Sunday Sermonette: Isaac Asimov
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
--Isaac Asimov
« What is Baby Luv? | Main | "Walk The Line": Review »
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
--Isaac Asimov
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c61e653ef00d83462a31f53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Sunday Sermonette: Isaac Asimov:
The comments to this entry are closed.
Isaac Asimov was among the first of the great Science Fiction writers I started to read when I was younger. Being that he actually was a scientist, it's no wonder his books rang so true. Or that his words are still relevant. Not that he always wrote weighty tomes. Some of his work was genuinely funny.
Posted by: ghostcatbce | November 20, 2005 at 03:49 PM
I always have loved that quote, and have used it on more than one occasion.
Posted by: John | November 20, 2005 at 04:19 PM
Yep. That's one of my favorite Asimov quotes of all time. It's one of the quotes that I use in my .sig file from time to time.
Posted by: Orac | November 20, 2005 at 04:49 PM
something you dreamt up after being drunk all night
That's a hypothesis. If it survives the hangover and you go on to test it, then it might grow up to be a theory.
Posted by: sennoma | November 20, 2005 at 06:17 PM
This explains why they think Intelligent Design is a scientific theory.
Posted by: gordo | November 20, 2005 at 06:17 PM
On a side note, Asimov was so prolific that I always imagined him lecturing to a Chemistry class while typing stories. Or in his lab scribbling a story in his notebook, looking up every paragraph or so to monitor an experiment.
Posted by: gordo | November 20, 2005 at 08:35 PM
I so wanted to call a libertarian a "solarian" the other day, but didn't think they'd get that I was referencing asimov.
asimov was the anti-voyager of psuedo-science babble, he made it sound plausible and believable.
Posted by: R. Mildred | November 20, 2005 at 08:50 PM
Robots of Dawn, Asimov's obvious premonition/fortelling of those crazy whacky republicans running the whitehouse, the war and the cost of oil stright through the roof of middleclass contempt in 2005.
Posted by: Billy Boy | November 20, 2005 at 11:17 PM
I don't know. I think Asimov was a good... uh... science fiction-ist, but I don't think he was a very good writer. He got better as he aged, to be sure: Harry Seldon from Prelude to the Foundation was a lot more believable than any of the characters in the original Foundation series, but really, I mean, the dialogue he wrote wasn't really plausible or interesting. Maybe when it comes to sci-fi, I'm too much of a Haymaker and not enough of a Hairshirt like Lindsay.
Posted by: Julian Elson | November 21, 2005 at 02:00 AM
Back in the old days, SF was literature for real men. There was none of this sissy, girly nonsense about elegant prose, well-formed characters and believable dialog. We had steel-clad robots and plenty of 'em. There were mile-long starships, terrible, awesome weapons and worlds beyond imagining, not to mention all manner of political and social commentary dressed up as bug-eyed aliens.
To call the good doctor a poor writer is to completely miss the point.
Posted by: Chuchundra | November 21, 2005 at 10:47 AM
Posted by: Chuchundra | November 21, 2005 at 10:47 AM
lol. ya...girl should stay away from sci-fi befor ethey are turning it into soap opera in space.... :P
but there is a good scifi written by woman, and the story is unusual, rather than bang-bang spaceship goes kaboom. It's more a dialectic of perception. (Doomsday book. Connie willis, 1992)
But it's right tho' we barely have a good scifi novel that we can read like futuristic psycho thriller suspense.
Posted by: Squashed Lemon | November 21, 2005 at 11:12 AM
Something for the next sermonette: Penn Jillette's "This I Believe" essay, heard on NPR this morning.
Posted by: Grumpy | November 21, 2005 at 11:56 AM
Betcha' the writers of the Book of Revelations had wicked hangovers though ...
Posted by: blogenfreude | November 21, 2005 at 03:22 PM
asimov is a buzz-kill.
Posted by: bob crane | November 22, 2005 at 12:45 AM
Doomsday Book isn't that good... when I read it I liked it, but in retrospect it seems quite pointless.
Also, how is The Robots of Dawn's Aurora a Republican-style society? It does sound a little bit like Huxley's Brave New World, in a way, but nothing like a neo-conservative society.
Posted by: Alon Levy | November 22, 2005 at 06:47 AM
blogenfreude,
There was more than booze involved in that wierdness.
Posted by: Don | November 22, 2005 at 04:23 PM
Asimov is my hero.
Posted by: Joseph | November 22, 2005 at 06:56 PM