Magic Versus Science: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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{{quote|''"Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are [[Young Wizards|rarely]] [[Magitek|compatible]]."''|'''[[Neil Gaiman]]''', ''[[Books of Magic]]''}}
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Once upon a time in [[Real Life]], Magic was indistinguishable from Science, and both went hand in hand with Religion. Over the course of history, they began to drift apart. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, Science was an independent field.
The modern scientific community is highly skeptical toward claims of the paranormal, and largely disbelieves in the existence of [[Functional Magic|magic]]
Psychic powers generally blurs the line between the two.
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* '''Magic is an EMP''': Magic and [[Walking Techbane|its users]] cause machines beyond a given technological threshold to malfunction. But why exactly does magic disrupt, say, the electrical impulses in your CD player, but not the electrical impulses in your brain? And what did it do before electrical devices were used, like when [[Steampunk]] was modern technology? [[A Wizard Did It|Because it's magic, that's why!]]. Alternately...
* '''[[Game Breaker|Magic Is Cheating]]''': Magic is the practice of altering natural laws to produce a desired effect. Science is the practice of utilizing natural laws to produce a desired effect. Thus, your computer won't work too well if you're altering electrical resistance to produce lightning bolts, your car won't work too well if you're altering the combustion point of atmosphere to produce fireballs, and you won't find sharpening a piece of metal to work too well if you're altering its density to make it stronger. Magic is dependent on the skill of the user, and can lead to the creation of [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|demigods]], but can't be mass produced. Technology takes centuries to get its footing, and scientists are thus always squishy, but can inherently change their world. This often leads to cycles where one trumps the other, only to break and give way to the other.
* '''Magic is Mysterious''': Alternately, magic [[Calvin Ball|follows no rules at all]], therefore [[Science Is Wrong|science will never be able to explain it.]] [[Fridge Logic|This scenario tends to work best]] with [[Functional Magic|Wild Magic]] and possibly [[Religion Is Magic|Theurgy]]
* '''Magic is an Ideology''': Magic and science get along just fine, but the magicians and scientists can't stand each other. Petty rivalry or hubris leads everyone on both sides to specialize in their field and completely ignore the other. This conflict can sometimes take a subtler form, where the magicians want to keep knowledge secret and the scientists want it shared with everyone; which side is more sympathetic tends to depend on whether the author (or readers/viewers) think there really ''are'' [[Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]]....
* '''Magic is the Dimension's Natural Law''': Depending on which dimension of [[The Multiverse]] you are in. In World A, you can shoot lightning from your fingertips if you know how and gunpowder does not explode; and in World 1, the reverse happens. It becomes a lot harder to industrialize if the oil and coal you're intending to use simply don't work the way they do in the real world.
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*** Of course, [[One More Day|none of it happened now]].
* As for [[Iron Man]], he treats magic as a form of science he admits that he does not understand. Furthermore, if you try attacking him with magic spells, don't get your hopes up since this [[Gadgeteer Genius]] is often able to counter anything you throw at him with his technology.
* When [[Black Adam]] (about as powerful as [[Superman]], but with no [[Kryptonite Factor]]) {{spoiler|goes on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]}} in ''[[52]]'' he goes after the [[Mad Scientist
** [[The Worf Effect|It really shouldn't have]] but it did.
** One of the scientists had stolen a machine from the future that, in his words, tries to open up an empty space the size of a football stadium inside Black Adam's skull. Thank Ra it only have one charge.
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* In ''[[Book of Amber|The Chronicles of Amber]]'' by [[Roger Zelazny]], technology in Amber is under a different set of rules than the "normal" universe. At first it is implied that gunpowder will not work there, but in later stories, a substance from a magic-based universe is discovered to combust well enough to act as gunpowder. Likewise, the [[Magitek]] Ghostwheel can ''only'' function in the one particular universe it was built in, where magic and science balance equally.
* In Brian Daley's novel ''A Tapestry of Magics'', it is mentioned that technology tends to be unreliable the closer one gets to the "Singularity" (the center of the multiverse).
