Sturgeon's Law
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Sturgeon's Law is an adage derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon: "Nothing is always absolutely so." The name is also frequently used for an adage that is more correctly known as Sturgeon's Revelation: "Ninety percent of everything is crud". In fact, most modern uses of the term Sturgeon's Law actually refer to the Revelation, including the definition currently listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
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[edit] Origins
Sturgeon's Law is referenced in Theodore Sturgeon's 1972 interview with David G. Hartwell (published in The New York Review of Science Fiction #7 and #8, March and April 1989): "Sturgeon's Law originally was 'Nothing is always absolutely so.' The other one was known as 'Sturgeon's Revelation.'"
The first reference to Sturgeon's Revelation appears in the March 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction, where Sturgeon wrote:
"I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud."
Another version of the story has Sturgeon involved in a panel discussion of modern literature with a professor of English literature. The professor read a few selected passages of "purple prose" from popular science fiction works, and declared "90% of this Science Fiction is crap." Sturgeon replied "90% of everything is crap."
[edit] Corollaries
Sturgeon's Revelation is sometimes expanded as follows:
- The Revelation: Ninety percent of everything is crud.
- Corollary: The existence of immense quantities of trash in science fiction is admitted and it is regrettable; but it is no more unnatural than the existence of trash anywhere.
[edit] Alternative phrasing
Sturgeon's Revelation is often cited using crap or shit instead of crud. The percentage figure also sometimes varies, having been in print as "94%" and even "98%".
The current phrasing of the Revelation is often taken as the second clause of a longer saying (derived from the aforementioned telling of the saying's origin): "Ninety percent of science fiction is crud, but that's because ninety percent of everything is crud."
Very rarely, a more optimistic second clause is added, "...but the remaining 10% is worth dying for".
[edit] Interpretations
The meaning of Sturgeon's Revelation was explicitly detailed by Sturgeon himself. He made his original remarks in direct response to ill-conceived attacks against science fiction that used "the worst examples of the field for ammunition". Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crud is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artistic artifacts do.
Sturgeon's Law may be regarded as an instance of the Pareto principle.
[edit] Justifying Sturgeon's Revelation
If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy. Sturgeon's Revelation is an observation that once humans are exposed to excellence, mere average desirability is disappointing. The more proper formulation might be something like "80% of everything is crud, and 10% of everything is crap." If one either defines crud to include crap, or else defines excellence and crap to each be about 5% of all experiences, then "90% of everything is crud" would be true.
However, most human affair involving individual participation do not follow a normal curve, but rather a Pareto distribution, where 20% of the individuals are responsible for 80% of the activity--however defined.
