What sci-fi movie was the most insulting to science?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I thought The Core was pretty much a modern re-invention of Journey to the Center of the Earth. As far as the original story goes, it was pretty corny and the science was far out, even for what was understood back then. I'm reading it right now, and the science doesn't hold up at all, as far as rivers and storms and animals appearing deep inside the earth. So, even if The Core isn't a re-invention of the story, it does seem to take a lot from it in terms of how silly things can be.

If the main characters in that movie were all Irish musicians, would it have to be called The Corr?

 

[Myasishchev]

I took the Corrs Challenge once. It was worth it.

 

[Skywalker]

I think Star Trek 2009 would have to be pretty high on that list.

It'd be in the same general area as just about every other Trek film.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I thought The Core was pretty much a modern re-invention of Journey to the Center of the Earth. As far as the original story goes, it was pretty corny and the science was far out, even for what was understood back then. I'm reading it right now, and the science doesn't hold up at all, as far as rivers and storms and animals appearing deep inside the earth.

Actually Jules Verne was a rigorous hard-SF writer by the standards of his day. He looked scornfully on H. G. Wells's flights of fancy and strove only to write about scenarios that he actually considered possible based on his era's best understanding of science. If they seem absurd today, that's merely a testament to how far science has advanced since then. Probably a lot of our most scientifically accurate hard SF today will seem just as silly to people 150 years from now.

Obviously. I'm not knocking him, as I think he's a very good writer that has had a lot of insight that has actually become true. It's just that I don't think this particular story holds up very well compared to his other stories and I think it's a story that doesn't show his grasp of science very well as some of the theories are quite ludicrous, and probably were even then. Reading it now, it comes across more as science-fantasy than science-fiction. It's not a knock on him as a writer, but rather the content of the story itself and the ideas presented in it. The writing itself however, the style he writes in feels very modern, which is quite impressive considering it's a century old. Quite an accomplishment. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, he avoids many modernisms that creep up in other works by other authors that usually give them dated a dated feel.

 

[Gaith]

Using Christopher's definition, I'd probably say The Happening. Not because it was a terrible movie, although of course it was, but because it was infuriating in its depiction of science. No science teacher ever says crap like it's an "unexplained act of nature" that we'll never know the cause of. That's sort of the opposite of science.

In terms of flat-out science-insulting, I think it's hard to beat The Incredibles: the good guys are genetically elite ubermensch, and the one (brilliant, unacknowledged) inventor - as in the guy who actually bothers to use his noggin, being the core value of all scientific thought - is a vicious villain.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

In terms of flat-out science-insulting, I think it's hard to beat The Incredibles: the good guys are genetically elite ubermensch, and the one (brilliant, unacknowledged) inventor - as in the guy who actually bothers to use his noggin, being the core value of all scientific thought - is a vicious villain.

I respectfully disagree -- Buddy Pine (Syndrome) is the evil scientist/inventor; Edna Mode is the good scientist/inventor. The Incredibles themselves are depicted with human flaws, and are certainly not even Übermensch in a Nietzschian sense.

I'm still trying to think of a movie that actually goes out of its way to belittle scientists or the scientific method. I'm sure there are probably plenty but I have erased them from my memory.

 

[Aragorn]

I think Star Trek 2009 would have to be pretty high on that list. Plus, When Worlds Collide.

I've seen a lot of bad science in a lot SF films over the years. I doubt ST09 would even crack the top 100.

He'd list Star Trek 2009 in all bad movie lists possible -- worst horror, worst comedy, worst drama, worst musical, worst western, worst animated film, worst foreign film, worst silent film, worst black and white film, worst Michael Bay movie, you name it.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm going to nominate The Nutty Professor (1963), which has probably induced more nerd hate than any other film.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I think Star Trek 2009 would have to be pretty high on that list. Plus, When Worlds Collide.

I've seen a lot of bad science in a lot SF films over the years. I doubt ST09 would even crack the top 100.

He'd list Star Trek 2009 in all bad movie lists possible -- worst horror, worst comedy, worst drama, worst musical, worst western, worst animated film, worst foreign film, worst silent film, worst black and white film, worst Michael Bay movie, you name it.

I liked ST09 a lot, but c'mon, amongst a franchise's worth of silly Treknology, the giant red Happy Fun Ball™ of death was pretty crappy science; overshadowed only by the Genesis Torpedo in my favorite Trek movie. It was bad science when Abrams first used it on 'Alias' too. Not to mention galaxy-threatening FTL supernovae.

 

[Bishop76]

True enough, the red ball was terrible science, but it's hardly a new thing in Trek. Hell, the transporter is scientifically insulting. In Star Trek 6 we had a FTL moon explosion. The bad science in Trek 09 is just as bad as the bad science in the rest of Trek.

 

[JarodRussell]

Well, the thing to keep in mind is that "science" doesn't just mean facts and rules, it refers to the process we use to investigate the universe and distinguish valid ideas from invalid ones. So the way I read the question is, what SF movie was most disrespectful to the process of science or most badly misrepresented what science is?

