Who Says That Science Fiction Is Just Fiction? [Editor's Comments]

Epistemic Just fiction

According to an ancient and honorable tradition, knowledge isjustified true belief. But what is this "justification?" Theologians of the Protestant Reformation (however things may stand with their contemporary epigoni) had a clear conception of justification; justification, they held, is by faith. Contemporary epistemologists, sadly enough, do not thus speak with a single voice. They don't ofte...

“But Is It Science Fiction?”: Science Fiction and a Theory of Genre

If science fiction is a genre, then attempts to think about the nature of science fiction will be affected by one’s understanding of what genres are. I shall examine two approaches to genre, one (genres as regions of conceptual space) dominant but inadequate, the other (genres as historical particulars) better, but only occasionally making itself seen. I shall then discuss several important, in...

Are Extra Dimensions Real or Are They Just Science Fiction?

The recent proposal of theories with compactified large extra dimensions is reviewed. We pay especial attention to brane world models with low tension where the only relevant degrees of freedom at low energies are the Standard Model (SM) particles and the branons, which are transversal brane oscillations. By using an effective Lagrangian, we study some phenomenological consequences of these sce...

Fiction informed by science.

Is Cognitive Case Formulation Science or Science Fiction?

Since the seminal publication of Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (A. T. Beck, 1976), cognitive therapy has emerged as one of the most popular and widely taught therapeutic modalities of the last 20 years (Rush & Beck, 2000), because, in part, of its consistency with the scientistpractitioner model. Although the scientist-practitioner model has been controversial (Albee, 1970; Barl...