Ringworld engineers_ was 1980.)
And tonight at LASFS Larry showed us the cover art for "Ringworld
Throne" which will be out in August.
Cecil Rose
ala...@earthlink.net
Carson, California
Sue and Sean
>Secondly, humans share a whole lot of DNA with other primates; if you
>want to postulate that we're an alien species, you then have to explain
>why we're related to lemurs, whom we _know_ have been busily evolving on
>Madagascar for a Long Time(tm).
I thought the lemurs were a Pak subspecies specialized as starship pilots....
--
Susan and Sean (order optional) Gondwana for Gondwanans. The rest
S & S Enterprises of you go back where you came from.
sa...@netcom.com
Dana Crom
Leonard Erickson <sha...@krypton.rain.com> wrote:
>da...@morc.mfg.sgi.com (Dana Crom) writes:
>
>> Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
>> up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
>> many of the Great White Hunter types rated the "cowardly, herbivorous"
>> Cape Buffalo the most dangerous animal in Africa. Though anyone who
>> has ever handled cattle would have a pretty good clue; I once read
>> that, in the number of fatalities per year, the most dangerous animal
>> on the North American continent is . . . the domestic dairy cow. Someone
>> alert Steven King! ;-)
>
>Having been in the situation of trying to carry a calf back to the
>barn, while *six* other people tried (mostly successfully) to keep mama
>from shoving one of her horns into my guts, I don't think we *need* Mr.
>King to deal with it.
Another farm boy! Hey, I *included* a smiley - no farm kid has to be told
that cattle are dangerous if irritated. I have vivid memories of the time
that an *extremely* angry cow chased my grandfather (one of the best stock
handlers I've known) up a fence post. She'd hidden her calf in tall grass
and he'd accidentally walked between them.
>Besides, you want a *real* nasty herbivore, try elephants. Nothing in
>it's right mind attacks a healthy, adult elephant. Especially since the
>rest of the herd tends to join in...
Agreed. But elephants seem to have a *much* longer temper than Cape
Buffalo or rhinos. Once angry, though, they have the advantage of being
far smarter than a rhino and far larger than a Cape Buffalo. And climbing
a tree won't help unless you can climb *real* high *real* fast.
Hmmm. Getting back on a SF course, how many writers have used a nasty
herbivore model for an intelligent race. I can remember Poul Anderson's
Shenna from _Satan's World_. Any others?
--
-----------------------+------------------------+------------------------------
Dana Crom DoD #0679 | Silicon Graphics, Inc. | Smile - let them *WONDER*
da...@morc.mfg.sgi.com | (415) 390-1449 | what you've been up to . . .
Chris Kuan
>>> Could someone explain to me how the easiest sciences got called the
>>> "hard" sciences?
>
>The hard/soft distinction isn't between levels of difficulty; rather, it's
>between types of data. Physics uses "hard" data -- data experimentally
>derived, which other researches can confirm by repeating the experiment.
>Psychology, on the other hand (for instance), uses "soft" data. It's
>impossible to precisely reproduce a psychological study, because the
>original participants are changed by having participated, and other
>participants may react differently.
As in "The Soft [i.e. mutable] Weapon"?
I like that idea.
--
---/\/\----------------------------------------------------
/ / /\ Chris Kuan
/ / / \ Systems Integration Services
/ / / /\ \ BHP Information Technology, Wollongong Region
\ \/ / / / Voice +61 42 75 5657 Fax +61 42 75 5500
\ / / / e-mail kuan.c...@bhp.com.au
--\/\/\/---------------------------------------------------
Loki
: >up with his "cowardly herbivore" idea and pointed out the behavior of
: But here you are falling into exactly the same trap you are accusing
: Niven of. Just because Niven postulates one herbivorous sentient species
: that practices cowardly behaviour does not mean that they all must.
: Herbivores display a huge range of behavioural strategies, from
: Rhinoceri to Gazelles.
Not necessarily. It's been too long since I've read Niven to know, but
if his -explanation- for the cowardice was the herbivorism, that would
put Niven at fault. Since they display a huge range of behaviour, it
would -not- be a valid explanation. If he didn't make that connection,
then it's perfectly fine for a herbivorous creature to also be cowardly.
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: attack ships on fire off
the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the
Tanhauser gate. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in
the rain. Time to die."
Rob Furr
>It seems to me that this argument doesn't really hold water, since the Pak
>routinely exterminated mutations on their homeworld (the core). If a
>breeder smelt bad, whack. No more breeder. When the Pak moved out to
>earth, they eventually died off, and mutations no longer got "cut off at
>the root", which gives us plenty of time (well, maybe not "plenty", but
>some anyway) to develope psychic powers on our own.
Jeez.
For one thing, it wasn't the primary thrust of the argument. It was an
example - possibly a bad one, but, gosh darn it, I still think that it's a
valid point that Niven should have addressed explicitly in _Ringworld
Engineers_.
For another, the original point IS valid: Known Space got laden down with
too many Basic Postulates after a while. Scrith, Slavers, Stasis Fields,
Psychic Powers, Protectors, Exploding Galaxies, and so on and so on. Niven
ADMITS this. When you have to sit down and think about how a stasis field,
Puppeteer hull, psychic power, yadda-yadda, won't get the hero out of the
situation you put him in before you can do anything else... well, you start
thinking that you should find a new universe to write in. Which Niven did.
(If you'll note, the people writing Man-Kzin wars are gleefully ignoring the
later, postulate-laden time periods of Known Space, for the most part.)
Rob F.
Loki
: >Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
*******
: I think the real problem here is anal retentive fans. If science has
: taught us anything, it has taught us that we know nothing for an
: absolute fact, and human beings make mistakes.
It seems to me that either you missed Graydon's point, or you just don't
like hard SF.
: If you read Known Space and loved it, great. It is supposed to be
: entertaining. But if you're trying to look too deeply into everything,
: and percieve the World-As-We-Know-It as the World-We-Imagine, then
: methinks you've missed the whole point and are looking outside the
: framework rather than at the pieces as they are presented.
That's one of the major points of hard SF. If Niven were just writing
SF, we could ignore those mistakes and everyone who likes their SF to be
hard could just ignore Niven. However, hard SF -is- supposed to stand up
to analyzation, not be, as you said:
: Known Space doesn't make a lot of sense. There are contradictions,
: problems, and mistakes. But hey, its just literature... to be read and
: enjoyed, not over-analyzed.
Again, we encounter the viewpoint of a non hard-SF fan.
Honestly, I don't care much if Niven made those mistakes, because I don't
read hard SF to the exclusion of other SF. However, those kinds of
things certainly make me think of Niven as an SF writer so that I won't
be tempted to treat him as hard SF.
