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Ripping the supernatural out of science fiction.

  • Thread starter cynical dreamer
  • Start date
cynical dreamer said:
Name me a science fiction series that avoids any and all supernatural elements in all of it's many forms.

Yes that includes psychic councellors and doctors, psychic links to marine mammals, ghosts, demons, gods, devils, mind melding, vampires, etc, etc...
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Part of the problem with what you're asking is that for some time some people thought there might really be a scientifically verifiable form of psychic power and did scientific research to try to back that up. The idea caught on with a number of SF writers.

When JMS was all over the online world promoting Babylon 5, he described it as the most scientifically accurate SF TV space opera ever, saying he was going to leave out a lot of the unscientific stuff from the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars. When I asked why the most scientifically accurate SF TV series was going to have characters with psychic powers, he said, basically, lots of good classic SF has characters with psychic powers and it's accepted as a standard SF idea. In other words, he didn't answer the question.

If you're talking about TV series rather than, say, a science fiction novel, you have two issues to deal with. First, not too many TV writers know anything about either science or science fiction; they just go for the "weird shit." See, for example, the writing career of Brannon Braga. Second, if you're doing a couple of dozen stories a year for several years, eventually you're either going to get lazy and fall back on this kind of stuff, or you're just going to want to put your own spin on the ideas everyone else has already done.

TV just isn't the place for pure, rigourous science fiction.
 
Why is it silly? We live in the 21st century. We're discussing 21st century entertainment. Why would it be silly for anyone to want to see a piece of entertainment that, while set in the future, still reflects and conforms to our current level of understanding?
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Considering that science fiction is about EXPLORING and expanding our boundaries, breaking through barriers, I find it silly placing more barriers, especially since not everyone agrees that current scientific concensus represents barriers impassible.

On the other hand wanting or asking for some form of "scientific purity" doesn't exclude scientific advances unknown to us. Bova's been heavy on the practical use of buckeyballs, something that currently isn't being used all that much. Plus he's mentioned advanced or "exotic" building materials, fuel mixtures, etc... Plus Bova's "Grand Tour" establishes that there are microbial life forms on Venus and the moons of Saturn, an extinct sentient civilization on Mars and giant intelligent dolphin like animals lving inside Jupiter. He's presented all of these in such a way that the ideas sound scientifically believable.
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All this amounts to technobabble. Science fiction is most interesting when it's about people and their lives in these imaginary settings.

I just don't find fidelity to what "sounds" scientifically believable that important, or even that interesting. Technobabble tends to put me asleep.


Perhaps the "scientific purity" qutoent can be satisfied by providing a psedo-scientific explaination for such things. Or at least point to naturally occuring parallels. Maybe this will make it less "pure" but it does keep it from sounding "mystical" or "supernatural."
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I don't think you need a technobabble "explanation" for everything. There is plenty in the real world which escapes easy explanation.

Why should it not be thus in science fiction, even "pure" SF?

The "science" has a "neat" factor, but it's not the primary draw to the genre for me.
 
I think 'psychic powers' is definitely in the bracket of Things Humans Absolutely Should Have But Don't. That's why it's so seductive to sci-fi writers. I agree it's too easy and someone should have the courage to leave it out but TV sci-fi writers don't seem to be able to. I understand why but it is disappointing.
 
TV just isn't the place for pure, rigourous science fiction.
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I think it could be, if it was backdrop. If it was the main selling point, it would fail.

Also, I don't know how long that would stay interesting. A speculative fiction TV series that locks itself down into any assumptions/dogma stands a chance of getting predictable.

Science fiction is about breaking boundaries, not adhering to them.

So I think "pure" science fiction could be a launch platform, if you will. But if you never leave it...
 
Bionic Woman reboot.

Oh, Six Million Dollar Man.
Knight Rider.

Possibly The Incredible Hulk Bill Bixby. But on this i'm not certain.

Jake 2.0.
John Doe.

Jeremiah.
Eureka.
 
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Nedersong, 4 posts in a row like that? :vulcan:
That's why God invented the Edit button, as well as the concept of patience.
 
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Star Wars?

I'm not a big fan of Star Wars, but I don't think there was any mention of that sutff during the first six movies. Then again I could be wrong.
 
the thing about psi powers is that it may not be psi powers at all....it just might look like psi powers to the untrained eye (That's the whole premise of Psyche).

For instance, in the TNG ep "Cause and Effect," Data gets the android equivalent of a premonition. However, watching the episode we get a TECH reason for the message.

Babylon 5 is another example of this. From the very first episode we see that the Minbari believe in prophesy. Their prophosies had an uncanny way of comming true. Its only later do we discover they are the result of a pre-destination paradox.