* The ''[[Apprentice Adept]]'' series by [[Piers Anthony]] is based around this
** Notable in that the main power source for the science frame, "protonite", becomes the magic-producing metal "phazite" when taken across worlds. Regular tech works, but the super sci-fi tech's overreliance on protonite makes it fail horribly.
** In his ''[[Virtual Mode]]'' series, a sci-fi galaxy-owning dictator decides to begin conquering realities, because technology works everywhere, whereas magic doesn't naturally flow into many realities.
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* ''Open Sesame'', by [[Tom Holt]], has some bizarre hybrid of several versions in the main plot and/or backstory. Magic and science exist in two different worlds - [[Real Life]] and Fantasyland - but that's mainly because science and reason have apparently been rooting out the fantasy problems for two millennia of brutal struggles, and using a wish from the Fairy Godfather functions much like smuggling a rabid dog across the English Channel.
* The [[Border Town]] [[Shared World]] (started by [[Terri Windling]]) runs entirely on this trope. Bordertown is the town where Faerie landed when it returned to earth, and magic and science both work more or less half the time there. This is assumed to be a product of the laws of nature in each world - Faerie is a place where magic works, earth is a place where Science! works and Bordertown is half-and-half each way.
* In the ''[[Coldfire Trilogy]]'' of C.S. Friedman, magic and technology exist side-by-side. The catch: the setting contains a form of [[Wild Magic]] that turns ''everyone'' into a [[Reality Warper]]. If a single person near a combustion engine has the slightest bit of subconscious fear that it will explode, it ''will''
* In [[The Edge (novel)|The Edge]], magic works in the Weird, technology works in the Broken (our world), and they both have limited efficiency in the Edge, where the Weird and the Broken overlap.
* The ''[[Lord Darcy]]'' novels have an interesting variation. Firstly, [[Magitek|magic is science]]; it's firmly understood and grounded in [[Magic A Is Magic A|the laws of the universe]] (well, the laws of ''that'' universe). More subtle, though, is that science is magic, or at least is seen by magic users the same way as our scientists see magic - for example a Healer derides a "wise woman" prescribing foxglove tea (i.e. digitalis) for heart problems, because it doesn't fit the Laws of Similarity and Contagion.
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** Incidentally, this history may be the cause of some interesting relationships with the fan expansion, ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]''. [[Mad Scientist|Geniuses]] generally have strained relationships with Mages, due to [[Un-Equal Rites|fundamentally different approaches]] and the mysterious nature of [[Touched by Vorlons|Inspiration]], but the Free Council get along with the Scholastics, a genius Foundation. They often have to work together because occasionally a newly catalysed Genius is mistaken for a Mage, and vice-versa, and they have to perform swaps before bad things happen. Inversely, the abovementioned Seers of the Throne and the Genius' resident [[Ancient Conspiracy]] ([[Vestigial Empire|or what's left of it]]), Lemuria, seem to be ''[[Weirdness Censor|incapable of noticing each other]]''. Nobody knows why.
* In ''[[Shadowrun]]'', Cyberware / Bioware / Genetech [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|damage the body's 'wholesomeness']] (called [[Life Energy|essence]]) and therefore its [[Mana|ability to use magic]]. Too much of it and a person will die, unless magic is used to turn him/her into a Cyber Zombie (read: Cyborg). Technology and magic are however mostly separate, and except for the intrusive implants, do not impede one another. A mage can still use computers and guns fine. At the same time, more technologically complex objects are harder to cast magic upon.
** The latest edition of the [[Star Wars]] RPG imposes a similar penalty: every time a [[Player Character|PC]] installs a cybernetic component onto his/her body, the character takes a penalty to Using the
* ''[[Rifts]]'' both plays this straight and subverts it, you will be killed on sight if you use magic in many areas, but some of the mages create "Techno-Wizard" items where a semi-technological device is imbued with magic.
* The ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' Universe is very dependent on this one. The battle against the Warp and Chaos (which is for all intents and purposes the "magic" of the setting) is one of the most central plot points. Faith is also used, but ridiculously large calibur guns and energy weapons also help.