: >People are going to complain, just like they will if you write an
: >historical novel in which Napoleon Bonaparte is six foot eight, blond,
: >and strikingly handsome.
: Hollywood does this all the time. Anyone see _The Scarlett Letter_?
Holywood is a perfect example of doing things the bad way, yes. Are you
suggesting we judge literature by Hollywood standards? That almost makes
Piers Anthony look appealing. Hollywood often trades historical
standards for entertainment value just as Niven trades away his
hard-SF-ness here, although it's uncertain what he was getting in
return.
: >Genres have boundaries; transcending the genre-box is one thing,
: >staggering blindly through a wall quite another.
: Transcending the genre??? I think you're looking for perfection in an
: imperfect world. Have an irish coffee or two and relax.
If Niven wanted to write a hard SF story, he did it badly. I don't have
any problems just picking up the series and dropping it in SF, which is
where I would have placed Niven anyway. Some people argue that Niven is
hard SF, but he doesn't seem to have the rigor for it.
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
Graydon
: The poster you are responding to is questioning whether or not Niven
: writes hard SF, not whether they enjoy his stuff or not. Hey, when
: I was a teenager I thought he was great _and_ that he was one of
: the top hard SF people around. Now that I've got all that physics
: subsumed into my head, well, let me be kind and just say that I
: think he's pretty good at what he does :-) I think that what he does
: best could be most aptly characterized as 'neat' or 'cool' SF.
A-yup. Niven does 'nifty' very, very well at the top of his form.
Taking him _seriously_ is a major mistake, and I wish he would top taking
the contents of his stories seriously and go back to taking the
construction of same seriously.
Graydon
: In article <1996Jan18.1...@wisipc.weizmann.ac.il>,
: Fishman Michael <mic...@wiscon.weizmann.ac.il> wrote:
: >Since the Pak of Pakhome are clearly gene-engeneered species,
: ^^^^^^^
: >why can't the genetic source be Earth primates?
: Please explain why this is so obvious to you. Is there, then, no way at
: all for Pak to evolve through natural processes?
Protectors are creatures with narrow purposes, and evolution is not
concerned with purposes.
In particular, it's really hard to postulate a mechanism for the
near-immortality or the sheer bloody-mindedness of protectors to evolve;
the breeders are *much* better off in the care of protectors able to
co-operate better - lone geniuses don't do well against large groups of
the merely competent. The various kin-group off-switches are also rather
odd - your sibling's descendents have a lot of your genes (two
neices/nephews = one kid of your own), but the protectors only care about
their lineal descendents. A protector variety who could care about their
sib's descendents would prosper over the strictly linear kind, but where
are they?
Leonard Erickson
> In article <7DiXHD...@krypton.rain.com>,
> Leonard Erickson <sha...@krypton.rain.com> wrote:
> >Having been in the situation of trying to carry a calf back to the
> >barn, while *six* other people tried (mostly successfully) to keep mama
> >from shoving one of her horns into my guts, I don't think we *need* Mr.
> >King to deal with it.
>
> Another farm boy! Hey, I *included* a smiley - no farm kid has to be told
> that cattle are dangerous if irritated. I have vivid memories of the time
> that an *extremely* angry cow chased my grandfather (one of the best stock
> handlers I've known) up a fence post. She'd hidden her calf in tall grass
> and he'd accidentally walked between them.
>
> >Besides, you want a *real* nasty herbivore, try elephants. Nothing in
> >it's right mind attacks a healthy, adult elephant. Especially since the
> >rest of the herd tends to join in...
>
> Agreed. But elephants seem to have a *much* longer temper than Cape
> Buffalo or rhinos. Once angry, though, they have the advantage of being
> far smarter than a rhino and far larger than a Cape Buffalo. And climbing
> a tree won't help unless you can climb *real* high *real* fast.
>
> Hmmm. Getting back on a SF course, how many writers have used a nasty
> herbivore model for an intelligent race. I can remember Poul Anderson's
> Shenna from _Satan's World_. Any others?
In the universe of the Traveller SFRPG, there are several alien races.
The Aslan are "lion-like" carnivores, and mostly interested in getting
territory. The males tend to do the fighting and don't always think
things thru. The females do the planning and handle "business".
The K'kree are herbivorous herd animals (rather centaur-like). They
evovled in the presence of an intelligent carnivore. They finally wiped
out the carnivore *after* both sides had gotten up to late
medieval/early industrial tech levels.
The K'kree are *militant* herbivores. They've wiped out several
planetbound races they've contacted, because the races ate meat. They
only tolerate humans because they can't win a war with us.
One ad for Traveller had a short description of the Aslan, the Vargr
(evovled from canine stock) and the K'kree and then said something like
"Obviously the Aslan is more dangerous, right?" Then it went on and
explained why you were wrong (Including a lovely line along the lines
of "Forget about trying to hide the fact that you are a meat-eater,
they can *smell* it on you...")
They're pretty well developed, and are just the sort of thing to give a
first contact team nightmares. :-)
Mike Van Pelt
Dana Crom <da...@morc.mfg.sgi.com> wrote:
>Though I think someone should have thumped him the first time he came
>many of the Great White Hunter types rated the "cowardly, herbivorous"
>Cape Buffalo the most dangerous animal in Africa.
Which recalls to mind a humorous story: Scottish big game hunter
is upbraided by a friend for the elephant gun he uses to hunt
Cape Buffalo. "What overkill! Why do you use a 600 Nitro
Express on buffalo?"
"Because they dinna make a bluddy 700 Nitro Express!"
>Though anyone who has ever handled cattle would have a pretty good
>clue; I once read that, in the number of fatalities per year, the
>most dangerous animal on the North American continent is . . . the
>domestic dairy cow. Someone alert Steven King! ;-)
I hadn't heard that statistic, but having grown up on a dairy farm, I'm
not surprised. The common dairy cow... which is a domesticated aurocs,
now extinct in the wild -- and which, according to a recent National
Geographic, was responsible for the rather badly mangled condition of
many Neandertal skeletons. The Neandertals seemed to be determined to
hunt the things, with spears. Thrusting spears; they never seemed to
catch on to the idea of throwing spears.
--
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the | Mike Van Pelt
populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to | m...@netcom.com
safety) by menacing it with an endless series of | KE6BVH
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -H. L. Mencken.
Jean Lamb
(when not constantly reset by day/night changes) is slightly _longer_
than the normal 24-hour day. There's some interesting studies on that!
Mark Eaton
<m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>
> But Nessus is insane.
>
> I don't see how this relates to puppeteers' instinctive reaction to turn away
> from an enemy, freeing up the hind leg for attack.
