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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by BeerMug Paladin View Post
    Not quite science, but the thing that came to my mind immediately was the high school class in Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) giving students ethics homework and treating morality like it was a branch of mathematics, where moral conclusions can be derived from self-evident first principles and just lead to a perfect and absolute moral system. For some reason, I took that reading as a genuine belief of the author and not parody. I haven't bothered to re-read it to check again if it was parody, but... If it wasn't... Woo boy.

    Could have just stuck out to me because I'm a mathematician.
    Starship Troopers (1997 Film) is a Paul Verhoeven directed movie (you are probably also familiar with him for Robocop) critiques of society and culture is what he does. Once can use the word "satire" but satire is not exactly the right word for it. There is a great 2020 retrospective of Starship Troopers in the New Yorker by David Roth. I am not linking to these things for it is probably best not to go too deep for we have rules about real world events, politics, etc and things that critique / satire real world things will probably make us start talking about the real / original things that inspired the cultural critique.

    -----

    Note Starship Troopers is loosely based on the idea of a Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers (1959.) I say loosely for the Director and the Writter of the film never finished reading it. Heinlein has some politics in the real world, but he also advances similar but different politics in that book, but also illustrates that those politics were kind of destructive to the main character even if the book simultaneously celebrates them.

    It is complicated and I am dropping this stuff now

    (I like / love the 1997 Film.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    I mean, Emmerich meant well, he usually does... but maybe this wasn't the subject for him to tackle?
    The Patriot was not the right subject for him to tackle for other reasons. I adore the Stargate and Independence Day movies but simultaneously he helped make alien conspiracies and shadow government distrust more popular.

    Real world consequences being affected by his movies are often a side effect that can't be limited to a single movie that he made. (But hey I got SG1 out of all this, so *shrug* it is a mixed bag.)
    Last edited by Ramza00; 2020-08-28 at 10:23 PM.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga View Post
    Maybe not for you, but I was twitching every time it got brought up in-movie. If it had been a throw-away gag it would have been fine, but with the entire plot hinging on such eye-gougingly bad science it was badly distracting.
    It's a cartoon where meatballs and spaghetti fall from the sky. I think the walking tv already clued the watchers that there will be no science. Only fantasy

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Technically not science (it's compliance), but anything involving the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials and generally anything involving how medicines are made, tested and authorised for sale.

    Most egregious was in the TV series Leverage, where the main protagonist figured out a pharmaceutical company was re-using a previously failed drug after 5 seconds of looking at the drug's chemical structure on the company's promotional material. Although to be honest, if the marketing guys are that stupid, the company deserves to be shut down.

    About the only two things I've seen that accurately represent the process are:
    • The West Wing, when they discuss a company price gouging a product that costs cents to make, which is immediately countered by that the second pill costs cents but the first cost $35 million (although that figure is normally north of $350 million these days)
    • The Fugitive film when Tommy Lee Jones' character realises that pharma company involved is a massive multi-billion dollar company and calls it a monster (big pharma is quite scary when you look at the scope of what they're involved in - the largest is just behind Apple in the list of top 50 companies by revenue).


    That said, big pharma haven't done much to dissuade people that they're not big and evil, especially when their CEOs have come out with comments worthy of the best cartoon moustache twirling villains (see Nexavar and the then Bayer CEO).

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sermil View Post
    The one that probably bothered me the most was the scene in Gravity where Kowalski (George Clooney) is about to heroically detach the cable that's attaching him to Dr. Stone, so at least one of them can survive, and there's clearly tension on the cable.


    Which makes no sense, he should have just snapped back towards the ISS as soon as they reached the end of the tethers.

    I know it's not the most egregious bad science in a movie, but it stood out because Gravity is otherwise pretty careful to show fairly realistic zero-g maneuvering and physics, so it really stood out when they suddenly abandoned the realistic for "high tension on a line so that we can have a dramatic moment". I vaguely recall that not 10 minutes earlier, the movie was showing Dr. Stone getting snapped forward on that same line every time she reached the end of it, and it not having tension for more than a moment.

    (And yes, I'm aware that there were a few other places where the movie played loose with orbital mechanics, but they were subtle, off-screen things. The rope tension was very obvious and on-screen.)

