The Childe Cycle is an unfinished series of science fiction novels by American writer Gordon R. Dickson . The name Childe Cycle is an allusion to " Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ", a poem by Robert Browning , which provided inspiration for elements in the work. The series is sometimes referred to as the Dorsai series, after the Dorsai people who are central to it. The related short stories and novellas all center on the Dorsai, primarily members of the Graeme and Morgan families.
32-591: In addition to the six science fiction novels of the Cycle, Dickson had also planned three historical novels and three novels taking place in the present day. In an essay in his book Steel Brother , Dickson describes how he conceived the Childe Cycle, the panoramic "consciously thematic" treatment of the evolution of the human race, and the planned contents of the six never-written novels. Each group of three novels would include one focused on each of three "archetypes,
64-477: A "Faith-Holder" and "Fanatic", a "propagandist for the Cromwellian government". The third historical novel's focus would have been on Robert Browning whose "poetry is a vehicle for his philosophy". The three twentieth century novels would have focused on: "the life and character of George Santayana to showcase a Philosopher", a World War II "Warrior", and a female "Faith-Holder" in the 1980s. The latter novel
96-464: A "social-frustration meter") as " pseudoscience ". During the late 2000s recessions , social science was disproportionately targeted for funding cuts compared to mathematics and natural science. Proposals were made for the United States' National Science Foundation to cease funding disciplines such as political science altogether. Both of these incidents prompted critical discussion of
128-436: A century apart. By the late 21st century, human culture begins to fragment into different aspects. Following the events of Necromancer , humanity has colonized some 14 Younger Worlds. The inhabitants of these worlds have evolved culturally, and to some extent, genetically, into several specialized Splinter Cultures. This was done by the racial collective unconscious itself as an experiment to see what aspects of humanity are
160-506: A field to "achieve consensus and accumulate knowledge" increases with the hardness of the science, and sampled 29,000 papers from 12 disciplines using measurements that indicate the degree of scholarly consensus. Out of the three possibilities (hierarchy, hard/soft distinction, or no ordering), the results supported a hierarchy, with physical sciences performing the best followed by biological sciences and then social sciences. The results also held within disciplines, as well as when mathematics and
192-471: A hierarchy of scientific disciplines, and was unable to find significant differences in terms of core of knowledge, degree of codification, or research material. Differences that he did find evidence for included a tendency for textbooks in soft sciences to rely on more recent work, while the material in textbooks from the hard sciences was more consistent over time. After he published in 1983, it has been suggested that Cole might have missed some relationships in
224-514: A rapid turnover of buzzwords . The metaphor has been criticised for unduly stigmatizing soft sciences, creating an unwarranted imbalance in the public perception, funding, and recognition of different fields. The origin of the terms "hard science" and "soft science" is obscure. The earliest attested use of "hard science" is found in an 1858 issue of the Journal of the Society of Arts , but
256-514: A soft science can affect the perceived value of a discipline to society and the amount of funding available to it. In the 1980s, mathematician Serge Lang successfully blocked influential political scientist Samuel P. Huntington 's admission to the US National Academy of Sciences , describing Huntington's use of mathematics to quantify the relationship between factors such as "social frustration" (Lang asked Huntington if he possessed
288-458: Is often attributed to a 1964 article published in Science by John R. Platt . He explored why he considered some scientific fields to be more productive than others, though he did not actually use the terms themselves. In 1967, sociologist of science Norman W. Storer specifically distinguished between the natural sciences as hard and the social sciences as soft. He defined hardness in terms of
320-480: The formal sciences and natural sciences are considered hard science , whereas the social sciences and other sciences are described as soft science . Precise definitions vary, but features often cited as characteristic of hard science include producing testable predictions , performing controlled experiments , relying on quantifiable data and mathematical models , a high degree of accuracy and objectivity , higher levels of consensus, faster progression of