>
I don't think instinctive reactions worry too much about the sanity of
their host... :-)
Tom Lane
> Graydon <saun...@qlink.queensu.ca> wrote:
>> Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
> If you read Known Space and loved it, great. It is supposed to be
> entertaining. But if you're trying to look too deeply into everything,
> and percieve the World-As-We-Know-It as the World-We-Imagine, then
> methinks you've missed the whole point and are looking outside the
> framework rather than at the pieces as they are presented.
No, I think *you've* missed the point. Several other people have already
explained that "hard SF" stories are customarily held to the standard
of being (at least) internally consistent and consistent with present-
day scientific knowledge. Not all of Niven's output is intended to
meet this standard, but the Known Space stories are. I agree with all
that, but I want to make a different point.
The reason we're here analyzing faults in Known Space is that *it's fun*.
Everyone with two brain cells knows that Known Space is not reality.
But many fans find it entertaining to look for inconsistencies and to
speculate about how they could be resolved / explained away. Thus we
treat the stories as if they were indeed real. You can find the same sort
of thing going on in lots of branches of literature (Sherlock Holmes fans
come to mind).
If you don't find this an interesting exercise, fine; to each his poison.
But let us have our fun, OK?
regards, tom lane
Cecil Rose
>Alice Holt (yfc...@castle.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
>: I'm afraid this thread is getting a bit boring. Protector is a work of
>: fiction. We know that humans are not actualy evolved from an alien
>: life form transplanted from the galactic core. Niven wondered what it
>: might be like if we were, and wrote Protector to explore the possibilities.
>: How can you expect it to stand up to rigorous analysis? That would be like
>: rubbishing a work of historical fiction by searching through historical
>: records and newspaper clippings and proving that it never happened.
>Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
>comparable to having a character state 'eff equals em ay squared'.
Niven hasn't claimed anything, except to write interesting fiction
that he hopes you'll enjoy.
Mike Gannis
>>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>>not hard? :-)
edwr...@microsoft.com (Edward V. Wright) replied:
>Biology is a hard science. Check any university catalog. You'll find it listed
>as a science department, along with physics, chemistry, geology, etc. The
>"soft" sciences -- psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, etc.
>-- are listed under "social science." (Well, some universities now list
>psychology under "sciences" also, but that's another matter, grumble, grumble.)
One scheme separates the sciences into three groups: hard, wet, and fuzzy.
Mike Gannis | Then the astrophysicist drew a circle on the
mga...@sdsc.edu | board and said to the farmers, "Consider a
619 534-5143 | homogeneous, spherically-symmetric cow ..."
Paul Ciszek
>But at what level of intelligence does telepathy pop up, and at what level
>does it fade away? My cats, for instance, aren't terribly bright, and they
>certainly aren't psychic. (Unless your version of psychic powers includes
>following me into the kitchen, even when I'm going to feed them.)
No, cats psychic abilities include:
1) Turning up on the other side of doors that you *know* were closed and
latched
2) Making their eyes glow in the dark when you're watching a scary movie
on TV
3) Variable mass. (This effect can be verified by anyone who has seen a
cat alight upon a window sill, then jump down and land on one's
stomache.)
As for the intelligence of cats, one measure of intelligence is the ability
to find easier ways to do things. Cats have found a way to lead a secure,
comfortable life with no effort whatsoever, by having humans do all the
work.
Phil Hunt
edwr...@microsoft.com "Edward V. Wright" writes:
> But if think Niven is bad, look at Jurassic Park. I practically fell out of
> my seat when that paleontologist jumped out of his jeep and ran up to the
> brachiosaur, saying, "It's alright. It's an herbivore."
Not only that, it's a *big* herbivore which could probably tread on him
without even noticing.
However, if the guy's only experience with animals is dead ones, it's a
plausible mistake that someone could make.
--
Phil Hunt, phi...@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Reverend Jack
: Rob Furr wrote:
:
: > From "The Soft Weapon:"
: >
: > "He wanted to do it again. Nessus had the blood lust."
: >
: > Whether or not Jason deduced it, it seems likely that *Niven* had.
:
: But Nessus is insane.
Only according to Puppeteer psychology.
________________________________________________________________
rev...@radix.net http://www.radix.net/~revjack
Loki
: Duh! Postulating an extraterrestrial origin for primates
: is the same as misquoting a fundamental law?
Postulating an untenable position in hard SF is relatively similar, yes.
: So what are you trying to say? That one should only write
: science fiction if one only uses science that has been thoroughly
: proved? Well that's 99% of science fiction thrown out.
The point was that this particular point of Known Space isn't consistent
and therefore is an error of magnitude, when considered from the hard-SF
standpoint. If you were to shift it over to 'SF' without worrying about
the 'hard' part, then it's not stunningly important, no.
Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"The Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in
any form, in whole or in part. Copyright (c) Geoffrey Wiseman, 1995.
License to distribute this post is available to Microsoft for $250.
Appearance without permission constitutes agreement to these terms."
Paul D. Mckinley
>Fortunately for Niven, a likely candidate for a seeding agent already
>exists in the Known Space universe. Yup: the Slaver/tnuctip empire.
>Let's postulate that they seeded bacterial-level life on every potentially
>habitable planet in the galaxy.
Wasn't Earth a "yeast" factory for the slavers? I belive that that was
why Kzanol was headed in this direction in the stasis suit.
Perhaps I misremember.....guess I'll just have to read World of Ptavvs
all over again (grin)
Erik Max Francis
> Triple Quadrophenic (Frank_Hollis-1%no...@sb.com@sb.com) wrote:
> : >Niven claims to be a hard sf author; he has proceeded to make a mistake
> : ^^^^^^
> : Where? In which book has he made this claim?
>
> The introduction to the short story collection :Limits:.
>
> In particular: "I seem to be happiest wtih science fiction, "the
> literature of the possible", where an army of scientists is busily
> defining my rules for me."
Okay, here Niven is saying that he is a science fiction author -- he doesn't
say anything about being a "hard" science fiction author.
> : >comparable to having a character state 'eff equals em ay squared'.
> : Duh! Postulating an extraterrestrial origin for primates
> : is the same as misquoting a fundamental law?
>
> Yes, because that's exactly what it is.
>
> The difference is that Niven _knows_ that it is 'eff equals em ay', and
> *doesn't* know enough about biochemistry or evolution to know why
> postulating that primates are extraterestrial involves an improbability
> on the order of macroscopic quantum tunnelling phenonmena occuring naturally.
Uh . . . they do occur naturally. They just aren't likely.
So you were saying what about Niven's lack of knowledge on the subjects which
he chose to write about . . . ? At least his writing is fiction, not review.
> I am trying to say that one ought not to write science fiction about
> science of which one is ignorant.
Fine. Point taken. Move on.