One film that's always deeply annoyed me in that regard is Flatliners. This is a movie about a bunch of med students who are conducting an illicit "experiment" where they basically induce clinical death in one another for a few minutes, then revive each other and document their memories of the event as "evidence" of near-death experiences and/or the afterlife. Okay, it's sort of a supernatural thriller rather than strictly SF, but still, it purports to depict what the characters are doing as a scientific exploration, and nothing could be further from the truth. Science depends on repeatability. An experiment serves no purpose unless its results can be independently replicated and verified. What these students were doing relied entirely on subjective, unrepeatable, anecdotal accounts. There was no way they could possibly be verified, so they weren't scientific evidence of anything. The characters claimed that because they had experiences while their EEGs showed no brain activity, that was "proof" that they'd experienced something other than a hallucination or dream, something that happened to their consciousnesses outside of their brains/bodies, but that doesn't follow, because their minds could've experienced all those events in the brief moments before or after their brains shut down (since purely subjective, mental experiences can seem to take much more or less time than objectively elapses) or they could've constructed the memories after the fact to fill in the gap in their perception. Without external verification, there's no way to assess the reality of any of it. So there was nothing at all scientific about their methodology. They were just risking each other's lives for no reason. And that's what makes Flatliners one of the most insultingly wrong depictions of science as a process, even aside from the fantasy elements of the story.

Of course, there are countless movies, generally horror films and the like, that insult science by depicting it as dangerous hubris, tampering in Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and paying a karmic price, or as a cold, heartless discipline that's morally inferior to just going with your feelings or whatever. B-movies in the '50s were full of this. So in this case I'd rather cite an exception, a rare movie that treats science respectfully. That movie is the original The Fly. You'd think it would be a classic anti-science parable whose point was that David Hedison's character was wrong to try to "play God" and got the punishment he deserved for his arrogance. Instead, he's portrayed more as a tragic hero who chose to take a risk for the worthy cause of expanding human knowledge and should be honored for his sacrifice.

Great post. What's your opinion about Jurassic Park and its "don't play God" and "it will always end bad" angle?

 

[Christopher]

Using Christopher's definition, I'd probably say The Happening. Not because it was a terrible movie, although of course it was, but because it was infuriating in its depiction of science. No science teacher ever says crap like it's an "unexplained act of nature" that we'll never know the cause of. That's sort of the opposite of science.

Right. There's nothing unexplainable, just stuff we haven't explained yet. Scientists don't see a seemingly insoluble mystery as a reason to give up, but as a stimulating challenge.

Although, of course, science teachers generally aren't scientists. There are plenty of science teachers out there who don't understand how science works. Heck, my high-school biology teacher was a creationist. So if a movie showed a science teacher saying something like that, it's not as bad as if it showed an actual scientist saying it.

 

[Silvercrest]

Well, the thing to keep in mind is that "science" doesn't just mean facts and rules, it refers to the process we use to investigate the universe and distinguish valid ideas from invalid ones. So the way I read the question is, what SF movie was most disrespectful to the process of science or most badly misrepresented what science is?

One film that's always deeply annoyed me in that regard is Flatliners. This is a movie about a bunch of med students who are conducting an illicit "experiment" where they basically induce clinical death in one another for a few minutes, then revive each other and document their memories of the event as "evidence" of near-death experiences and/or the afterlife. Okay, it's sort of a supernatural thriller rather than strictly SF, but still, it purports to depict what the characters are doing as a scientific exploration, and nothing could be further from the truth. Science depends on repeatability. An experiment serves no purpose unless its results can be independently replicated and verified. What these students were doing relied entirely on subjective, unrepeatable, anecdotal accounts. There was no way they could possibly be verified, so they weren't scientific evidence of anything. The characters claimed that because they had experiences while their EEGs showed no brain activity, that was "proof" that they'd experienced something other than a hallucination or dream, something that happened to their consciousnesses outside of their brains/bodies, but that doesn't follow, because their minds could've experienced all those events in the brief moments before or after their brains shut down (since purely subjective, mental experiences can seem to take much more or less time than objectively elapses) or they could've constructed the memories after the fact to fill in the gap in their perception. Without external verification, there's no way to assess the reality of any of it. So there was nothing at all scientific about their methodology. They were just risking each other's lives for no reason. And that's what makes Flatliners one of the most insultingly wrong depictions of science as a process, even aside from the fantasy elements of the story.

I just watched this. Agree 100%.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Heck, my high-school biology teacher was a creationist.

My high-school physics teacher was a creationist.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

My high-school religious instruction teacher was an atheist.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My high-school religious instruction teacher was an atheist.

What was the name of the class and its syllabus?

 

[Greg Cox]

Heck, my high-school biology teacher was a creationist.

My high-school physics teacher was a creationist.

Okay, that's just nauseating . . . in both cases.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

My high-school religious instruction teacher was an atheist.

What was the name of the class and its syllabus?

"Religious Instruction" at the level of examining how western morals, ethics and so on are based on the teachings in the OT and NT. We're talking 40 years ago. The dude got fired for feeling up one of the girl pupils, which I guess isn't proscribed in the Bible.

 

[infinix]

My high-school physics teacher was a creationist.

As was mine. He is still one of the best teachers I have ever had. At the end of the school year, before we all graduated (he taught AP Physics) We actually spend a period discussing religion and science as a class. He wasn't biased and he wasn't preaching. It was an open discussion about our personal believes and how we go about perceiving the world.

I wonder if he still teaches there... I should go back and visit him.

 

[Bishop76]

Heck, my high-school biology teacher was a creationist.

My high-school physics teacher was a creationist.

Okay, that's just nauseating . . . in both cases.

How are personal religious beliefs nauseating? If they were teaching creationism in the classroom, I could see it as a problem, but neither of these posters actually mentioned that was the case. I'm sure that in my 12 years of primary education science teachers, a bunch of them were creationists. I'd bet it was close to half of them even.