    That's always bothered me more than, I dunno, Bruce Banner obviously doubling in mass because he gets angry. Marvel isn't trying to be realistic. Gravity is.
    Yes, but they haven't reached the end of their tethers, have they? They're still moving, and the parachute is slowly taking up the tension, because it's a loose tangle of cords and cloth, rather than a single line designed to be used as a tether.

    Everyone bashes this scene in particular, but in the wide shots, you can clearly see they're still moving - they have momentum. Clooney's character is the experienced astronaut, he knows that although they feel weightless, their momentum will get them both detached as the parachute cords are still unravelling - behind Bullock's character, where she can't see.

    I saw that the first time I watched the movie, and I'm always surprised other science fans don't seem to have noticed. We're supposed to be observant, people.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    The entire moral ambiguity of the ending of The LAst of Us and pretty much the entire justification for the Last of Us Part II not being a horrible tragedy where the sociopathic villain gets away with murder is dependant on the idea that a surgeon can create a vaccine on the first try when he has no idea what he's working with and is actively planning to destroy the source for a potential vaccine in the process of studying it.

    1: The very fact that the surgeon is planning this is proof that he has no idea what he's doing and is grossly unqualified to do any kind of research at all: The first rule of science is "don't destroy the thing you're studying, especially if you can't get more." Followed by "all experiments much be repeatable and tested multiple times to ensure accurate and precise data" which can't happen if you destroyed the only one of the things you're studying in existence.

    In other words, clearly this surgeon failed science class in high school.

    2: Beyond that: You can only make so much of a vaccine at a time. Even if successful, he'd maybe have enough for a dozen people.

    3: Vaccines don't work that way. You can't vaccinate against a fungal infection.

    4: What no one seems to get in stories like this is that a vaccine only stops someone from becoming a zombie, it doesn't stop them from being eaten by zombies and that's the bigger concern. Coming back as a zombie is really only an issue is if you get attacked and survive.

    5: Ellie's immunity is becuase she's already infected with a benign strain of the fungus so the parasitic strain can't take root. It is explicitly stated that they've tested her blood and it is saturated with fungal spores. You don't need to cut out Ellie's still living brain and dissect it t study the fungus growing in it, just culture it from the spores in her blood you ****ing moron!.

    Infect rats or another human analogwith spores extracted from Ellie's blood, study the pathology in rats, and then dissect them to see what happened. Repeat, introduce differing variables one at a fricking time until you're pretty sure you have rats that are immune, expose them to the parasitic strain to see if they're infected, repeat from step one as often as needed until you can make immune rats, then repeated the perfected process on human volunteers(actual healthy adult volunteers who know the risks, not children that you did it to without asking while they were out cold and helpless, ya goddamn sociopaths) to see if it will take.

    If it is possible to replicate Ellie's immunity, approaching the process rationally and ethically while following the scientific method is far, far, far more likely to get results than murdering a child.

    (It also assumes that a group of terrorists who screw over people they've made deals with and are willing to murder a child would be willing to share what little vaccine they have instead of hoarding it for themselves if they pull a blasphemous unholy child-murder powered anti-miracle out of their ass, but that's more socioplagy and I assume that we're focused more on the hard sciences here.)

    That goes for every media where fatally vivisecting, or murdering and then disecting, the only source of the wrid biology thing to figure out how it works.

    Not only is it immoral, it is scientifically unethical and just utterly stupid.

    It's one thing to discect a member of an alien species that came to Earth as part of a hostile militerisic invasion force if you've already killed it in battle and want to figure out where to aim your guns or if issuing special bullets would be cost effective.

    It's something else entirely to kidnap and murder a friendly alien or mutant superhero for... Hell if I know the reason beyond "for science."

    Even ignoring the lack of morality and ethics involved, I garruntee you that there's nothing you can learn from doing that that makes up for the loss of the subject you destroyed in the process of the vivisection.
    Last edited by Rater202; 2020-08-29 at 02:20 AM.
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  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Speaking of cloning complete copies of people. When was the last time anyone has seen that being done in a movie or show? All the examples I can think of are from the 90s.
    I think since then it has become common knowledge that clones are just time delayed twins. I don't remember seing memory cloning in ages.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    It is plausible to vaccinate against fungal infections. Such vaccines have been pursued by much of big pharma, though one has yet to succeed past early clinical stages.