The new BSG has by no means conclusively included supernatural elements. Its intentionally left ambiguous. So far most of the things that have happened have been given rational explanations. The same was true on Lost until very late in the game.

As for shows without supernatural elements....

Total Recall 2070
Space Above and Beyond
Time Trax
Time Cop
Sliders (Sliders is a unique case since the very nature of the show opens the potential for "different" physical laws in other universes.....its a stretch though)
Invasion
Alien Nation
Century City (one cannot help but notice that most of these did not get more than one season...if that)
Doomwatch
EUReKA
Jericho (is this sci-fi)
Jeremiah
Mann & Machine
Mercy Point
Seven Days
Planet of the Apes
Primeval (conditionally...we do not know the origins of the rifts)
The Prisoner
Surface
TekWar
Viper (once you accept Knight Rider you get all of its copy cats)
 
stonester1 said:
TV just isn't the place for pure, rigourous science fiction.
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I think it could be, if it was backdrop. If it was the main selling point, it would fail.

Also, I don't know how long that would stay interesting. A speculative fiction TV series that locks itself down into any assumptions/dogma stands a chance of getting predictable.

Science fiction is about breaking boundaries, not adhering to them.

So I think "pure" science fiction could be a launch platform, if you will. But if you never leave it...
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Actually you can do a pure science fiction show without any supernatural elements and make it interesting. The show would just need to have more of an adventure spin to it. Techincally CSI is now considered sci-fi because it uses speculative technology.

The first and last seasons of seaQuest are good examples. Most of season 1 was considered sci-fact (once you weed out the ghosts and couple of psychic episodes). 2032 was all action and political intrigue.
The
 
Nedersong said:
John Doe.
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John Doe wandered away from the more rigourous scientific approach towards the end of its run, with remote viewing and the mysticism behind those Phoenix people. The show's creators have stated that the explanation for John's total knowledge was a near-death experience; he acquired total knowledge after transcending his body and reaching a spiritual plane (and a few other such cop-outs, like the mysterious scar being just a sharpnel wound). I liked the show, but it's probably better that it ended when it did if that's the explanation they were going for.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
 
Actually you can do a pure science fiction show without any supernatural elements and make it interesting. The show would just need to have more of an adventure spin to it. Techincally CSI is now considered sci-fi because it uses speculative technology.
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CSI bores the crap out of me, as do most procedurals. Talk about a genre trapped in it's assumptions...

The first and last seasons of seaQuest are good examples. Most of season 1 was considered sci-fact (once you weed out the ghosts and couple of psychic episodes). 2032 was all action and political intrigue.
The
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But you can't just weed that stuff out. It's there. I personally allow for it, as such things can't simply be explained away definitively in our reality, either.
 
You folks should give Eleventh Hour a look: the whole idea behind it is to be "near future sci fi" that has present day relevance.

I personally think this limitation will cause the show to be quickly cancelled because it won't be imaginative enough for the sci fi audience, but who knows. Anyway it's a good test case to see just how interested anyone really is for taking the goofy/wild stuff out of sci fi.
 
Rather than attempt to reply to everyone individually with quotes all over the place I'll try and do this all at once.

The goal for me in this exercise is to find shows, whether recent or past, that adhere to our scientific understanding of the world as we know it today.

Do I allow open the door for the 'possibility' of psychic phenomena... yes. But... science as it stands right now says that that is highly unlikely. There are NO instances of psychic phenomena that has stood up to rigorous skeptical scrutiny. Science demands that an idea has to be testable. At which point it needs to be tested over and over and over (and yes we're talking about double blind experiments). If the hypothesis fails, even once, it is discarded as false and we either refine the hypothesis or toss it away.

I've never heard of a case of reported psychic phenomena standing up to that kind of rigorous testing. How many faith healers, psychics, tarot readers have been shown to be charlatans once put in to a double blind experiment. How many have allowed themselves to be tested in this manner?

Science is about rigorous testing. Science also proves nothing (ever!). All it does is lend support to a hypothesis. Once it's gone through the testing loop enough times it becomes accepted as a theory. Not a proof, a theory.

I don't see any problem with holding this standard up to science fiction.

Someone made a good point about the fact that we haven't discovered life on other planets and hence any show that depicts otherwise is pseudoscientific and/or supernatural. Point well taken. We haven't. We're searching, but we haven't yet. I suppose this is where we have to look at the term "speculative fiction"

Now is it any less speculative to say we may learn that psychic phenomenae may be found to potentially exist as it is to say life on other planets may exist. In some sense no. But, I would personally argue (and this is only my opinion) that at least the notion or possibility of life on other planets at least fits into the realm of possibility from what we know of biology, chemistry, etc... Much more so than the notion of someone levitating a spoon or reading my thoughts by thinking really hard. There's just no support for it in science.

