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Science Is Bad: Difference between revisions
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* The main conflict presented in ''[[Steamboy]]'' is: that though scientists try to help the world there will either be [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|people who want to use it for profit]] or people who want use it for war. The protagonist's father is under the belief that science can save the world, the grandfather believes he is going too far, and the protagonist is neutral and just wants to make sure London doesn't get destroyed.
** In the end, though, the moral of the story feels less like 'Science Is Bad' and more like 'science can be bad or good depending on how it's used.' Take for example the Steam Castle, which was {{spoiler|not originally a weapon, but the world's most advanced amusement park.}} Then there's Ray's numerous clever uses of the [[MacGuffin|Steamball]], like powering flying machines. At the very least, [[Steamboy]] manages to avoid being [[Anvilicious]] by grace of sheer ambiguity.
== Comic Books ==
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** Reed's a perfect example, as he's often protrayed as the most cold and calculating of the [[Fantastic Four]]. For instance, during the [[Civil War (Comic Book)|superhero civil war]], he designed an extradimensional prison camp to hold his fellow superheroes because cold logic told him that forced superhuman registration was the only way to avoid an armageddon-level disaster. None of the less scientifically-minded members of the team could stand to be a part of it, and Sue - the conscience of the team - eventually convinced him that it was better to essentially be nice and hope for the best than to be mean for a good reason.
* The [[Archie]] ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comics originally averted this in the same fashion as [[Sat AM Sonic the Hedgehog|SatAM]], from which it derived most of its cast. However, the series seems to have sunk into this as time has gone by.
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[Half Life: Full Life Consequences]],'' the "Combines" come from science and outer space. And science also makes {{spoiler|Gordon Freeman}} tricked and live and strong and big. However what the fan fiction calls "science" is debatable, since in many cases, it is referred to as a tangible object.
== Film ==
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** He's only concerned about the wrong hands in the American version. In the original Japanese version, Serizawa makes no distinction between right hands and wrong hands, saying that humanity's destructive nature will cause the Oxygen Destroyer to become our very undoing if ''anyone'' gets ahold of the device.
** ''[[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah]]'' retroactively questions the use of the Oxygen Destroyer by revealing it led to flesh-eating microbes that can strip organic matter immersed in water in seconds. These evolve into car-sized monsters spewing beams that disintegrate materials that possess oxygen molecules. And finally, ''these'' combine into, quite naturally, a flying Kaiju monster with a beam weapon that can kick Godzilla's ass.
*** The monster verges on raising the radiation levels of the entire planet beyond what life could survive. It also questions whether the doctor's sacrifice was actually heroic as the Oxygen Destroyer was, compared to other methods, less likely to destroy cities or attempt to exterminate the human race.▼
▲The monster verges on raising the radiation levels of the entire planet beyond what life could survive. It also questions whether the doctor's sacrifice was actually heroic as the Oxygen Destroyer was, compared to other methods, less likely to destroy cities or attempt to exterminate the human race.
** Played straight in ''Godzilla VS Biollante'' in which genetic engineering causes the birth of a giant Godzilla-Rose hybrid monster (Biollante) with a human female soul. On the other hand, the scientists creating the Anti-Nuclear Bacteria is an aversion since it actually is one of the few things that can stop Godzilla. Despite the hero's fear that it will create another monster.
** Generally played straight with almost any Godzilla movie that explains the eponymous monster's origins or his reason for attacking. Most often he is the result of the testing of nuclear weapons, which is also the source of his [[Turned Against Their Masters|hatred of humankind]].
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* In ''[[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]]'' nanotechnology is the primary villain, both as gray-goo-inducing nanite warheads and as nanite injections that create superhuman flunkies for [[Big Bad|Cobra]]. There are many scientists involved in Cobra, and apparently, scientists can't be trusted: {{spoiler|Rex [[Face Heel Turn|switches sides]] because they have nanotechnology}}.
* The 2002 film version of ''[[The Time Machine]].'' Near the start of the movie, the protagonist's friend asks him whether humanity's progress will ever go too far; the protagonist replies, "no such thing."