    There's been one in the works for Candida which has shown promise, but... ya'know, vaccine development takes time.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Speaking of cloning complete copies of people. When was the last time anyone has seen that being done in a movie or show? All the examples I can think of are from the 90s.
    I think since then it has become common knowledge that clones are just time delayed twins. I don't remember seing memory cloning in ages.
    It still gets used by Marvel Comics, by Mister Sinister and the Jackal... But they're kind of grandfathered in and, at least in universe it's mentioned that it's the specific methodologies they use to make clones that result in memory carry-over.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    It is plausible to vaccinate against fungal infections. Such vaccines have been pursued by much of big pharma, though one has yet to succeed past early clinical stages.

    There's been one in the works for Candida which has shown promise, but... ya'know, vaccine development takes time.
    Okay. Dos that invalidate anything else I said about the completely lack of scientific anything int he plan to murder a fourteen-year-old and try to make a vaccine after destroying the one and only source of the non-parasitic version of the fungus?
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    There's also the new-series Dr Who epsiode where the lab handing a really deadly disease has an automatic vent into the atmosphere protocol for emergencies! I mean, why bother with a bio-hazard lab in the first place...

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    Okay. Dos that invalidate anything else I said about the completely lack of scientific anything int he plan to murder a fourteen-year-old and try to make a vaccine after destroying the one and only source of the non-parasitic version of the fungus?
    If you're criticizing them for their lack of scientific understanding? A little.

    Also,

    April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients.
    Is the only explanation given for her immunity, which is to say they don't know. Nothing about benign spores in any source that I can find.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bavarian itP View Post
    That is not at all a problem. Humans darkening the sun (somehow) because machines run on solar power, that's the problem. Because humans run (indirectly) on solar power too.
    I don’t think they affected the sun, but instead blackened the skies. That’s actually more plausible than the “human battery” plot device, since climate engineering is an actual thing.

    And while it would obviously be detrimental to life on Earth, I think humanity only “scorched the skies“ when it became clear the machines would win the war and the human race was doomed.
    Last edited by Giggling Ghast; 2020-08-29 at 04:48 AM.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    If you're criticizing them for their lack of scientific understanding? A little.

    Also,



    Is the only explanation given for her immunity, which is to say they don't know. Nothing about benign spores in any source that I can find.
    They are still going to destroy the onl source of the benign form of the fungus in the process of studying it.

    the project is still being done by a surgeon who sees nothing wrong with murdering a child(a gross violation of the Hippocratic oath) who doesn't understand basic scientific concepts like "don't destroy the thing you're studying" and "seriously, it's the only one and you explicitly don't know how it works, don't destroy it" instead of anyone even remotely qualified to try and make a vaccine.

    Also, the line "as we have seen in all past cases" is a qualifier that means he is currently talking about the ways in which Ellie is like previous infected that have been studied.

    Like all previous infected subjects, Ellie has high levels of cordyceps antigens in her (blood) serum and cerebrospinal fluid and samples of her blood, when exposed to fungal growing media, rapidly grow crodyceps, which is the indication that her blood is saturated with fungal spores.

    He then goes on to describe the ways that her infection is differant.

    Look. Ellie was, per the DLC story in the first game, infected by a completly ordinary bite from an ordinary infected. Either the fungus mutated after she was bitten, inwhich case killing her is stupid becuase it would destroy the neign fungus... Or Ellie herself has a genetic mutation that makes the fungus not fully infect her, inqhich case her immunity can't be replicated by cutting her brain out, you'd need to sequence her genome, figure out what combination of genes made her immune, and then give up becuase gene therapy that extreme is currently impossible.

    Eitherway, there's no point in cutting out her brain. In one it's completely pointless in the other it's actively harming your chances of success.

    I'm assuming it's the fungus, because that means it might actually be possible to replicate, but if it's Ellie then he goes from being an utter moron to murdering a child for literally no reason.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Whether it's Life, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant etc., it seems that everyone in sci-fi horror is completely incapable of following basic work safety protocols. How hard is it to wear a helmet? Or just keep it on? You're visiting an exoplanet, even if the air is theoretically breathable, you don't want to contaminate the surroundings with your own microbial life! Sheesh. And what's with the tendency to break quarantine? Good Christ!

    It often looks like whoever's in charge of recruiting these people specifically picks the least competent, over-emotional, over-gullible morons.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    There's also the new-series Dr Who epsiode where the lab handing a really deadly disease has an automatic vent into the atmosphere protocol for emergencies! I mean, why bother with a bio-hazard lab in the first place...
    Well since someone brought Doctor who up...