--
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE. && m...@alcyone.darkside.com || m...@alcyone.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- && 1love && folasade
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. && GIGO Omega Psi && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
"Out from his breast/his soul went to seek/the doom of the just." -- _Beowulf_
Leighton M. Anderson
<erky...@CMU.EDU> writes:
>
>As a cute twist on the Whitewater investigation thing, the news
>program "All Things Considered" called up several people and asked
>them how those mysterious papers appeared on a table in the White
>House without anyone knowing how they got there. (For those of you
>outside the US... now you know as much as I do. Has American politics
>always looked this silly from the outside?)
>
>Anyway, one of the people they called was Larry Niven. His theory was
>that future investigators stole the papers with a time machine. They
>obviously intended to return them to the same instant and location
>that they were taken from, but they got sloppy, which is why they
>appeared a year late and in the wrong place. "Must have been a
>government project."
>
>Heh.
>
>(I'm writing this from memory; the segment was on last night.
>Apologies if I've misdescribed anything.)
I heard it too, and you got it very right. I thought the whole piece
with Niven and other authors was very clever. I actually thought that
some of the other writers they consulted were funnier than Niven,
although the Niven entry is the only one that stuck in my mind.
The intro mentioned that Larry Niven is working on his new book _The
Ringworld Throne_. Probably that fact is old hat to everyone here but
it was news to me . . . .
Btw, what do you get if you cross a corrupt politicial with a crooked
lawyer? A: Chelsea.
<rimshot>
Leighton
Sj Pover
SA>Dana Crom (da...@morc.mfg.sgi.com) wrote:
: >Besides, you want a *real* nasty herbivore, try elephants. Nothing in
: >it's right mind attacks a healthy, adult elephant. Especially since the
: >rest of the herd tends to join in...
SA>: Hmmm. Getting back on a SF course, how many writers have used a nasty
SA>: herbivore model for an intelligent race. I can remember Poul Anderson's
SA>: Shenna from _Satan's World_. Any others?
SA>Not a novel, but the K'kree from traveller fit the bill.
Probably already mentioned, (my provider has been down for a few days and
I think they've lost a bunch of messages), but what about those
extraterrestrial elephants in Footfall?
---
* DeLuxe2/386 1.25 #10827 * I tried the rest but bought the best!!!!
stev knowles
>But Nessus is insane.
>
>I don't see how this relates to puppeteers' instinctive reaction to turn away
>from an enemy, freeing up the hind leg for attack.
no, you have been *told* that he was insane by the best
businessmen in the galaxy. think about it, there are
certainly benefits to being protrayed as cowards if
all you really want to to conduct business . . . .
Mary K. Kuhner
>Didn't Brennan postulate atomic piles going critical (with no
>protectors to maintain them), and the breeders mutating into the
>various primate forms. I would say that the link pin is that the fossil
>record has to be assumed to be sketchy, and evolutionary trees as
>understood by Man assumes a link between the early fossil record and
>recent primate evolution, and so a link is drawn.
>Graham
This only works if, as Niven perhaps believed at the time, there is
no evidence except fossils to link primates with other mammals.
Unfortunately that is not at all the case. One of the standard ways
to locate an unknown gene in humans, for example, is to find it in
mice, note its neighbors, and see if it is near the same genes in
humans. As far as we know, large-scale gene order is purely an
evolutionary accident--yet humans and mice retain the same order through
substantial hunks of their genome, though not the entire thing.
Having to decide that humans are not closely related to mice would make
complete and utter hash of evolutionary biology. It's harder for me to
swallow than FTL or telepathy.
Deriving us both from Slaver food yeast does not help at all. The point
is not that we're related to mice, but that we're specifically and very
closely related to mice and not nearly so closely to most Terrestrial
life. This strongly implies a recent common ancestor. You cannot use
yeast genomes or insect genomes to locate human genes like you can with
mice.
_Protector_ is still a fun story--I really like the portrayal of
Brennan--but you'd have to go through amazing contortions to make the
biology work.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mike Scott
ago. This seems like long enough to bring it out again.
Humans are *not* descended from Pak. Humans evolved on Earth. It is,
however, possible that Pak evolved from proto-human stock taken off
Earth a few million years ago. Why did Phtssthpok, and some earlier
protectors, then return to the same volume of space, against all the
odds?
It seems unlikely that Pak built the Ringworld. However, hominids are
certainly its main inhabitants now.
Why does the Ringworld contain populated maps of planets in Known Space?
Certainly no Pak protector would have put kzinti or martians on the Ringworld.
Proposal:
Whoever programmed the brain on Kzanol's ship miscalculated. He had two
very similar systems to enter, one with a food planet, one unexplored
and with planets mapped by telescope only, and he got them the wrong way
round. Kzanol ended up crashing on an unexplored Earth only a few
million years ago, and the similarities and differences with where he
was expecting to go led Kzanol/Greenberg to believe that billions of
years had passed. In fact, the Slaver Empire existed around 3 million
years ago - this explains why bandersnatchi, sunflowers and stage trees
are still around and recognisable.
Some time after Kzanol crashed, the thrintun did explore Earth, and
found homo habilis to be one of the most useful of slave races, just
bright enough to take orders and not nearly bright enough to revolt.
The thrintun prospered and homo habilis became widespread in the galaxy.
The thrintun home system was dismantled and used to build the Ringworld,
with wildlife preserves keeping successful slave races in their natural
habitats - the Ringworld's star is the thrintun home star. Only a
relatively small area was ever inhabited, though they terraformed it all
for later occupation.
The tnuctip rebellion came along, and the losing thrintun constructed a
galaxy-wide psionic amplifier ordering every intelligent species to
commit suicide. Homo habilis was at the margin, and many survived, as
did the bandersnatchi, proto-kzinti, proto-puppetteers, proto-trinocs
etc., some of whom may also have been slave races. The tnuctipun all
died, but one shipload of thrintun was in stasis at the time and
survived. They colonised Down and adopted a sedentary lifestyle.
With no masters, homo habilis died out on every planet but two. On
Earth, they survived because it was the environment that they had
evolved to cope with, and on Pak a viral infection previously cured by
thrintun vets led to a few specimens gaining extra intelligence and a desire
to protect their offspring. The Pak evolved fairly quickly.
Pak archaeologists found old thrintun records indicating the home planet
of homo habilis, and sent out their expedition 2.5 million years ago for
similar reasons to Phssthpok's. The Protector leaders of the expedition
fell out, and one faction changed course for the thrintun homeworld -
the Ringworld - instead.
