Sturgeon's Law and Sturgeon's Revelation

Sturgeon's Law from The Claustrophile by Theodore Sturgeon.

Nothing is always absolutely so

Sturgeon's Revelation from Venture Magazine, 1958 where Theodore 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.

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. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

Interesting to think it through. As a side note, it appears that Sturgeon's Revelation is now usually referred to as Sturgeon's Law and the original Sturgeon's Law ("Nothing is always absolutely so") has fallen from circulation. For this discussion I will use the original nomenclature.

Of the original Sturgeon's Law, "Nothing is always absolutely so", there is little to be said. It is an absolute categorical,and by its nature inherently a paradox. If nothing is always absolutely so, then so is the claim that nothing is always absolutely so. A contemporary version of the old Epimenides paradox (A Cretan philosopher who earned immortality with his paradoxical claim, "All Cretans are liars"). It is a self-refuting claim.

Interestingly though, while not technically true, it is usefully true. Most claims which we believe to be absolutely true have exceptions and Sturgeon's Law is a useful call to consider whether the absolute certainty in a claim is indeed warranted.

Sturgeon's Revelation sounds like a version of the Pareto principle which observes that for many functions 80% of X is caused by 20% of Y. However, it is not. Rather, he is pointing out a rhetorical strategy which I am not aware has a name which is based on a logical fallacy false analogy (comparing two unlike things). In any field you can establish some threshold of excellence (and any corresponding measure of excellence), whether it is 80%, 90%, 95%, or 99%. The threshold is meaningful but arbitrary. The measurement can be interesting. 90% of what? Sales volume? Citations? Positive critical reviews? It doesn't particularly matter. All you need is the measure and the threshold and all fields will have a similar distribution.

The real insight of the Revelation is that rhetorically people frequently/usually arrive at a conclusion by comparing two unlike things. In Sturgeon's example, they are denigrating Science Fiction by comparing the worst examples in Science Fiction to the best examples in another field. What you ought to be doing is comparing the best in one field to the best in the other field.

So when someone cites Sturgeon's Revelation, they might be calling attention to the mundane observation that in all fields 90% of everything falls below a measured threshold. Alternatively, when someone cites Sturgeon's Revelation, they may be, more relevantly, calling attention to the false analogy fallacy.