Worst/most implausible instance of skepticism in a Trek series?

[Oddish]

Although presenting Ferengi women getting equal rights because Ishka was the lover of the Ferengi leader is not the best message.

It's like saying Susan B. Anthony could have gotten women the vote way back in 1866 by toodling off to DC and seducing President Andrew Johnson.

 

[Ragitsu]

The idea that Quark's mother singlehandedly ended centuries of discrimination and misogyny on Ferenginar, and did it overnight. Real women's suffrage took decades of effort by thousands of determined women (and some male allies as well).

Uh...in-universe skepticism? Was Quark the one who was doubting? If so, why?

I've always found Starfleet's incredulous reactions to the actions of the Prophets to be a bias against relgion, even though the Prophets are an empirical reality with demonstrable abilities to observe beyond linear time.

Whenever Sisko explains the Prophets' motives, it's always greeted with skepticism, even thought the "wormhole aliens" have demonstrated the ability to see beyond linear time.

To the best of my knowledge, their existence as powerful entities wasn't contested...their deific status wasn't embraced (Q is a hard act to beat and even he is no god).

 

[at Quark's]

Come to think of it - Picards extreme confidence at the beginning of Q Who that he and the Federation were ready to encounter anything, while he had proof before his eyes at that very moment there were beings and species far more powerful than the Federation (in the form of Q), some of which might be not friendly.

I don't mean that he should have trusted Q at his word- but he didn't even stop to consider the option that Q's warnings (regardless of his motives) might actually be based on reality.

 

[Farscape One]

Come to think of it - Picards extreme confidence at the beginning of Q Who that he and the Federation were ready to encounter anything, while he had proof before his eyes at that very moment there were beings and species far more powerful than the Federation (in the form of Q), some of which might be not friendly.

I don't mean that he should have trusted Q at his word- but he didn't even stop to consider the option that Q's warnings (regardless of his motives) might actually be based on reality.

Which was the point of the episode, and one of the reasons why it's so outstanding.


Quite probably the biggest thing for me in the franchise was the cause of The Burn. I get what they were trying to go for with the power of grief, but wooooowwwww... it was just terrible and ludicrous beyond belief.

 

[Macintosh]

Come to think of it - Picards extreme confidence at the beginning of Q Who that he and the Federation were ready to encounter anything, while he had proof before his eyes at that very moment there were beings and species far more powerful than the Federation (in the form of Q), some of which might be not friendly.

I don't mean that he should have trusted Q at his word- but he didn't even stop to consider the option that Q's warnings (regardless of his motives) might actually be based on reality.

Does Picard actually believe this though, and is his refusal to believe Q really so difficult to understand in context? The alternative at the beginning of "Q Who" is that he says "why yes Q, you clearly know vastly more than us, please join us that we might learn from your unparalleled intellect", which just ain't gonna happen. It's very common for Picard to just automatically disagree with whatever Q says whenever he turns up in an effort to refuse to play Q's game (or whatever he thinks Q's game might be).

 

[Macintosh]

Talking of Q...

I think one of the things that bothers me is how smug the Enterprise-D crew are when they encounter the Pakleds, belittling them at almost every opportunity ("their rubber band broke, right?" / "Don't they seem a little slow?" / "They are unwilling to wait for the timely evolution of their species' intellectual capacity"). Meanwhile these same people bristled at Q talking down to them in "Encounter at Farpoint" and suggesting that they were making progress too rapidly and were a "dangerous, savage child-race", maintaining that humanity has the right to define its own progress.