    So, four daleks (a species of spece alien nazis) realize that their creed of being the ultimate life form is flawed since they keep losing. To try to shake things up they inject human DNA in their leader (he actually consumes a whole guy and merge with him). As this initial test looks successful (the guy claims to be experiencing more hatred than before which is good for the daleks) they decide to inject human captives with dalek DNA to turn them into human-daleks. However when the dalek-human start to feel compassion and realize they're the bad guys, the other daleks decide to go behind his back and completely replace the captives' DNA with dalek DNA. This is (apparently) successful as they have a bunch of robotic-acting humans. However they refuse to obey their orders to EX-TER-MI-NATE the daleks' ennemies. Turns out that's because our hero, The Doctor (himself an alien of the Time Lord species) hugged the lightning rod that powers the daleks' DNA injecting machine ans so transmitted a pinch of his DNA to the human-daleks thus giving them a conscience.

    So not only are the subjects completely human looking despite having no human DNA whatsoever, not only does conscience originate from your DNA (despite the dalek's 24/7 life supports having machine messing with their brains to ensure they stay unable to feel anything but hatred) but DNA is carried by electricity.

    And you want to know the best part? The lightning rod didn't even conduct electricity! It attracted solar winds!


    I'm generally forgiving of bad science in Doctor Who because it's not hard science at all, but that was the resolution to the episode.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Well since someone brought Doctor who up...

    So, four daleks (a species of spece alien nazis) realize that their creed of being the ultimate life form is flawed since they keep losing. To try to shake things up they inject human DNA in their leader (he actually consumes a whole guy and merge with him). As this initial test looks successful (the guy claims to be experiencing more hatred than before which is good for the daleks) they decide to inject human captives with dalek DNA to turn them into human-daleks. However when the dalek-human start to feel compassion and realize they're the bad guys, the other daleks decide to go behind his back and completely replace the captives' DNA with dalek DNA. This is (apparently) successful as they have a bunch of robotic-acting humans. However they refuse to obey their orders to EX-TER-MI-NATE the daleks' ennemies. Turns out that's because our hero, The Doctor (himself an alien of the Time Lord species) hugged the lightning rod that powers the daleks' DNA injecting machine ans so transmitted a pinch of his DNA to the human-daleks thus giving them a conscience.

    So not only are the subjects completely human looking despite having no human DNA whatsoever, not only does conscience originate from your DNA (despite the dalek's 24/7 life supports having machine messing with their brains to ensure they stay unable to feel anything but hatred) but DNA is carried by electricity.

    And you want to know the best part? The lightning rod didn't even conduct electricity! It attracted solar winds!


    I'm generally forgiving of bad science in Doctor Who because it's not hard science at all, but that was the resolution to the episode.
    "it's not hard science" is a bit overly generous.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    "it's not hard science" is a bit overly generous.
    It has however, given the best phrase ever to describe how time travel works.
    Last edited by Brother Oni; 2020-08-29 at 10:19 AM.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Speaking of cloning complete copies of people. When was the last time anyone has seen that being done in a movie or show? All the examples I can think of are from the 90s.
    I think since then it has become common knowledge that clones are just time delayed twins. I don't remember seing memory cloning in ages.
    Battlestar Galactica remake.

    But you are correct we are getting different stories now a days, with different tropes. Lot more "groundhog day" type stuff.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    "it's not hard science" is a bit overly generous.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bavarian itP View Post
    That is not at all a problem. Humans darkening the sun (somehow) because machines run on solar power, that's the problem. Because humans run (indirectly) on solar power too.
    It's absolutely a problem because they keep the humans alive by feeding them other humans. Even with perfect energy transfer from the dead humans to the living ones, you can't create enough (any) excess energy for the machines that way.

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Darkening the sun pretty much just means increasing atmospheric albedo - which is not only very doable, but something that appears to have been done. It's an extreme scorched earth strategy that invites comparisons to chemotherapy (kill everyone, kill them slightly faster), but this part makes sense. Meanwhile the thermodynamics involved in humans as a heat source make no sense whatsoever.
    Yeah, that.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Bonus point re TLOU: Being quiet shouldn't hide you from echolocation.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    It's absolutely a problem because they keep the humans alive by feeding them other humans. Even with perfect energy transfer from the dead humans to the living ones, you can't create enough (any) excess energy for the machines that way.