** He later has to admit that he was wrong—when, in the future, he sees ''the Moon shattered into little pieces'' [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|by atomic bombs]]. Earlier, when the protagonist returned to the past to try and save his girlfriend, she was killed by a malfunctioning automobile (just as the protagonist stopped being fascinated with it because it was "just a machine," and not worth taking his attention off of his love).▼
** In the distant future, the Eloi are peaceful, good people with very primitive technology; the evil, ugly Morlocks have an industrial society [[Beneath the Earth]]. They also have a [[Big Bad]] with a giant brain who is especially good at engineering, and at being evil.▼
▲He later has to admit that he was wrong—when, in the future, he sees ''the Moon shattered into little pieces'' [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|by atomic bombs]]. Earlier, when the protagonist returned to the past to try and save his girlfriend, she was killed by a malfunctioning automobile (just as the protagonist stopped being fascinated with it because it was "just a machine," and not worth taking his attention off of his love).
** And in the climax of the movie, the protagonist destroys the industrial Morlocks—by blowing up his machine in their lair (commenting on its loss with, again, "it's just a machine"). The only positive portrayal science or technology get in the film is with the generally helpful [[Projected Man|holographic librarian]] (who [[Ragnarok Proofing|somehow survives hundreds of thousands of years]] and is shown reading books to children at the end). But his main function is to keep memories of the past (and, presumably, its follies) alive, not to represent, or aid, progress.▼
* ''[[9
▲In the distant future, the Eloi are peaceful, good people with very primitive technology; the evil, ugly Morlocks have an industrial society [[Beneath the Earth]]. They also have a [[Big Bad]] with a giant brain who is especially good at engineering, and at being evil.
▲And in the climax of the movie, the protagonist destroys the industrial Morlocks—by blowing up his machine in their lair (commenting on its loss with, again, "it's just a machine"). The only positive portrayal science or technology get in the film is with the generally helpful [[Projected Man|holographic librarian]] (who [[Ragnarok Proofing|somehow survives hundreds of thousands of years]] and is shown reading books to children at the end). But his main function is to keep memories of the past (and, presumably, its follies) alive, not to represent, or aid, progress.
▲* ''[[9|Nine]]'' averts this. Science is what created the construction robot, but it was the government and military that put it to evil use. The scientist who created the robot then {{spoiler|sacrificed his own soul so that life, in some fashion, could carry on.}}
* Dr. Carrington in ''[[The Thing from Another World]]'' is a complete moron who continues to insist in the face of increasingly overwhelming evidence that the alien the base is dealing with is an intelligent and peaceful being, and repeatedly endangers everyone's lives trying to communicate with it.
* In ''[[Rocky IV]]'' the cold, emotionless Russian
* The American folk tale of John Henry tells of the man's victory in a hammerin' race against a steam-powered hammer. He wins, but the effort kills him. He dies with the old-fashioned hammer still in his hand.▼
== Literature ==
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** The Great Old Ones from the Dark Tower series, who are explicitly described as being "deceived by the false light of science", replacing the magic with their own imperfect science and technology, then killing themselves off with weapons that leave the world a polluted, ruined mess.
** [[The Plague|The superflu]] from [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Stand]]''. which escapes a government lab and kills off 99.4% of the world's population—of course the creators designed it to make sure an antivirus could never be made. The mini-series implies that Flagg may have had a role in the release of it, but the book itself describes it as a series of foul-ups and technical errors.
** Flagg is specifically described by [[
{{quote|'''[[The Hero|Stu
'''[[The Mentor|Glen
* In the words of Jean Baudrillard in ''The Procession of Simulacra'', "Science never sacrifices itself. It is always murderous." Keep in mind that he didn't think science was inherently bad, despite that quote.
* In the last ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'' book, the world religion of the planet Pardal centers entirely around the suppression of scientific progress, [[Cargo Cult|while at the same time worshiping an ancient defense computer as the voice of God]].
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* [[The Tripods]] used this,but as a pretense of the antagonists rather than an actual theme of the work. The Masters gave the appearance that they blamed science and technology for humankind's evilness, thus pushing humanity back to the middle ages with the Caps. (ie sending the Science Is Bad message through the caps.) It was really to stifle creativity and independent thinking and make humans easier to subdue.
== Live
* A recurring theme in the ''[[Outer Limits]]''. It is the basis for the plot of many (though not all) of its episodes.
** A prominent episode involves a trial in the [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] United States, which has forsaken technology and banned teaching science under the penalty of death. A 20th century scientist develops [[Time Travel]] and goes to the future only to be arrested for breaking the ban. She goes before the [[Supreme Court]] and argues to repeal the ban, as a plague will wipe out most of humanity in the near future if technological research is not restarted. Another time traveler arrives to argue for the opposite, as humanity's expansion to the stars will eventually cause us to piss off an advanced alien race and lead to our destruction. In the end, they send the second time traveler to the past and agree to repeal the ban, only for the second guy's fusion bomb to activate and wipe out Washington, DC.