The Earthbound faction quickly died out due to lack of tree-of-life,
leaving Earth pretty much unchanged. The Ringworld faction found it
populated by some surviving low-intelligence slave races - the artificial
environment was even more benign than Earth. The Pak released tailored
viruses to wipe out the other species, but these did not spread to the
maps, where the original inhabitants survived. Before they could
finish the job, these Protectors too succumbed to the lack of
tree-of-life, leaving the hominids to spread over the Ringworld.
--
Mike Scott
mi...@moose.demon.co.uk
Fishman Michael
|> In article <1996Jan18.1...@wisipc.weizmann.ac.il>,
|> Fishman Michael <mic...@wiscon.weizmann.ac.il> wrote:
|>
|> >Since the Pak of Pakhome are clearly gene-engeneered species,
|> ^^^^^^^
|> >why can't the genetic source be Earth primates?
|>
|> Please explain why this is so obvious to you. Is there, then, no way at
|> all for Pak to evolve through natural processes?
Pak breeder + virus (in root of life) = Pak protector.
Advantage for a virus in carrying a Pak transformation package?
Stewart Robert Hinsley
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu "Mary K. Kuhner" writes:
> In article <4djopr$t...@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> tos...@dircon.co.uk (Graham
> McIntosh) writes:
>
> >Didn't Brennan postulate atomic piles going critical (with no
> >protectors to maintain them), and the breeders mutating into the
> >various primate forms. I would say that the link pin is that the fossil
> >record has to be assumed to be sketchy, and evolutionary trees as
> >understood by Man assumes a link between the early fossil record and
> >recent primate evolution, and so a link is drawn.
>
> >Graham
>
> This only works if, as Niven perhaps believed at the time, there is
> no evidence except fossils to link primates with other mammals.
IMO, the fossil evidence eliminates Brennan-monster's explanation.
(We can hand-wave away the faulty conclusions he presented by noting
that Brennan-human was probably ignorant of the relevant evidence;
there's no reason why a monopole hunter should be an expert in biology -
on the other hand you would expect one to be well read.)
Pak breeders are Homo habilis. Homo habilis lived about 2mya. The
primate fossil record goes back to the Late Cretaceous, i.e. 70mya or
more. Hence, unless you deny the connection of living and fossil
primates, primates cannot be derived from the introduction of _Homo
habilis_ from Pakhome.
You've got to move the boundary between terrestrial and pakhomeish
life closer to humanity. I've just referred to a 1972 textbook, and
even then pongid (ape) and platyrhine (new world monkey) fossils were
known from the Miocene, so one ends up restricted to the human/chimpanzee/
gorilla clade, if that. By that point you're no longer explaining
anything away.
> Unfortunately that is not at all the case. One of the standard ways
> to locate an unknown gene in humans, for example, is to find it in
> mice, note its neighbors, and see if it is near the same genes in
> humans. As far as we know, large-scale gene order is purely an
> evolutionary accident--yet humans and mice retain the same order through
> substantial hunks of their genome, though not the entire thing.
Was this known when "Protector" was written? IIRC, sequencing on a large
scale of DNA and proteins is a product of the last few decades, as is
detailed knowledge of cellular architecture and processes. I doubt
that the premise of "Protector" was defensible when written, but judging
it by present day knowledge is unfair.
When Niven wrote "Protector" he had to explain anatomical, metabolic
and cellular similarities. I suspect that the early (non-sequencing)
Measurement of DNA and protein similiarity were also available them.
(When was insulin first sequenced? IIRC, it was the first sequenced
protein.) You could do some handwaving (convergence, limited range
of possible metabolisms, etc), but I doubt that it could be done so
convincingly. Niven at least realised that he had to explain away some
facts, unlike the authors (or TV series :-)) who have interfertile
humanoids on every other planet.
>
> Having to decide that humans are not closely related to mice would make
> complete and utter hash of evolutionary biology. It's harder for me to
> swallow than FTL or telepathy.
Confirming data point. When I first read "Protector" (in my teens) the
Pak stuck in my throat more than Niven's telepathy or hyperspace.
>
> Deriving us both from Slaver food yeast does not help at all. The point
> is not that we're related to mice, but that we're specifically and very
> closely related to mice and not nearly so closely to most Terrestrial
> life. This strongly implies a recent common ancestor. You cannot use
> yeast genomes or insect genomes to locate human genes like you can with
> mice.
AFAIK, the 'Hogan solution' is the only way that this feature of Known
Space can be fixed up. This still leaves the problem as to why the Pak
recolonised Earth, of all places. One possibility is that the Pak did
an extensive search, and selected the place with the most compatible
biochemistry (which still leaves the odds on Earth being in the sample
as rather long, but is better than random chance). Another, mentioned
earlier in the thread, is that whoever seeded Pakhome did the reverse
transfer (and faked records in the Pak libaries).
All in all, the easiest 'answer' is to take the human descent from Pak
as the one counterfactual postulate that Niven is entitled to. (And
as to whether that precludes "Protector" from being hard SF is a matter
of definitions, not fact, IMHO.)
>
> _Protector_ is still a fun story--I really like the portrayal of
> Brennan--but you'd have to go through amazing contortions to make the
> biology work.
>
> Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
>
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley Managers are the servants of their staff
ytt...@cris.com
>In <4djev4$j...@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>, hol...@geop.ubc.ca (Stephen Holland) writes:
>>In article <4dj1va$k...@orphan.emich.edu>, Paula Sanch <Paula...@emich.edu> writes:
>>
>>-> Um, have you ever heard of mutation? We're smarter than the Pak
>>-> breeders because our brains have evolved, right? The mechanism of
>>-> evolution is mutation.
>>
>>Intelligence would probably have evolved in breeders because they
>As the above poster noted, mutation is the mechanism of evolution.
>>needed it to survive after the protecters died off. Mutation might
>>play a role, but probably a minor one compared to simple survival
>>pressures. Breeders who didn't develop enough inteligence
>>to survive died off while those who did survived.
>Yes but how did they manage to "develop" this intelligence?
>Unless you are proposing a major revision to the theory of evolution,
>mutation is, once again, the mechanism by which this takes place.
>Andy Williams <Team OS/2>
>andy...@esslink.com http://www.esslink.com/~andywlms/
There is some tenuous evidence published in _Science_ in the past year
or so regarding self-induced mutations in yeast. If I remember it
correctly, the article described that the rate of adaptation for a
particular yeast was higher than what was determined only by using
random mutations.
This may indicate that there is another mechanism for evolution than
exclusively random mutation and natural selection at work.
Basically, if an organism/group of organisms is placed in a hostile
environment, they turn up the mutation rate (perhaps by turning down
the DNA repair mechanism). There are other examples where organisms
adapt to stresses in the environment by physiological means too
(example: bodybuilders stress muscles, and the muscles increase in
size/strength, whatever.)
