Will Discovery promote the natural sciences?

[jaime]

I disagree completely.
Yes they both "pretend", but there's a very clear difference between Star Trek which pretends all these things are explainable, and Harry Potter which does not. On the face of it, teleporters and floo powder may work similarly, but the framing of how they're presented is important.

I don't even see how this is disputable, a casual glance at fanbases will tell you this. Nobody in the Harry Potter fandom will bother to explain how wingardium leviosa works, or why certain things go into certain potions, while on the Star Trek front you'll find pages and pages of how the stupidest of gadgets mentioned off-hand in a single line in that one episode are supposed to work.

It's disingenuous to pretend science isn't a big part of Star Trek's heritage and appeal, there's a reason a bunch of scientist, NASA engineers and the likes mention Star Trek and not Lord of the Rings as their inspiration...

I think you undersell Harry Potter, and a lot of other fantasy, and even 'real world' magic. There are rules underpinning it, same as the advanced tech in Trek. In Harry Potter you see those rules, and science rules, being use does to further the plot...Time Turners and causality, Horcruxes and their specifics. As long as the underlying rules are consistent, in a narrative sense, there isn't a lot of functional difference. Floo powder is just Scotty and sliders...the fireplaces have to be connected to a network. There's an underlaying conservation of energy principle too...food isn't magicked into being, it's just moved by magic, or configure by it occasionally (making it roughly the same as a replicator.)

 

[jaime]

If someone couldn't see the difference between how Star Trek is framed, and how high fantasy or religious literature is framed, and what that means on a philosophical level, what intent it displays on the part of the staff, I don't know what to say... I would suggest maybe not ignoring these nuances. The stated metaphysics of a work of fiction is not exactly unimportant. It informs the entire thing - the fact we can actually arrive at a practical solution through understanding, instead of being perpetually stuck in a medieval world of attitudes slightly more shiny technology, awaiting the next inexplicable act of god.

I'm well aware of how some contemporary fiction likes to dismiss plot and mix in whatever fantasy advances the plot as if only the emotional elements of a story matters - with wizards randomly popping up to to magically solve a triple homicide, as plot doesn't matter as long as Det. Sally has some kind of conflict/cartharsis - but Star Trek isn't a work of freeform storytelling, it's a genre grounded in enlightenment modernism and science fiction and proud of it - it revels in scientific wonder, and fans love to study it. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous.

Science fiction of that kind - Star Trek, Stargate SG1 and so on, are in pretty narrow company on TV - maybe only the police procedural or detective genre is the only other grounded in naturalist thinking, most fiction is entirely romanticist, with supernatural characters going through repetetive melodramas and major discoveries that do not change the material circumstances of the world at all (Smallville, various non-Whedon vampire shows, etc).

Even the Whedon vampire shows frankly.

 

[Longinus]

This is important to me. This matters more to make it 'feel like Star Trek' to me than the colour of the uniforms (which already matters unreasonably much to me, I have to admit.)

I always greatly disliked how the the Prophets were dealt with in DS9, and how Sisko ended up fawning over them. Picard laughed at Q straight at his face when he claimed to be a god; that's the way I like these so called 'gods' to be dealt with.

 

[jaime]

This is important to me. This matters more to make it 'feel like Star Trek' to me than the colour of the uniforms (which already matters unreasonably much to me, I have to admit.)

I always greatly disliked how the the Prophets were dealt with in DS9, and how Sisko ended up fawning over them. Picard laughed at Q straight at his face when he claimed to be a god; that's the way I like these so called 'gods' to be dealt with.

Sisko didn't fawn over them...he just knew they were basically 'good' extremely powerful beings, and to all intents, allied himself with them and their wishes because they shared the same goals. He arguably went on a massive first contact mission when he joined them, and recognised that he had limited choice when it came to their actions...largely because much of them, for him, had already happened...those that hadn't, he tried to guide, from his perspective. He bargained. The Q situation..well...you have to be confident or stupid to punch anything with Q sized power in the face...Picard appealed to Qs reason, or hoped the higher power of the continuum/Qs apparent nature would keep him safe. Sisko probably only got away with the face punch because he has some pretty powerful friends (The Prophets.)
Ds9 handled it well, because it didn't make judgement, except on minute aspects of religion itself, not the existence of gods itself....the caste system on Bajoran bad, inquisition stuff bad, blind faith bad...but open minded faith good, questioning good, cultural ties and the belief something bigger than you has got your back...well...kinda good kinda bad. Ds9 went with tolerance, both for its audience, and its characters.