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** Well, five sixths of a Solar System. It's not an exact science.
* On an episode of ''[[CSI]]: NY'', this trope is used to demonize the science of Genetics. It starts off with a supposed dead man being stolen from the back of the van that was bringing it to the morgue. Then the body is dumped in the river, fished out and then found to be alive... brain dead, but alive. They find their way to a genetics research lab that's making goats produce silk in their milk and rats grow ears on their backs. The scientist in charge explains the benefits of it (silk in bulk, replacing a lost body part) but the cops just remark about how weird it is and when they leave remark that it's wrong. The main character going so far as to say progress was great, "but should've stopped."
** Turns out the genetics lab induced human hibernation on the victim, which the victim was involved in voluntarily and by accident the vic took too much of the mixture they created too fast. He ran out choking and collapsed. They stole him from the van thinking he was alive, thought he was dead when they couldn't revive him and dumped him before they got in more trouble for their unethical experiments. When confronted by this news the head scientist can only remark about his delight that it worked and lists off all the benefits like prolonged space travel and how he will be famous.▼
** The second suspect tries to tell the cops how putting them away will "shut the door on the future" as [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|no one else knows the formula but them]], but to the cops the complicated issue is simple, they committed attempted murder (even though they thought the guy was already dead) and are going to jail. It's not "robot apocalypse" or "mutant monster" worthy, but it still denotes the same thing: science is weird... and bad.▼
▲Turns out the genetics lab induced human hibernation on the victim, which the victim was involved in voluntarily and by accident the vic took too much of the mixture they created too fast. He ran out choking and collapsed. They stole him from the van thinking he was alive, thought he was dead when they couldn't revive him and dumped him before they got in more trouble for their unethical experiments. When confronted by this news the head scientist can only remark about his delight that it worked and lists off all the benefits like prolonged space travel and how he will be famous.
▲The second suspect tries to tell the cops how putting them away will "shut the door on the future" as [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|no one else knows the formula but them]], but to the cops the complicated issue is simple, they committed attempted murder (even though they thought the guy was already dead) and are going to jail. It's not "robot apocalypse" or "mutant monster" worthy, but it still denotes the same thing: science is weird... and bad.
* ''[[Eleventh Hour]]'' generally runs on this trope, as should be expected of a show about a duo that takes down people who apply new technology unethically. However, it does at times depict the potential good that can be done with stem cells, genetic engineering and the like.
* Most of the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' avoids this, but the finale takes a great big swerve into [[Writer on Board]] territory. {{spoiler|First, everybody decides to chuck their technology and revert to hunter-gatherer barbarism in the hopes that their descendants will do better. Second, Ron Moore confirms that, after a thoughtful examination of how difficult it is to break the cycle of revenge, he chucked the metaphor and explained that [http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/03/battlestar_galactica_ronald_d.html he's scared of our new Japanese robot overlords].}}
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* Dark Science Empire Deathdark, the villain group of ''[[Dai Sentai Goggle Five]]'', revolve around using science for evil things. It's also informed that they helped the invention of sword so it can be used to kill. Ouch.
* ''[[Lost]]'' played with this trope with Dharma Initiative being the "we will do it no matter what" side. Taken to the logical conclusion in season's 5 finale {{spoiler|where they continue to drill over a pocket of electromagnetic energy, although they know that in-universe EM is a [[You Fail Physics Forever|bad, explosive thing]]}}.
== Music ==
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* "White Coats" by New Model Army appears to fit this trope, although it can be interpreted as criticisng science when practiced without foresight or ethics, particularly given that it was written during an apparently self-destructive [[Cold War|US-Soviet nuclear arms race]]- "Those last few days at Jonestown ain't got nothing on this ".
== Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends ==
▲* The American folk tale of John Henry tells of the man's victory in a hammerin' race against a steam-powered hammer. He wins, but the effort kills him. He dies with the old-fashioned hammer still in his hand.