Please note that this is not accepted as yet, but it does provide an
interesting argument: The breeders left on earth (by Pak, Slavers,
Tnuctpin, or whatever) were left in a more hostile environment. As
part of this adaptation, the DNA repair mechanism was turned down,
increasing the rate of potential mutations until such time as the
organism(s) were better able to function.
Just my $ 0.02 -- Ytt
Kenneth C. Mitchell
: In <kx91j7z...@carfax.ims.advantis.com>, tmi...@carfax.ims.advantis.com (Tim Miller) writes:
: >In-reply-to: @'s message of 16 Jan 1996 14:35:16 GMT
: >On 16 Jan 1996 14:35:16 GMT, @ (Matt Hickman) said:
: >M> By making the Puppeteers such stereotypical cowards - and explaining
: >M> it as simply because Puppeteers are herbivores -
: >
: > Bzzt. Go back and read some more.
: > Louis Wu points out rather blatently that the Puppeteer
: >instinctive reaction to turn and face away from danger is in fact a
: >*fight* response, not a *flight* response. Turning away frees the rear
: >leg for a stunning mule-like kick, impressively aimed by the widely
: >spread head/eyes. It is Puppeteer society that has deemed it more proper
: >to be "cowardly," whereas the biological response is quite different.
: IMHO the interpretation of the Puppeteers instinctive
: reaction to turn away from danger is a bit of revisionism on Niven's part.
: Like solving the stability of a ringworld, he added this intepretation
: after it was pointed out that herd animals tended not to be as
: stereotypically cowardly as he was portraying them.
And isn't this exactly how science itself works? By proposing simple or
simplisitc explanations of phenomena and then resvising the explanations
as required when they don't quite explain everything?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Mitchell |"I think that Ruby Ridge is destined to be as famous
8037 Stone Canyon |someday as Selma or Chappaquiddick. It's a place where
Citrus Heights, CA |the relations between the governed and the governing
95610 |were exposed in a particularly frightening way. I feel
kmit...@netcom.com |sure that if I had ever met Randy Weaver, we would
|never have been friends, but I am also sure that when-
916-449-9152 (VM) |ever the government starts killing members of the
916-729-0966 (fax) |Church of the American Promise, it's only a matter of
Finger for PGP |time before they start killing members of Temple
Public Key |Israel." Ben Stein's Diary,
| The American Spectator December 1995
--------------------http://www.vpm.com/kmitchel/home.htm--------------------
Cerebus The Aardvark
>Our correspondent in Tierra del Fuego reports that rl...@HK.Super.Net
>(Raymond Lowe), wrote:
>>Ah, but biology - and particularly +behavioral+ biology - is not a
>>"hard" science. So does being weak on a soft science make your fiction
>>not hard? :-)
>Could someone explain to me how the easiest sciences got called the
>"hard" sciences?
I've always considered the "hard" sciences to be Math, Physics, Chemisty,
micro-biology, computer-science, and other sciences founded on demonstrable
truths and proofs. You can prove you mathmatical formulae, your chemical
interactions, etc.
The "soft" sciences are anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, and others
that are based on accumulations of data and social and cultural
interactions. The "soft" sciences are not 100% demostrable, not in anyway.
You notice I left out medicine. Medicine is a hard, soft science.
I understand the destinction.
Now, the "hard" sciences are not "better," they are just more concrete
tools with which we can interact with out environment. The "soft" sciences
are just as important for understanding, but not as important for
manipulating.
Now, of course, as we get more advanced, the destinctions begin to blur.
Is Quantum physics a "soft" or a "hard?"
And while I think everyone would agree that Mathematics is hard, what about
Chaos theory? What about non-euclidian geometry? Calculus?
--
Distrubution of this message by Microsoft, its subsidiaries, or its
software shall constitute a violation of my copyrights. Microsoft may
license copyrights to my messages, for distribution only, for the sum of
$1,000 US per week.
--
| kr...@cerebus.kreme.com 1015 South Gaylord, Denver, CO 80209 #100 |
| WWW URL \ <http://ftp.netcom.com/pub/kr/kreme/kreme.html> |
| [303/722-2009] Vox \ "How about Manson?" "Well, Manson beat you." |
| [303/777-2911] Data \ "It's hard to beat the king." Mickey Knox |
Richard Wang
Fishman Michael <mic...@wiscon.weizmann.ac.il> wrote:
>Pak breeder + virus (in root of life) = Pak protector.
>
>Advantage for a virus in carrying a Pak transformation package?
Advantage: transforming virus survives as long as the Pak do. Even manic
xenophobes like the Pak will hesitate to exterminate something so
obvioulsy useful.
--
Richard Wang rw...@fas.harvard.edu
"In all my experience, I have never been wrong."--Ted Floyd
Andrea Lynn Leistra
Cerebus The Aardvark <kr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>@ (Matt Hickman) writes:
>>But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents
>>of the Pak when our biology is so clearly related to other
>>species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>You had me right up till the end. However, I must contest this final
>statement. The fact is, there is no evelutionary links that has been found
>to date showing that Humans arose from some other ape. This mythical
>":missing link" has been searched for for decades.
This has got to be a troll.
Humans did not evolve from gorillas or chimpanzees, as you seem to
think the theory claims, but both evolved from a common ancestor.
The divergence of the two species was recent enough that humans and
chimpanzees share approximately 99% of DNA, and humans share over
93% of DNA with other monkeys. You'd be hard pressed to find a
non-evolutionary explanation for this extreme similarity.
--
Andrea Leistra http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~aleistra
-----
Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts.
Phil Hunt
mi...@moose.demon.co.uk "Mike Scott" writes:
> The Earthbound faction quickly died out due to lack of tree-of-life,
> leaving Earth pretty much unchanged. The Ringworld faction found it
> populated by some surviving low-intelligence slave races - the artificial
> environment was even more benign than Earth. The Pak released tailored
> viruses to wipe out the other species, but these did not spread to the
> maps, where the original inhabitants survived. Before they could
> finish the job, these Protectors too succumbed to the lack of
> tree-of-life, leaving the hominids to spread over the Ringworld.
If they could make tailored viruses, they'd also have been able to make
tree-of-life virus. Also t-of-l was found on ringworld by Teela, so the
Pak must have got themselves established on ringworld, and then died
off. Somehow.
--
Phil Hunt, phi...@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Cerebus The Aardvark
>But Niven still needs to explain humans as descendents
>of the Pak when our biology is so clearly related to other
>species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You had me right up till the end. However, I must contest this final
statement. The fact is, there is no evelutionary links that has been found
to date showing that Humans arose from some other ape. This mythical
":missing link" has been searched for for decades.