 

[Horizons96]

“The director halts the action and Lorca, played by British actor Jason Isaacs of Harry Potter fame, steps off the stage. The episode’s writer, Kirsten Beyer, approaches to give a correction on his ‘for God’s sakes’ ad lib.
“‘Wait, I can’t say ‘God’?” Isaacs asks, amused. ‘I thought I could say ‘God’ or ‘damn’ but not ‘goddamn.”
“Beyer explains that Star Trek is creator Gene Roddenberry‘s vision of a science-driven 23rd-century future where religion basically no longer exists."
https://www.trektoday.com/content/2017/07/more-star-trek-discovery-pictures/

From this we can tell they're being mindful of Trek's philosophic roots in naturalism.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

I think the problem was that a Starfleet officer was apparently content to communicate with them through obscure visions.

Coming to think of it, did he try to launch any research project on how to communicate with a non-linear life form?

If I was to guess from BSG and his one Voyager episode, it was Ronald Moore who seems to like these sorts of themes.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Trek's philosophic roots in naturalism.

It's roots were making money off of a cheesy space opera.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

It's roots were making money off of a cheesy space opera.

Just because art makes money, it can't be made for other motives simultaneously?

 

[Horizons96]

It's roots were making money off of a cheesy space opera.

Regardless of your negative, dreary spin, my point still holds. There's no time the supernatural features as a causal factor in any event in Star Trek. The show is great at representing science and naturalism as the way into the future, even if it was just doing it to make money. It's had an amazingly positive affect on many aspiring minds in many scientific fields. It's a pity it left you sour and only able to complain about it.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Regardless of your negative, dreary spin, my point still holds. There's no time the supernatural features as a causal factor in any event in Star Trek. The show is great at representing science and naturalism as the way into the future, even if it was just doing it to make money. It's had an amazingly positive affect on many aspiring minds in many scientific fields. It's a pity it left you sour and only able to complain about it.

I just don't subscribe to the Gene's Vision thing. That led to mothballs for the thing.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Regardless of your negative, dreary spin, my point still holds. There's no time the supernatural features as a causal factor in any event in Star Trek. The show is great at representing science and naturalism as the way into the future, even if it was just doing it to make money. It's had an amazingly positive affect on many aspiring minds in many scientific fields. It's a pity it left you sour and only able to complain about it.

What @Gov Kodos said was true: the basis of Star Trek, it's main reason for being created, was to make money. Sorry if that's too real for you, but Gene Roddenberry wasn't a high saint, preaching a utpoian world view through a television series. Later on, he was told that over and over by followers who made him believe those high and mighty ideals.

That being said, after the series started to film, you were attracting highly respected Science Fiction writers and professionals in various sciences. That exposure and interaction with those who made the show started to put the scientific principles in place, and therefore make it the inspiration that it is and will continue to be.

But thinking that it was a series created to further and inspire scientific fields is just not correct, unfortunately. Scripts were not edited by Roddenberry under the basis of something not being scientific enough. And even as far as the third season, he was shoehorning things into scripts to hawk Lincoln Enterprises merchandise.

 

[Horizons96]

Sorry if that's too real for you, but Gene Roddenberry wasn't a high saint, preaching a utpoian world view through a television series.

Waaait a minute, how was that extrapolated from my post? All I did was advocate a path of science and philosophic naturalism - which Star Trek sticks to quite vigorously! I didn't even mention Roddenberry, or a supposed utopia!

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Waaait a minute, how was that extrapolated from my post? All I did was advocate a path of science and philosophic naturalism - which Star Trek sticks to quite vigorously! I didn't even mention Roddenberry, or a supposed utopia!

The post you replied to was only saying what Star Trek was rooted in, which is Roddenberry. It only talked about its roots, not what it became.

There isn't anything to be left sour about from Trek's roots. It's the truth. What it became is something I'm sure most of us agree on, which is the same as what you're saying.

Just that the post you replied to was pointing to the roots of Star Trek.

 

[Spider]

TOS was a TV show about folks flying about space in a big starship. That's all it was, and it was pretty darned good at it. It's the fans that turned it into a religion with their nitpicky expectations and constant rule making.

 

[cultcross]

I just don't subscribe to the Gene's Vision thing. That led to mothballs for the thing.

