Science and the detective novel

pp. 221-231

in: Joseph Agassi, Science and culture, Berlin, Springer, 2003

Abstract

Detective, spy, and other suspense novels come in two distinct variants: the realist and the romantic. In the romantic variant, each event, each new development, is exciting, leading in quickening steps towards the expected climax. In the realistic variant, much of the work of the hero is pedestrian. Searching endlessly one address after another in utter frustration, fruitlessly tracking suspicious characters evening after evening, this is the material that the author weaves the narrative from, until the pace quickens towards the climax. Science fiction is a parasite on the detective, spy, and suspense novel genres. This genre, then, reflects more openly the fact that the conflicting views, the pedestrian and the romantic, concern science. The common view by far is that scientific work is as pedestrian as the realist detective's work reflects it, though in science the climactic excitement is greater, as is the reward of success. The truth about science sits between the realist and the romantic. The right criterion for the scientific character of search procedures is not so tight as to dictate a search procedure, but it is tight enough to make it somewhat rational.