    Yeah, that.
    Yeah to my understanding with the animatrix and fan theories that there is not a single machine "goal" where all the machines are unified around, instead there are machines factions and one of those factions is they respect the elder humans, their parents, and the matrix goal is to preserve humans in a wildlife preserve / zoo / assistance living center for humans are like their elderly parents and no longer can be trusted to live a free life without hurting the machines or the greater environment.

    Yet not all machines feel this way, and thus people like Agent Smith think this goal is antithetical to perfection. You are keeping ants around for you identify somewhat with antsthe humans as ancestors.

    Likewise the battery story is told by Morpheus who does not understand The Purpose of The Matrix (as evident by the 2nd movie in the trilogy) and Morpheus is a false prophet who is trying to be logical with the perceptions he can see but he is not seeing the entire thing and thus his explanation of the order of things is just flat out wrong. He is explaining the demiurge without understanding the logos that created the demiurge, and thus he gets lots of stuff wrong. Then again the machines such as Smith, the Merovingian, even the Architect get stuff wrong too for there is not a unified goal that unites all the machines and creates the order. Each individual machine which has free will (and not all machines have free will) can have their own different goals and thus showing Machine Families in the 3rd movie, and the fact Machines can rebel in the 2nd movie (the oracle speech but also Agent Smith choosing not to be deleted / recompiled) means there is no ultimate order but there may be beauty in this chaos for things can transform and be different than our goals and expectations, we can be surprised in this machine dominated world and this is what gives The Oracle and some other machines hope.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Whether it's Life, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant etc., it seems that everyone in sci-fi horror is completely incapable of following basic work safety protocols. How hard is it to wear a helmet? Or just keep it on? You're visiting an exoplanet, even if the air is theoretically breathable, you don't want to contaminate the surroundings with your own microbial life! Sheesh. And what's with the tendency to break quarantine? Good Christ!

    It often looks like whoever's in charge of recruiting these people specifically picks the least competent, over-emotional, over-gullible morons.
    I haven't seen Life, but I think these movies could be used to teach about safety on the workplace.

    Jurassic Park: The Lost World: Incompetence kills.

    Prometheus: Always wear your personal protective equipment.

    Alien: Covenant: Do not improvise.
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    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    *snip*
    I don't particularly care whether Morpheus' explanation was erroneous or not; it was still a depiction of bad science in a fictional work that went unquestioned by said work, so I brought it up here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Whether it's Life, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant etc., it seems that everyone in sci-fi horror is completely incapable of following basic work safety protocols. How hard is it to wear a helmet? Or just keep it on? You're visiting an exoplanet, even if the air is theoretically breathable, you don't want to contaminate the surroundings with your own microbial life! Sheesh. And what's with the tendency to break quarantine? Good Christ!

    It often looks like whoever's in charge of recruiting these people specifically picks the least competent, over-emotional, over-gullible morons.
    Yeah, Prometheus/AC were extremely bad too.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2020-08-29 at 12:45 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?
    That people who know how to use a computer are in fact mages capable of doing almost anything in the space of a half dozen keystrokes.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    I haven't seen Life, but I think these movies could be used to teach about safety on the workplace.

    Jurassic Park: The Lost World: Incompetence kills.
    The funny thing about Jurassic Park: The Lost World is all the people there were smart enough to not make those mistakes, and they realized they made those mistakes and in a different mindset they would not make those mistakes.

    But they were

    • distracted by other humans
    • distracted by their ideas
    • distracted by the things they value including their past exes
    • in awe of the dinosaurs
    • in awe of their own nobility for they are going to save everyone
    • yadda, yadda, yadda


    And this combination of distraction and awe,this "Not Being Present", gets everyone killed. And as soon as they return to being present and mindful they dramatically reduced the danger and eventually tech was able to conquer nature again.

    In some ways The Lost World is a better movie about Hubris than the first Jurassic Park. It was going to a place you never had mastery over and thinking you have mastery over it, not being present, and that thing eats you alive. And the reason all those people are "SLOPPY" even though they should know better is they did not have the presence of mind to use the knowledge which they actually possessed.