But, you ask, can't the same be said for life on other planets?

Let's look at the case of shrimp living near undersea thermal vents. Until recently it was assumed that no life could exist under such extremes. And yet there it is, right on our own planet. This lends support to the hypothesis of other planets with similar extremes could potentially be true. I've seen no such supporting evidence in the case of psychic phenomena e.

I hope that helps in understanding where I'm coming from with this. ALL the replies so far have been great!
 
cynical dreamer said:
Rather than attempt to reply to everyone individually with quotes all over the place I'll try and do this all at once.

The goal for me in this exercise is to find shows, whether recent or past, that adhere to our scientific understanding of the world as we know it today.

Do I allow open the door for the 'possibility' of psychic phenomena... yes. But... science as it stands right now says that that is highly unlikely. There are NO instances of psychic phenomena that has stood up to rigorous skeptical scrutiny. Science demands that an idea has to be testable. At which point it needs to be tested over and over and over (and yes we're talking about double blind experiments). If the hypothesis fails, even once, it is discarded as false and we either refine the hypothesis or toss it away.

I've never heard of a case of reported psychic phenomena standing up to that kind of rigorous testing. How many faith healers, psychics, tarot readers have been shown to be charlatans once put in to a double blind experiment. How many have allowed themselves to be tested in this manner?

Science is about rigorous testing. Science also proves nothing (ever!). All it does is lend support to a hypothesis. Once it's gone through the testing loop enough times it becomes accepted as a theory. Not a proof, a theory.

I don't see any problem with holding this standard up to science fiction.

Someone made a good point about the fact that we haven't discovered life on other planets and hence any show that depicts otherwise is pseudoscientific and/or supernatural. Point well taken. We haven't. We're searching, but we haven't yet. I suppose this is where we have to look at the term "speculative fiction"
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Here's where you're having difficulties I believe. There's a ton of shows that adhere strictly to current scientific understanding - from ER to Law and Order. But they are not science fiction. To qualify as science fiction, any series has to have some speculative aspect - that is, it must function off of an idea that has not been proven. Otherwise, where's the "speculative" part?

Now is it any less speculative to say we may learn that psychic phenomenae may be found to potentially exist as it is to say life on other planets may exist. In some sense no. But, I would personally argue (and this is only my opinion) that at least the notion or possibility of life on other planets at least fits into the realm of possibility from what we know of biology, chemistry, etc... Much more so than the notion of someone levitating a spoon or reading my thoughts by thinking really hard. There's just no support for it in science.

But, you ask, can't the same be said for life on other planets?

Let's look at the case of shrimp living near undersea thermal vents. Until recently it was assumed that no life could exist under such extremes. And yet there it is, right on our own planet. This lends support to the hypothesis of other planets with similar extremes could potentially be true. I've seen no such supporting evidence in the case of psychic phenomena e.

I hope that helps in understanding where I'm coming from with this. ALL the replies so far have been great!
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And the Ganzfeld experiments lend support to the idea of psychic phenomenon. At least as much as what you point to lends support to the idea of alien life. Life on earth, under no matter what intense earthly conditions, does not really lend any support to the hypothesis of extraterrestrial life, since on another planet everything from stellar radiation to atmospheric composition would be different from earth's (as far as we know) unique conditions. Plus, any show postulating alien life almost always shows it as being more or less humanoid in structure and the chances of that happening, by most evolutionary biologists' estimations, is so tiny as to be nearly impossible.

I think everyone gets what you're after, but it seems like the line you've drawn is entirely arbitrary, based on your personal beliefs about what is credible in speculative fiction, and what isn't. Meanwhile you've brought up an interesting subject - what is and isn't scientifically plausible in current tv SF, and where are people willing to suspend disbelief?
 
The Ganzfeld experiments were riddled with statistical errors as well as problems in replicating the results.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html
http://www.rso.cornell.edu/scitech/archive/95sum/para.html
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf089/sf089p15.htm
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Ganzfeld_experiments
http://www.dichotomistic.com/mind_readings_psi ganzfeld.html

It's an intriguing experiment, but until it can be replicated over and over it still doesn't mean much.

Meanwhile you've brought up an interesting subject - what is and isn't scientifically plausible in current tv SF, and where are people willing to suspend disbelief?
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Which i hope is one that people will explore. This whole thread is meant to spark discussion on all of these types of issues in science fiction.
 
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