I like mystery and detective novels - maybe this is something that is common among people who are interested in research, because, after all, a lot of research requires investigating the unknown. I recently read some works by G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown) and Isaac Asimov (Elijah Baley with robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw) after seeing both authors listed on a recommended mystery writers website. It is probably not surprising to see that I would say I found evidence of quantitative approaches to detection in the works by Asimov, the science fiction writer. The Baley and robot books take place in the future, after Earth inhabitants explored and colonized new worlds and began to identify themselves more with the colony worlds and less with Earth. An interesting consequence Asimov visualized was a weakening of the immune system, which led the non-Earth inhabitants, called in general "Spacers" to avoid Earthers. But my interest, and part of the point of this post, is Asimov's imagined evolution of social sciences. According to Baley, in the book "Naked Sun" (1957/1983 Del Rey), sociological exploration can be simplified to mathematics; various equations have been developed to explain human interactions. Within the three short novels I read (the others were: "The Caves of Steel," and "The Robots of Dawn"), Baley is regularly surprised when quantitative means or instruments are not the tools of choice in psychological matters, but the "Spacer" characters are depicted as lagging behind in this type of technology although advanced in robot technology. Surprisingly, however, Baley has very mixed responses to the several robot characters including sometimes outright hostility. Chesterton's Father Brown, on the other hand, practices detection in the early part of the 20th century. According to the introduction to my book, he was based to some extent on a real priest. Father Brown's vocation has provided him with opportunities to encounter and build an understanding of human behavior and he uses this knowledge to solve various types of crimes. In a story titled "The Mistake of the Machine" (Father Brown Selected Stories, 1992, Wordsworth), Brown has an opportunity to discuss the role of science in detection by considering an early version of a polygraph. The operator of this "psychometric" machine assessed changes in an individual's blood pressure in response to certain words. Admittedly this sounds like a fairly simple and by modern standards, primitive apparatus, but I very much like Brown's description of the result of such an instrument: "There's a disadvantage in a stick always point straight. What is it? Why, the other end of the stick always points the opposite way. It depends whether you get hold of the stick by the right end" (p. 179). The photo above, in addition to showing my copies of the two books I described, includes Mr. X, a Blabla "Boogoloo" doll.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
Categories
|