Is science fiction a precursor to science fact?

[Viva Sativa]

I was having a debate over the status of the law of conservation of energy with a friend of mine. I stated that death is an exception to said law. His premise was that if energy can only be transferred into another form of energy, any electrical charge that dissipates from that host body most be transferred somewhere. I then explained to him that the human race as we know it has yet to record the electricity leaving it's host body. There is a clear distinction between observing that a body has ceased to conduct electricity and recording the transference of that energy. He then cited a Dr. Konstantin Korotkov who supposedly captured this transference using gas discharge visualization. The pseudoscience was easily dismissed after my friend was unable to find this miraculous photograph. I stated that modern science has already used EMF sensors in the same space a dying body occupied to measure an increase of electrical energy in that space and that study was inconclusive. Proving E is no longer in A doesn't prove E is in or at B.

One day an EMF probe that is capable of measuring all electric energy within the ionosphere will be built or even a probe that can detect any energy that electricity can translate into. What if after a horrible disaster of some kind a thousand lives are lost
and said probe measures this loss of energy but doesn't detect any increase of energy, then what? Would science recant and state that the law of conservation is still a theory with exceptions as the scientific method would demand or would people continue to perpetuate faith in science? Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.'

I would love to catalog all instances both canon and non-canon in Star Trek where this "law" is disregarded or ignored to see if those instances are plausible. Your help is appreciated.

 

[Viva Sativa]

Another example of faith in science from season 2 episode 1 of Numb3rs.

Dr. Larry Fleinhardt: You know, that term "dark matter" has always perplexed me. It fallaciously implies that the 95% of our universe that cannot be observed is some amorphous, eventless emptiness.

Amita Ramanujan: I'm sorry?

Dr. Larry Fleinhardt: I guess it's all too human. Instead of admitting to the present limits of our knowledge, we just declare things to be unknowable.
_________________________________________________________________________

Man is fallible.

 

[bbjeg]

I wouldn't really call this thread General Trek. You'll probably get a better response in the Science and Technology or the Science fiction and Fantasy forums. Your post sounds like you should read up on "Conservation of Information" but to answer the thread title, sometimes but no. It takes the imagination to come up with theories but science fiction's intent is just fiction.

 

[1001001]

Yeah, I'm not clear where this is supposed to be going. You're kind of all over the map.

I'm not really sure where this would fit, but it's probably not General Trek. Instead of moving it somewhere I'm just going to close it and give you the chance to re-formulate your thread idea and start it again in an appropriate forum.

Thanks.



"Hailing Frequencies Closed"