Sorry if that's too real for you, but Gene Roddenberry wasn't a high saint, preaching a utpoian world view through a television series.

There's quite a gathering of straw men here. Nobody is suggesting Star Trek is a glorious utopian vision of the future by our great Lord and Master Gene Roddenberry. I've never subscribed to the Gene's Vision baloney, and I haven't expressed it here.

We are saying, Trek took a naturalistic and scientific (including fictional scientific) approach to fantasy - in fact arguably its one of the most consistent elements of the whole canon. Which is something we thought was a positive. In Trek, the Emperor always has no clothes, the God is always an alien/machine/hologram. We might not be able to explain what we are seeing, but there is an explanation. A thought expressed as an episode plot in itself in Devil's Due.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

I will say that, personally, Star Trek brought my endless fascination with astronomy to where I study it as much as I can. What was a curiosity became more a passion and a hobby.

It also informed part of my career, in that I pursued computer science.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

There's quite a gathering of straw men here. Nobody is suggesting Star Trek is a glorious utopian vision of the future by our great Lord and Master Gene Roddenberry. I've never subscribed to the Gene's Vision baloney, and I haven't expressed it here.

We are saying, Trek took a naturalistic and scientific (including fictional scientific) approach to fantasy - in fact arguably its one of the most consistent elements of the whole canon. Which is something we thought was a positive. In Trek, the Emperor always has no clothes, the God is always an alien/machine/hologram. We might not be able to explain what we are seeing, but there is an explanation.

And that is something I always loved about it, in that I love discussions that Star Trek always excelled at.

Whether religion vs. science, belief vs. reality, anything that had good discussion and good points from either side was done very well in Star Trek.

 

[cultcross]

I will say that, personally, Star Trek brought my endless fascination with astronomy to where I study it as much as I can. What was a curiosity became more a passion and a hobby.

It also informed part of my career, in that I pursued computer science.

It took me into the sciences too. I spent my childhood wanting to be a scientist because of Star Trek. It took experience of actual research science to dissuade me of that idea

Whatever you think of Gene Roddenberry (and for the record I think he was a self-important misogynist who made one good TV show by accident and spent his later years getting in the way of those who had turned it into a franchise) it is undeniable, unless you think people en masse are lying through their teeth, that his creation inspired people to take up education and careers in the sciences.

 

[jaime]

Regardless of your negative, dreary spin, my point still holds. There's no time the supernatural features as a causal factor in any event in Star Trek. The show is great at representing science and naturalism as the way into the future, even if it was just doing it to make money. It's had an amazingly positive affect on many aspiring minds in many scientific fields. It's a pity it left you sour and only able to complain about it.

Actually it emphasises the natural in supernatural. Hence Sub-Rosa, the prophets, Q. It simply says there is more in heaven and earth Horatio. It accepts these things as part of nature, but doesn't attempt to not have the characters try to engage with them, investigate the how, and philosophise as to the why. Trek as an atheist text is something of a biased reading, as would reading it as totally theist in a religious sense. There are literal gods in Trek, but they are part of nature as presented. Love it or hate it, Bread and Circuses is there...as is the enterprise chapel, etc etc. In other words, it's about the same as it is now...but people make less of a song and dance about religion or mysticism...the most obvious evidence for the theist side to Trek is the Vulcan Katra, and it's rituals.

 

[Gov Kodos]

There's quite a gathering of straw men here. Nobody is suggesting Star Trek is a glorious utopian vision of the future by our great Lord and Master Gene Roddenberry. I've never subscribed to the Gene's Vision baloney, and I haven't expressed it here.

We are saying, Trek took a naturalistic and scientific (including fictional scientific) approach to fantasy - in fact arguably its one of the most consistent elements of the whole canon. Which is something we thought was a positive. In Trek, the Emperor always has no clothes, the God is always an alien/machine/hologram. We might not be able to explain what we are seeing, but there is an explanation. A thought expressed as an episode plot in itself in Devil's Due.

Trek eschewed mysticism; it's not especially unique for that so did Doctor Who, The Outer Limits, and The Wild Wild West (arguably the original steampunk) so praising Star Trek for a scientific approach to fantasy is no particular award of merit. Especially when its approach is laughably bad science like its view of evolution for instance, though that's pretty laughable in a lot of science fiction, or outright fantasy posing as science.