352-614: The hard scientists of Newton and Venus, the miners of Coby, the fishermen of Dunnin's World, the engineers of Cassida, the Catholic farmers of St. Marie, and the merchants of Ceta. The internal consistency of the series suggests that the resolution to be sought in Childe is the evolution of Responsible Man , individuals who integrate the three disciplines of the Dorsai, the Exotics, and
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#1732791968988384-503: The Dorsai appeared in "Lulungomeena", a 1954 short story published in Galaxy Science Fiction and later dramatized on the X Minus One radio program. The narrator is a man from "the Dorsai planets," who has been working far from home for a long time. The story portrays the Dorsai people as tough and matter-of-fact, but says little else about them. The main sequence novels basically fall into four periods approximately
416-476: The Friendlies to the overall advancement of humanity, and who do possess explicit if not yet well-defined paranormal abilities. As of The Chantry Guild , only Donal Graeme /Hal Mayne has achieved the full status of Responsible Man. The conflict which drives this evolution is the developing war between Old Earth, supplemented by the Dorsai and the Exotics, and the organization of Others led by Bleys Ahrens, with
448-646: The Philosopher, the Warrior, or the Faith-Holder". The first novel's protagonist would be mercenary John Hawkwood , who lived from the 1320s to 1394. Hawkwood "has been referred to as the first of the modern generals". He defeated a Milanese ruler who might have stymied the Renaissance. The second historical novel was to deal with the poet John Milton (author of Paradise Lost) in the period he served as
480-412: The absence of graphs. The amount of page area used for graphs ranged from 0% to 31%, and the variation was primarily due to the number of graphs included rather than their sizes. Further analyses by Smith in 2000, based on samples of graphs from journals in seven major scientific disciplines, found that the amount of graph usage correlated "almost perfectly" with hardness (r=0.97). They also suggested that
512-606: The aid of the Friendlies and a powerful (but largely irrelevant to the psychological conflict) coalition of the technically inclined younger worlds. The strength of the Others is that they are hybrids of two of the Splinter Cultures (Ahrens is of Friendly and Exotic extraction), and while less capable than the emerging Responsible Men they are significantly more numerous, and more interested in gaining power for themselves (as by Ahrens using his combined background to manipulate
544-435: The background and development of Bleys Ahrens, the antagonist of The Final Encyclopedia and The Chantry Guild . They take place in the decades leading up to those books, and were apparently added to the original series outline to provide more detail of the ultimate conflict in Childe . The year 2007 saw the publication of Antagonist , finished by Dickson's long-time assistant David W. Wixon. The first published reference to
576-495: The data because he studied individual measurements, without accounting for the way multiple measurements could trend in the same direction, and because not all the criteria that could indicate a discipline's scientific status were analysed. In 1984, Cleveland performed a survey of 57 journals and found that natural science journals used many more graphs than journals in mathematics or social science, and that social science journals often presented large amounts of observational data in
608-440: The degree to which a field uses mathematics and described a trend of scientific fields increasing in hardness over time, identifying features of increased hardness as including better integration and organization of knowledge, an improved ability to detect errors, and an increase in the difficulty of learning the subject. In the 1970s sociologist Stephen Cole conducted a number of empirical studies attempting to find evidence for
640-459: The entire Friendly culture to support his war against the Dorsai, Exotics, and Old Earth). Dickson has admitted that he was frequently inconsistent on the total number of inhabited worlds. The correct total is sixteen, under nine stars (counting Alpha Centauri A and B separately). Some uninhabited planets also play a role in the series. Steel Brother Steel Brother is a collection of science fiction stories by Gordon R. Dickson . It
672-472: The field, greater explanatory success, cumulativeness, replicability , and generally applying a purer form of the scientific method . A closely related idea (originating in the nineteenth century with Auguste Comte ) is that scientific disciplines can be arranged into a hierarchy of hard to soft on the basis of factors such as rigor , "development", and whether they are basic or applied . Philosophers and historians of science have questioned
