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This is our discussion of the short story....

Oh, to Be a Blobel! � (1964) � by P.K. Dick

From the anthology The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. See The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

Another black humour. I found myself laughing out loud a few times (when the blobels are oozing angrily toward each other just cracked me up) and also sighing and shaking my head a few times especially at the end. Wonder how does it feel like to become your enemy. Great stuff and finale to an amazing collection. Definitely will read more of PKD's stories.

Silvana wrote: "Another black humour. I found myself laughing out loud a few times (when the blobels are oozing angrily toward each other just cracked me up) and also sighing and shaking my head a few times especially at the end..."

The "oozed angrily" line made me laugh, too.

I would like to stipulate, for the record, that PKD doesn't know a lot about biology. The "single cell organism" with a "nervous system" made me wince, and the mistatement of the probabilistic nature of Mendelian inheritance is embarrassing in a science fiction writer.

I was wondering if PKD was going for a bit of "Gift of the Magi" with the ending, but it only seemed so on Vivian's part, not George's.

I like the idea of a psychologist where you drop a $20 coin into a slot and get your session. (I notice there are a couple of stories in this collection that had psychologists � e.g. "Days of Perky Pat" � and $20 seems to be the going rate for a therapy session.)

Edit: I noticed "Blobels" was originally published in Galaxy magaizne, edited by Fred Pohl. Pohl used an AI psychiatrist as a major exposition point in his later novel, Gateway.

What do you mean by Gift of the Magi?

Silvana wrote: "What do you mean by Gift of the Magi?"

Must be my age showing. Does anyone read O. Henry anymore?
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I thought of The Gift of the Magi, too.

It's interesting that the automaton psychiatrist seems to maintain fairly high ethical standards.

I noticed the misread on Mendel, too. & I felt pretty sorry for the unnamed firstborn.

The description of the VUW hall for a VFW hall seemed pretty on-point. Here again, it's hard not to read later history -- Vietnam -- into the story. The U.S. had personnel in Vietnam at the time PKD was writing, and we'd fought Korea, but I don't think Vietnam had really become "Vietnam" in American culture/public opinon at the time. PKD writes in the notes that he was thinking mostly of WWII, which made me think of "Benny Cemoli" with its Marshall Plan and Nuremberg resonances.

So there is no such thing as the four probabilities/type of children coming out from hybrid parents?

Silvana wrote: "So there is no such thing as the four probabilities/type of children coming out from hybrid parents?"

No, Mendel's Law itself is accurately stated (if you allow for the potential of modified Blobbel/Human (George/Vivian) crossbreeding at all; Both hybrid parents have a Human and a Blobbel trait. I put that down into the suspension of disbelief the story requires.)

So, Mendel would expect an average of 25% pure Blobbel, 25% pure Human, and 50% hybrid.

Where the story (in the person of George) goes wrong is when George says, “Three, plus a fourth on the way. Listen, that fourth, Doctor, is vital to me; according to Mendel's Law it's a full-blooded Terran and by God I'm doing everything in my power to get custody of it." And the doctor agrees.

This is like saying, “the last coin toss was heads, so this time it will be tails.� Probability just doesn't work deterministically like that.

(I will note with a smile that in referring to the 4th child, George uses “it�, not “him� or “her,� in the above quote. He could, using his same incorrect logic that led him to predict a pure Human, deduce that since the previous children were two boys and one girl, the 4th child “must� be a girl. But real-world experience keeps him from making that mistaken interpretation of Mendel with regard to gender. :)

It should be pointed out that the word "homeostatic" first appears in paragraph 3.

G33z3r wrote: "Silvana wrote: "So there is no such thing as the four probabilities/type of children coming out from hybrid parents?"

No, Mendel's Law itself is accurately stated (if you allow for the potential o..."

Wow. Great, thanks for the explanation.

(another proof I should not take everything in SF as the correct scientific fact.)