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dsrtaoContains critical plot point discussion of _The Android's Dream_. If you wish to read this book with a pristine brain, you might want to checkpoint yourself and save this instance for a later merge. Or skip this entry.
At page 231 of the hardback first edition (OK, it's the only one available right now. Just so future Googlers don't get confused.) Scalzi has a character bring up an anecdote about Jewish law that eventually influences the resolution of the book. Briefly, the character relates how the laws of kashruth (food preparation, keeping things kosher) were invoked to handle an odd case: a vat-grown muscle product which was an artificially engineered hybrid of bison and pig. Bison is a kosher animal, pig is not. Unfortunately, Scalzi doesn't know (or chooses to ignore):
<ul>
<li> the actual laws
<li> the surrounding customs
<li> the tradition of argument itself
</ul>
As a result, this passage is very unconvincing. Here's my analysis of the way it would have gone:
Is this stuff kosher? Well, is it meat? Fish is not meat. There is no animal that is slaughtered to produce this substance. The cell was constructed with information taken from an unclean animal, but no pig tissue may have ever been involved. If some was, it was probably reduced to an inedible state, such that even a dog won't eat it... and thus it becomes indistinguishable from dirt, which is allowable. Not only is it probably kosher, but it's probably pareve (i.e. similar to vegetables and fruits) and could be used to construct a kosher cheeseburger. (On the other hand, to eat it in public might be forbidden, as doing things which appear to be forbidden in such a way that others might think that you advocate the forbidden act is itself forbidden.)
But the big stumbling block is that the final argument appears to be "this is a new thing, and none of the old rules apply". That's a very non-Jewish argument. A Jew might say "let us see which of the old rules apply", or "I do not feel that this rule is still valid" or "I do not accept your ruling",,,
I can see a way out of this, though. Since the whole anecdote is told by a non-Jew, it's reasonable to believe he mangled the whole thing.
<ul>
<li> the actual laws
<li> the surrounding customs
<li> the tradition of argument itself
</ul>
As a result, this passage is very unconvincing. Here's my analysis of the way it would have gone:
Is this stuff kosher? Well, is it meat? Fish is not meat. There is no animal that is slaughtered to produce this substance. The cell was constructed with information taken from an unclean animal, but no pig tissue may have ever been involved. If some was, it was probably reduced to an inedible state, such that even a dog won't eat it... and thus it becomes indistinguishable from dirt, which is allowable. Not only is it probably kosher, but it's probably pareve (i.e. similar to vegetables and fruits) and could be used to construct a kosher cheeseburger. (On the other hand, to eat it in public might be forbidden, as doing things which appear to be forbidden in such a way that others might think that you advocate the forbidden act is itself forbidden.)
But the big stumbling block is that the final argument appears to be "this is a new thing, and none of the old rules apply". That's a very non-Jewish argument. A Jew might say "let us see which of the old rules apply", or "I do not feel that this rule is still valid" or "I do not accept your ruling",,,
I can see a way out of this, though. Since the whole anecdote is told by a non-Jew, it's reasonable to believe he mangled the whole thing.