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#1732791968988704-417: The field. For example, the social sciences as a whole had a 2.3-fold increased odds of positive results compared to the physical sciences, with the biological sciences in between. They added that this supported the idea that the social sciences and natural sciences differ only in degree, as long as the social sciences follow the scientific approach. In 2013, Fanelli tested whether the ability of researchers in
736-415: The hierarchy applies to individual fields, and demonstrated the same result using ten subfields of psychology (r=0.93). In a 2010 article, Fanelli proposed that we expect more positive outcomes in "softer" sciences because there are fewer constraints on researcher bias. They found that among research papers that tested a hypothesis, the frequency of positive results was predicted by the perceived hardness of
768-457: The humanities were included. Critics of the concept argue that soft sciences are implicitly considered to be less "legitimate" scientific fields, or simply not scientific at all. An editorial in Nature stated that there is an opinion of social science findings being more likely to intersect with everyday experience and may be dismissed as "obvious or insignificant" as a result. Being labelled
800-657: The id family wins its identity over the conservative part, and the human identity is made whole again". In addition, there are four shorter pieces and three novels that take place in the same fictional universe as the Childe Cycle, but are not part of the core cycle. In the latter volume, the stories are framed by a conversation between Hal Mayne and Amanda Morgan, during the events of The Final Encyclopedia . "Warrior" (1965) and "Brothers" (1973) had previously appeared in other publications. The four works have since been collected in one volume as The Dorsai Companion (1986). The three other novels are: These three novels concern
832-514: The idea of a hierarchy of the sciences can be found earlier, in the work of the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798‒1857). He identified astronomy as the most general science, followed by physics, chemistry, biology, then sociology. This view was highly influential, and was intended to classify fields based on their degree of intellectual development and the complexity of their subject matter. The modern distinction between hard and soft science
864-463: The interaction and conflict among humanity's traits, most importantly Courage, Faith, and Philosophy. The science fiction novels of the main Childe Cycle include: The final book, to have been titled Childe , had not been completed at the time of Dickson's death, and has never been published. Dickson's essay in Steel Brother says it was to chronicle a battle "in which the adventurous part of
896-476: The introduction to each story by Sandra Miesel from the previous collection, though they are not credited. This article about a collection of science fiction short stories published in the 1980s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hard science Hard science and soft science are colloquial terms used to compare scientific fields on the basis of perceived methodological rigor , exactitude, and objectivity. In general,
928-466: The most important. The inhabitants of Earth (now called Old Earth, since New Earth is one of the Younger Worlds) remain "full spectrum humans" as a control . The interstellar economy is based on the exchange of specialists, which puts Old Earth, the jack of all trades, at something of a disadvantage. Of all the Splinter Cultures, three are the most successful: Other Splinter Cultures include
960-616: The relationship between these characteristics and perceived hardness or softness. The more "developed" hard sciences do not necessarily have a greater degree of consensus or selectivity in accepting new results. Commonly cited methodological differences are also not a reliable indicator. For example, social sciences such as psychology and sociology use mathematical models extensively, but are usually considered soft sciences. However, there are some measurable differences between hard and soft sciences. For example, hard sciences make more extensive use of graphs , and soft sciences are more prone to
992-409: Was expected to deal with issues of space colonization , beginning a thread continuing through Necromancer and concluding with the full formation of the Splinter Cultures. As originally envisioned, the Cycle was to stretch from the 14th century to the 24th century; the completed books begin in the 21st century. The cycle deals with the conflict between progress and conservatism . It also deals with
Childe Cycle - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-401: Was first published by Tor Books in 1985 and reprints most of the stories from Dickson's 1984 collection Dickson! , with one substitution and one added interview. The stories originally appeared in the magazines SFWA Bulletin , Astounding , Galaxy Science Fiction , Analog Science Fiction and Fact , Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Science Fiction Stories . The book contains
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