== Radio ==
* Subverted in a strange and depressing sort of way by Arch Oboler's ''Lights Out'' radio short [http://thethunderchild.com/RadioDrama/LightsOut/TheChickenHeart.html "Chicken Heart"] (as made famous by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPimtcK3-A Bill Cosby]); the scientist responsible for creating the spreading, cancerous blob of chicken muscle knows exactly how to stop the monster, but he can't get the authorities to [[Cloverfield|drop the hammer]] in time or with enough force. {{spoiler|If only they'd known about the monster-retardant properties of Jell-O.}}
== Recorded and Stand Up Comedy ==▼
▲== Stand Up Comedy ==
* Parodied by comedian Patton Oswalt in his standup routine where he lambasts science for allowing a couple in their sixties to conceive due to it being horrifying, Ending with the line "Hey, we made cancer airborne and contagious. You're welcome. We're science, we're all about could, not should". This, however, is an exception in that quite a few of his other routines exalt the virtues of science and progress, however.
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Magic: The
** Averted by other characters, however - Tocasia, Jhoira of the Ghitu, Venser of Urborg, Slobad of Mirrodin, and Arcum Dagsson are all extremely talented artificers, and all are unambiguously heroic. Urza was more...[[Anti-Hero|on the fence about it]].
* [[White Wolf]]'s ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''.
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* In the original ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' "Known World" campaign setting (later renamed [[Mystara]]), the ancient civilization of Blackmoor was technological, but destroyed itself in what is implied to have been a nuclear war. The Immortals decreed that this could never be allowed to happen again. However, they allowed one pocket of Blackmoor society to endure as a lost land in the Hollow World with the caveat that all of its simulated "technology" is actually magic based, and therefore impossible for its citizens to reverse engineer, reproduce, or improve upon.
* Parodied in ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]''. Science is crazy, even when it's [[Crazy Awesome]], and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|it's trying to kill you]].
== Theatre ==
* Steve Reich's "video opera" ''Three Tales'', an [[Author Filibuster]]-filled work that centres around the crash of the airship Hindenberg, the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, and Dolly the cloned sheep.
== Video Games ==
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* ''[[Mega Man Star Force]]'' 3 Tia and Jack were both orphaned in war for the technology of their home. They want to use Meteor G to destroy all the worlds technology.
▲== Web Original ==
* Technology articles on ''[[Cracked.com]]'' tend to fit the form, "Seven ways X Scientific Advancement Can Kill You" or "Eight More Animals That Can Horribly Kill You." Since ''Cracked'' is an entertainment site first and a news site fifty-seventh, it makes more sense this way.
* ''[[Ink City]]'' has attracted plenty of scientists, including [[Jimmy Two-Shoes|Heloise]], [[El Tigre|Dr. Chipotle Jr.]], [[Megamind]], [[GLaDOS]] and [[Portal 2|Caroline]]. There are also characters who want to use science to analyze and control the unpredictable residents, like [[Aeon Flux|Trevor]].
** [[Pokémon|Mew]] believes that all science is inheritly evil, and that scientists are [[Complete Monster|soulless monsters]]. Due to this, she sees nothing wrong with [[Cold-Blooded Torture|subjecting them to]] [[A Fate Worse Than Death]].
== Web Comics ==
* Brutally satirized in the [
▲* Brutally satirized in [http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/ this] ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' strip.
** Now has a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEChG1DKGvY live action version]!
* This sentiment is expressed by minor characters in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', given the damage that Sparks are known to do (and many of the characters who think so were, indeed, casualties of Spark activity). One of these characters is Othar Tryggvassen ([[Memetic Mutation|GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!]]), a Spark himself, who decided to set off on a quest to eliminate the Spark from the world, ending with his own death, because he's keenly aware of how dangerous they can be.
** In fairness, "sparks" and "science" are very much not the same thing. Sparks tend to be brilliant and crazy scientists (or, in one notable case, a brilliant and crazy social scientist), but there are also numerous non-spark scientists. Scientific progress would continue without sparks, it would just slow down.
* ''[[No Black Plume]]'' frequently parodies this, including a six-part series entitled "Science Will Ruin Your Life".
* ''[[Minimum Security]]'' is a very hard, left-leaning environmentalist comic that
== Western Animation ==
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'''Scientist:''' [[Gone Horribly Wrong|I know that... now...]] }}
* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTdzCAGH3lU Invention of Love]'' has [[Steampunk]] technology in a "too much of a good thing" sense. Mechanical horses? Awesome! A house full of appliances? Convenient! A polluted city without any natural flora or fauna? Throwing away the rose your true love gave you when it wilts ''[[Up to Eleven|and building a mechanical replacement]]''? ...not so much.
== Real Life ==
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