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** Given that one of androids was made by a man who [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|sort of became a god]] and others by a [[Mad Scientist]] who [[A God Am I|wants to do the same]], it's hard to tell.
* Both averted and played straight in ''[[Albion]]''. Albionian Magic and Terran science are merely two aspects of the greater whole, that are in continuous conflict with each other. The only differences are that Terran technology uses energy from matter and is based on well definable principles, while magic energy from one's spirit, and is governed by more abstract and undefinable laws. That said, It's actually possible for someone to cast a spell using nuclear energy, {{spoiler|and incidentally, the player's ultimate goal involves just this}}.
* ''[[Total Annihilation Kingdoms]]''. The original game has as its backstory the fact that magic-using [[Precursors]] wrecked the world in a magical war, so magic is forbidden. Eventually a Mage Emperor arises, has four children and later disappears: two of his children heavily restrict magic in their kingdoms, the other two embrace it. The trope is played more straight in the sequel ''The Iron Plague'', when a fifth
* Mixing spells and technology in ''[[Magical Diary]]'' is hugely taboo. Doing it after being warned or even asking too many questions will get you expelled... and ''[[Laser-Guided Amnesia|brainwiped]]'' to boot. We don't yet know what the reason is behind this.
** Also, it's pointed out that studying how magic works and experimenting to improve your spells ''is'' science, and also perfectly acceptable. Just don't use the word science or the wizards get nervous.
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** The backstory of ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' includes a massive war between a science and technology based super-power and one based on magic and summoning. The magic users "won" {{spoiler|by turning their entire population into a power source for a weapon of mass destruction which wiped out 90% of the rest of the world and then stuck around to keep the world stagnant, undeveloped, and dependent on magic-users for hundreds if not thousands of years}}
* In the PC-98 era of ''[[Touhou]]'', Gensokyo was firmly on the magic side of things, with occasional [[Mad Scientist]] / [[Gadgeteer Genius]] characters decried as heretics for their focus on science over magic.
** However, in the more recent Windows games, science seems to be more widely accepted in Gensokyo, primarily by virtue of the [[Gadgeteer Genius]] kappa like Nitori, and the efforts of [[Physical God
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** This is evidently going to be a major theme in the [[Sequel Series]], ''[[The Legend of Korra]]''.
* [[Ralph Bakshi]]'s ''[[Wizards]]'' tells of a war between magic-armed Good fantasy races and tech-armed Evil mutants. It appears to be a straight rendition of this trope, together with a hefty dose of [[Science Is Bad]], {{spoiler|until the chief Good wizard shoots the Evil leader with a gun at the end: a subversion that Lampshades the notion that '' only the morality of the people wielding them'' makes either science or magic Good or Evil.}}
* This is a recurring theme in the trilogy of [[
* ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' has this, sort of. Note that Santa can (presumingly) do magic, while Jack's way of going at Christmas is more scientific.
** Not to mention that in the [[DVD Commentary]], [[Tim Burton]] says that there's no magic in [[Halloweentown]] -- [[Fridge Logic|despite the fact that there's two resident witches]].
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* Appears to be one of the ongoing themes of ''[[Thundercats 2011]]'', particularly in regards to Mumm-Ra.
* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', Wade pulls a [[Reverse Polarity]] on an out of control magical effect through good old science and technology.
* ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'' is filled with demons, [[Evil Sorcerer
* Crops up time to time in ''[[Gargoyles]]'', considering it's a double-whammy of [[Fish Out of Temporal Water]] and a slow breaking of [[The Masquerade]]. It turns out, science and magic are actually quite effective against one another, leading to such things as robots, cyborgs, aliens and mutants duking it out with ghosts, monsters, and GODS. When not [[Flat Earth Atheist|denying the obvious existence of magic]] in the face of things like humanoid monsters that turn to stone during the day, city-spanning mystical effects and the ''king of [[The Fair Folk]]'' walking through Manhattan while the size of a skyscraper, the people that actually stop and study magic find it to be rather scientific in its rules and regulations, if not in effects.
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