Yes, there is a perponderence of evidence that implies the probable
evelutionary links, but this is a far cry from "cleary supportive."
Itamar Shtull-Trauring
> And, eventually, you wind up writing stories with eighteen thousand
> Impossibilities *required*, because it's in this Future History that didn't
> have its postulates ironed out at the start. You get stasis fields PLUS
> scrith PLUS the Pak PLUS psychic powers PLUS psychotic carnivores PLUS
> cowardly herbivores PLUS ... and so on and so on ... and eventually, you
> wind up with _Ringworld Engineers_.
>
> Be warned, kids. Don't try this at home.
>
> Rob F.
Well, Niven said something like this in the afterword to "Tales of
Known Space". Because of all these things, it became too hard
to write a story, since, for example, you had to always think why
you couldn't use
a statis field to solve the problem. He said that's why he stopped
writing Known Space stories.
Seems to have changed his mind, though.
Itamar.
Vicke Dovheden
"Andrew C. Plotkin" <erky...@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>As a cute twist on the Whitewater investigation thing, the news
>program "All Things Considered" called up several people and asked
>them how those mysterious papers appeared on a table in the White
>House without anyone knowing how they got there. (For those of you
>outside the US... now you know as much as I do. Has American politics
>always looked this silly from the outside?)
In general: yes, very much so.
>Anyway, one of the people they called was Larry Niven. His theory was
>that future investigators stole the papers with a time machine. They
>obviously intended to return them to the same instant and location
>that they were taken from, but they got sloppy, which is why they
>appeared a year late and in the wrong place. "Must have been a
>government project."
Hrmpf.
>Heh.
>
>(I'm writing this from memory; the segment was on last night.
>Apologies if I've misdescribed anything.)
>
>--Z
Btw, where is the quote in your .sig obtained from?
>"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Vicke
Ilya Vinarsky
says...
>BTW, I've always wondered why so many SF writers, and fans, use the word
>"race" (subspecies) when they really mean "species." Although in the
>case of the grasseaters, "race" is actually correct.
"The human race" clearly refers to the whole species.
--
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
and do not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.
Alice Holt
Loki:
>That's one of the major points of hard SF. If Niven were just writing
>SF, we could ignore those mistakes and everyone who likes their SF to be
>hard could just ignore Niven. However, hard SF -is- supposed to stand up
>to analyzation, .....
Excuse me? Where in any of the advertising material or the covers do
Niven's books claim to be 'Hard' specificaly. A lot of people put him in
that category, sure, but that's our opinion.
So far as I am aware, the term 'Hard' sf was coined to distinguish sf
which explores the effects and consequences of SF on society and the
ways in which science can be used, from sf in which the technology is
just stage props.
For example, in the 'ARM' stories Niven explores the neat and unexpected
implications of advanced technologies and the ways they can be used
(monofilament wires, superconductors, transport booths). This is 'Hard'
because the technologies are fully explained and their repercussions
exhaustively examined. Star Trek is generaly soft because the technology
is basicaly just there to enable the plot. Transporters were invented to
save on special effects shots of shuttles, Phasers are 'go away' guns
which conveniently only disintegrate just what the writers want them to,
etc. Also, the capabilities of the 'tech alter to fit the plots of
particular episodes. Certain episodes have hard sf themes or elements,
but not many. Star Wars is also soft, space combat works the way it does
because George Lucas wanted to recreate the look of world war 2 aerial
combat. Light sabres were invented because he wanted to introduce the
same kinds of mythic imagery as is found in the norse sagas.
Perhaps this is a uk/usa thing, that is certainly the kind of distinction
most people over here are talking about when they say 'Hard' sf.
Simon
Jeff Suzuki
: No, I think *you've* missed the point. Several other people have already
: explained that "hard SF" stories are customarily held to the standard
: of being (at least) internally consistent and consistent with present-
: day scientific knowledge. Not all of Niven's output is intended to
: meet this standard, but the Known Space stories are.
I disagree; I don't think _any_ author sits down and _consciously_
decides to write a story consistent with present day scientific
knowledge. If my method of writing is any judge ("here, let me pull
out pictures of my children..."), you start with an idea along the
lines of "Gee, wouldn't it be interesting if..." and spend all your
time developing the consequences of that one idea, doing research as
necessary. All the other gets either get added in as throwaways. I
suspect that's how the Puppeteers got into known space in the first
place: Niven needed an alien species that wouldn't do its own
exploring, so...
Jeffs
Erik Max Francis
> I thought the 'common orrigin' of Pak and terrestrial species was already
> sorted out? I think it was in an interview, or q&a pannel at a con or
> something. Somebody pointed out that the fact that terrestrial and pak
> life had both evolved from thrint food yeast was not a close enough link
> to account for primates similarity with other species. The answer was that
> some other agent was responsible for transplanting life forms around
> the galaxy. Presumably both pak and earth were 'seeded' or 'cross fertilised'
> at one or more points in prehistory, along with some other worlds.
Still, this doesn't resolve the problem. It doesn't explain why the
Pak-transplanted forms are so closely related to lower forms (read: closeness
of genomes between humans and other primates, or even mice).
The short answer is that there is no way to resolve the problem consistently
and completely. It's science fiction, after all.
Graydon
: >species on this planet and the evolutionary record is
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: >so clearly supportive of us evolving on Earth.
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: You had me right up till the end. However, I must contest this final
: statement. The fact is, there is no evelutionary links that has been found
: to date showing that Humans arose from some other ape. This mythical
: ":missing link" has been searched for for decades.
98.4% genetic commonality with chimpanzees.
Slightly less genetic commonality with gorillas; less still with orangs,
less with gibbons (but still over 90%!)
Lots of gene sequences in common with other mammals. Sequence
commonality relates pretty well to expected degree of relatedness based
on morphology and the fossil record.
Speciation is *not*, Darwin himself to the contrary, a continuous process.
Just how *else* would you have Occam shave that?
--
saun...@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.
Graydon
: If they could make tailored viruses, they'd also have been able to make
: tree-of-life virus. Also t-of-l was found on ringworld by Teela, so the
: Pak must have got themselves established on ringworld, and then died
: off. Somehow.
Not neccessarily - they could be on the parts of the Ringworld we haven't
had even cursory glances at. (Busily working on huge thrusters of the
inertialess kind or heaven knows what else to solve the stability problem.)
I don't necessarily *believe* this, but assuming all the protectors are
dead seems to me unwise.
Alice Holt
Loki:
>In ashen ink, Triple Quadrophenic (Frank_Hollis-1%no...@sb.com@sb.com) inscribed
>:
>: Duh! Postulating an extraterrestrial origin for primates
>: is the same as misquoting a fundamental law?