    -----

    I love this movie for precisely the reasons other people hate it. It is SO HUMAN and people who hate it think they would be super-competent for they are logicians or something. The scared 12 year old was the only one who was acting with sense for she was scared and realized she did not know much and thus was actually taking steps in order to be more safe.

    I wonder if one of the reasons why I liked this movie for I too was a child of divorce.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    This isn't as bad as what's already been posted, but the one I remember hurting my brain was Pacific Rim.

    Specifically, the part where all of the mechs are taken out by an EMP blast, except the one used by the heroes because having a nuclear power source somehow made it "analog" and immune to an EMP? Sorry, no. All the rest of the computer equipment on that thing is still fried even if the power source still works.
    Funny thing is, they had a perfectly good excuse sitting right there. Gypsy Danger is a later generation nuclear powered Jaeger. Early Jaegers had nuclear reactors, but exposed pilots to radiation. GD therefore had generous amounts of radiation shielding installed, which is a perfectly serviceable excuse for how it can take an EMP hit and keep going. It's insulated.

    Obviously that still has problems, but we're talking about a world where giant robots fight monsters. It'll do.

    Now if you want to go for another Pacific Rim thing, there is that whole bit about how "No alloys!" is a good thing. Because clearly, it is not. And I don't think you could build anything like a Jaeger without some serious materials science and metallurgy happening.

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    This isn't as bad as what's already been posted, but the one I remember hurting my brain was Pacific Rim.

    Specifically, the part where all of the mechs are taken out by an EMP blast, except the one used by the heroes because having a nuclear power source somehow made it "analog" and immune to an EMP? Sorry, no. All the rest of the computer equipment on that thing is still fried even if the power source still works.
    Now THAT could ahve been explained by the mech being nuclear powered and hence VERY much radiaton shielded. And would have worked too....but...ah well.
    it was a great bombast movie otherwise ^^

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Whether it's Life, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant etc., it seems that everyone in sci-fi horror is completely incapable of following basic work safety protocols. How hard is it to wear a helmet? Or just keep it on? You're visiting an exoplanet, even if the air is theoretically breathable, you don't want to contaminate the surroundings with your own microbial life! Sheesh. And what's with the tendency to break quarantine? Good Christ!

    It often looks like whoever's in charge of recruiting these people specifically picks the least competent, over-emotional, over-gullible morons.
    Absolutely agreed.

    Really, I WANTED to like the movies, but they were going about it (Interstellar has the same problem with "Oh, the planet orbits a black hole, no we wont scan for anything, we just land and overlook km high waves....ah dont get me STARTED) as freshly and unknowingly as if this was the fiorst season of Star Trek.
    A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”

    01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110

    Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”

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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    Multiple mentions of 'Doctor Who' and no mention of the WORST science episode. I do, of course, refer to ''Kill The Moon'. Where it is revealed the moon is a giant egg that is about to hatch a butterfly type creature which will devastate Earth. Luckily the Moon hatches a creature which instantly lays an egg the exact same size and mass as the Moon (because mass just can be wished into existence right ?) and flies off

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Moon
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2020-08-29 at 03:18 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Oh no! People are enjoying a show that, you, personally, do not like! Do you
    A) Accept that différent people like different things or
    B) make a comic calling them stupid with no standards and put it on the internet?

    If you chose B, congratulations! Nobody outside of your echo chamber will care!

    Seriously, I enjoy SMBC, but this one isnÂ’t the comicÂ’s high point.
    I don't recall Weinersmith calling anyone stupid with no standards. I recall him explaining why he doesn't like a show in a humorous context. Not much different than the headbrick comic, except that you enjoy what the former skewers and (I assume) do not care about what the latter skewers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I don't particularly care whether Morpheus' explanation was erroneous or not; it was still a depiction of bad science in a fictional work that went unquestioned by said work, so I brought it up here.
    IIRC originally the humans were supposed to be the processing power got the Matrix, not the energy source, but some high-up thought that would confuse people and wanted it changed.

    I can't ever recall a source for that, though, so feel free to disbelieve.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-08-29 at 03:50 PM.
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    Default Re: What's the worst depiction of science did you see in fiction?

    With that idea, why bother with humans in the first place? If the point of the farms is to keep up the Matrix that is used to keep the people in farms, seems like you could do without either ;)
    Quote Originally Posted by Pickford View Post
    I don't understand your point. Why does it matter what I said?

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