Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC The key to the difference between the lay idea of cause and the scientific idea of cause is that science does not accept the mere change, but analyses the change and ex- amines the relations involved. A plain man will say that a murderer died because he was hanged; the cause was “‘hang- ing,” the effect was “‘death.” And he will leave it at that. The scientist will not accept either “hanging” or “‘death”’ as_a single phenomenon. He will analyse each into its component parts and will find finer and finer relations be- tween the parts of the two things. Even the scientist does not get to the very ultimate cause of this man’s death, but he tries to get as near as he can. That is what makes him a scientist. ( ( ( ( ( ( TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THIS ISSUE The answers to all these questions are to be found in the text of this issue—and also on page 131. SCIENCE FICTION Another way of putting this is that the layman is content to find a many-one relation, whereas the scientist seeks a one-one relation. There are other things besides hanging that “‘cause’’ death. The scien- tist wants to find the common factor in all these “‘causes,”’ so that he can say “‘this results in death, and death never occurs unless this is present.” This will be, in the scientist’s view, the cause of death. Actually, it can’t be done, because death is such a complex event, but the example should make clear the difference between the lay- man’s and the scientist’s way of looking at cause. Next month we shall examine some of the methods whereby the cause of some- thing is determined. 1) Who is the Astronomer Royal? 2) Is camphor soluble in water? 3) Do all things have a cause? 4) Who wrote “ Take-off ’’? 5) Which fanzine is for ladies only? 6) Which fan group hasn’t got an official name? 126 comiclooks.conm