>The point was that this particular point of Known Space isn't consistent
>and therefore is an error of magnitude, when considered from the hard-SF
>standpoint. If you were to shift it over to 'SF' without worrying about
>the 'hard' part, then it's not stunningly important, no.
I thought the 'common orrigin' of Pak and terrestrial species was already
sorted out? I think it was in an interview, or q&a pannel at a con or
something. Somebody pointed out that the fact that terrestrial and pak
life had both evolved from thrint food yeast was not a close enough link
to account for primates similarity with other species. The answer was that
some other agent was responsible for transplanting life forms around
the galaxy. Presumably both pak and earth were 'seeded' or 'cross fertilised'
at one or more points in prehistory, along with some other worlds.
The fact that the pak chose earth as their destination was not pure
luck because they sought out a world with a star and planetary atmosphere
as close to theirs as possible. I am not sure how much of this is my own
conjecture, but I am sure I read something along these lines a few years
ago.
Simon
Dr. David Rosen
>dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu (Darrin Lee Bright) writes:
>>
>No, I think *you've* missed the point. Several other people have already
>explained that "hard SF" stories are customarily held to the standard
>of being (at least) internally consistent and consistent with present-
>day scientific knowledge. Not all of Niven's output is intended to
>that, but I want to make a different point.
>
>The reason we're here analyzing faults in Known Space is that *it's fun*.
>Everyone with two brain cells knows that Known Space is not reality.
>But many fans find it entertaining to look for inconsistencies and to
>speculate about how they could be resolved / explained away. Thus we
>treat the stories as if they were indeed real. You can find the same sort
>of thing going on in lots of branches of literature (Sherlock Holmes fans
>come to mind).
>
>If you don't find this an interesting exercise, fine; to each his poison.
>But let us have our fun, OK?
>
> regards, tom lane
I agree. Hard SF is written to be analyzed. That is part of the
fun. SF writers who stick to science facts practically invite being
dinged for their errors. If one wants to be judged purely as literature,
don't try write hard SF. That is why some people prefer Dr. Who to
Star Trek. Less pretension. But hard science fiction (aka Larry Niven)
or hard fantasy (aka Anne Rice) requires discipline. That is part of
the fun.
David Rosen
dro...@inxs.chem.duke.edu
Matt Hickman
>Then again, there are two ameliorating factors in operation here:
>
>A): Niven came up with this idea back in the late '60's, when our
>knowledge of genetics and molecular biology was much less complete-
>they haden't donme some of those fun sequencing experiments that
>showed how closely connected primates are with other mammels.
When I read "The Adults" in _Galaxy_ in the 1960's I thought, "This is
definitely one of Niven's lesser works. The idea of humans as descendents
of extraterrestrials just doesn't work." When _Protector_ came out in the
1970's I though, "Oh no! Niven is really going to officially hook this story
up into Known Space, ARRHHGG! This humans descended from Pak
business is utter nonsense, is Niven out of his gord? This is a flaw
that seriously weakens the whole series for me." Or thoughts to that effect.
Then Hogan wrote (IIRC) _Inherit the Stars_ and I (eventually) thought,
"Gee that would solve the Pak problem also, I shouldn't jump to
conclusions about the seeming impossibilities in Known Space."
DNA sequencing was irrelevant to the above opinions. Simple anatomy
sufficed. The number of bones in a hand, the function and placement of
internal organs, two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth, the backbone,
all make it abundantly clear that humans fit into the Earth specific
evolutionary scheme of things.
>B:) Niven used to print stories in Analog, a magazine which allows
>gaffs in basic biology that they would absolutely reject in any
>of the 'easy' sciences.
Niven was not an _Analog_ writer. Fred Pohl was his editor and he published
most of his short work in _Worlds of IF_ and _Galaxy_. Specifically,
Pohl was his editor for "The Adults" and deserves a share of the blame.
Niven did publish a story in _Analog_ about the time John Campbell died,
but this was years after _The Adults_ was published in _Galaxy_.
BTW, I like the idea that the PAK were engineered as a counter to
Thrint coming out of stasis. Possibly Pakhome is where some Thrint came
out of stasis. They enslaved a non-space faring species. Somebody else
noticed that the Thrint were there, breeding and "encouraging" the development
of FTL space travel and got scared witless. Pak were then developed from pre-human
Earth stock as PSI neutral (immune to Thrint - these guys knew about Thrint and
Bandersnatchi) and placed on Pakhome where they promptly wiped out the Thrint
and the native race they had enslaved.
The Pak were also made with a blind spot when it came to developing the
technology of FTL travel. This was put in to reduce the threat of the Pak
to the species that created them. The "Tree of Life" was another
control put in to keep them tied to Pakhome. And perhaps the PAK were
made susceptible to other counter measures -- counter measures that may
have been used to eradicate the PAK on Ringworld. The race that created the
Pak did not destroy them as they could prove useful in the future as a weapon
against any other Thrint that might pop out of stasis.
This would answer several Known Space questions/problems:
1. Humans descending from Pak, but obviously related to other Earth species.
2. If Thrint keep popping out of stasis, how have they been dealt with
in the past?
3. Teela Brown's loosing her luck after becoming a PSI neutral PAK.
4. How the PAK phase/Tree of Life died off on Ringworld.
5. Why, if the PAK were so bright, they couldn't figure out FTL travel
(and why humans couldn't either and had to buy it from the Outsiders)
6. Why Puppeteers aren't scared witless of humans -- they know some/all of
the counter measures engineered into the PAK, at least one of which applies
to Humans also.
The Puppeteers in conjunction with the Outsiders could be the species that engineered
the Pak. (Q. What is the biggest threat? Ans. Thrint on Pakhome, that will be 1 trillion
stars please.) But I really don't see them as engineering something as dangerous as the Pak,
or letting the Pak survive after the Thrint threat was gone.
Matt Hickman bh...@chevron.com TANSTAAFL!
OS/2 Systems Specialist, Chevron Information Technologies Co.
In his obscure past Sam had learned to fight. Not rough
house, not the stylized mock combat of boxing, but in the
skilled art in which an unarmed man becomes a lethal
machine.
- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
_Starman Jones_ (c. 1953)
Graydon
: saun...@qlink.queensu.ca "Graydon" writes:
: > I don't necessarily *believe* this, but assuming all the protectors are
: They must have been dead, otherwise they wouldn't have let the Puppeteers
: dismount the attitude jets. They would also have killed the Kzin.
The Puppeteers didn't, the City-builders did, and we don't _know_ that
the attitude jets are the primary system.
Also note that the Protectors don't necessarily have the tech level to do
Ringworld escape velocity; they may be clean opposite the maps in the
_other_ Great Ocean, and more or less stuck there.