The hard sciences are interpenetrating the social sciences. This isn’t dehumanizing. It shines attention on the things poets have traditionally cared about: the power of human attachments. It may even help policy wonks someday see people as they really are. Great (quick, short, shallow but interesting) Op-Ed at The NY Times.
This one is worthy of a post in the Big Important Column of Things You Really Ought to Take Notice Of.
Scalzi succinctly and beautifully suggests a course of action for the SF Boys Club folk:
At this late date, when one of these quailing wonders appears, stuttering petulantly that women are unfit to touch the genre he’s already claimed with his smudgy, sticky fingerprints, the thing to do is not to solemnly intone about how far science fiction has yet to go. Science fiction does have a distance to go, but these fellows aren’t interested in taking the journey, and I don’t want to have to rideshare with them anyway. So the thing to do is to point and laugh.
There are few things I love more than a wonderful writer who, when exposed on a day-to-day basis, continues to be brilliant. When I read columns or blogs by authors whose books I otherwise adored only to learn they’re backwards, close-minded fools, their books become tainted and unreadable. Scalzi’s books take on an aura of betterness when I read his blog.