"I'm a scientist! That's what we do!"

I just decided that I should elaborate upon the topic of my previous post.

The theme of science and technology versus natural forces is very old hat in terms of film and literature. We all know the plot progression by rote:

[1] Dastardly scientist creates something (creature, substance, virus, et cetera);
[2] Regardless as to whether the intentions of said scientist are good or evil, the potential consequences are ignored. It doesn't matter whether or not he should be doing what he is doing -- what matters is that he CAN do it, and by gourd he will!
[3] Everything backfires and spirals out of control;
[4] Many people die;
[5] Dastardly scientist's creation is thwarted, and the audience is force-fed the Hollywood moral that SCIENCE IS BAD.

These portrayals of course, leave us as an audience with a bitter taste against humans and their need to strive for technological and scientific advances. I know that when I was watching Cameron's Avatar, I sided with the nature-loving Na'vi and despised the humans for everything that they were doing. I hated the scientists in Jurassic Park (Crichton seems to explore this theme in many of his works, actually), in the Alien series, in Dark Angel and I could continue the list ad nauseum...

...But, I'm a scientist myself. Shouldn't I be biased in favour of my peers? The issue with Hollywood science is that it is demonized in its portrayal. The scientist is usually either a figure corrupt with greed or a bumbling, useless blob. Oh, and the scientist often has a toddler mentality of "Look what I can do with my SCIENCE! It has no purpose other than to prove that I can do it if I want to!" Take away the unlikely and unlikeable scientist, and the science itself cannot really be hated. There are more people in this world in favour of research to better our defenses against diseases and other biological threats than not -- only in the movies does this sort of work suddenly seem suspect and loaded with ulterior motives.

Though there are always some exceptions, my point is really just to say this:

Don't hate the science, folks. Hate those people [characters] who choose to abuse it.

This post was inspired by this blog entry and by this trope.

Oh, and the title of this post is from the film Bats and, though it is a perfect example to illustrate my point, it is a horrible movie. I do not recommend it in the least.

Update/Getting Back on Track

Time to call an end to this hiatus and get back into article-writing business. This blog's been on a break for the past few months while I've gotten my life together (performed some Shakespeare, sat my final, final exams, earned an honours degree in biomedical biology, all that sort of jazz).

Expect posting to resume this week.

In the meantime, here's a link to an interesting speculative blog post by Lindsay Ellis (Nostalgia Chick of thatguywiththeglasses.com fame) in which she discusses the "Science is bad" trope phenomenon in film:


Why did we have to play god and try to cure cancer?