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Mother Nature, Father Science: Difference between revisions
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=== [[Literature]] ===
* ''[[Discworld]]'' is very complex and goes back and forth about this. ''[[
** Wizards are urban and associate with the Unseen University, thus are some variety of academia parody. They are often silly old duffers or giant nerds, but this does give the luster of hard science to their magic, and were more powerful once in Disc politics. The leading wizard, Ridcully, is pretty pompous but macho too (and ironically was thought to be [[Closer to Earth]], but was actually an [[Egomaniac Hunter]]). In earlier stories they tended to assassinate each other a lot. [[A Man Is Not a Virgin|They're also celibate]] because of the possibility of [[
** Witch stories focus around the [[The Hecate Sisters|trio]] of Nanny Ogg, Magrat, and Granny Weatherwax. Granny is a cynical, hardbitten, practical one who thinks wizards waste time with their 'jommetry' and 'supreme arch-whatever' just to look important. Nanny Ogg uses [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] and is a touch louche. Magrat is romantic and a little New Age and drippy. Overall, they're rural, more folk-magic, but closer to everyday concerns and problems than the wizards.
*** A few Witch characters have been seen to use wizard magic, which is a variety of [[Functional Magic|Rule Magic]] and so there is really no reason why not. No wizard has been seen to use Borrowing or any other of the Witch specialties, but on the other hand there has never really been any suggestion that they couldn't if they wanted to. Granny once fought a magical duel with the then-current Archchancelor, and they fought to a standstill.
* ''[[Frankenstein]]'' constantly refers to nature as female, and [[Character Title|the title character]] says he wants to "penetrate the secrets of nature". Subtle, [[Mary Shelley]].
** Which is actually similar to the criticisms of "patriarchal" paradigms of science by some feminist philosophers.
* Diane Duane's ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series follows this. Nita's magic relates to nature and living things. Her male partner Kit tends to do better with technology and inanimate objects like rocks. However, later on Nita's sister subverts the whole thing by being a computer wiz with a magical affinity for technology and silicon-based lifeforms, and both Nita and Kit eventually grow out of their original specialties into others, which is apparently common for wizards. It's left open whether their initial foci came from awareness of the trope, but newcomers to magic in the books do tend to get it in a form which behaves as much the way they expect it to as is practical (without breaking [[Magic A Is Magic A]]).
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] novel ''Lungbarrow'', which explains the mythology of Gallifrey; the three scientists (Rassilon, Omega and the Other) are male and good. The Pythia (bad) is a witch and a woman.
* In the novel ''Enduring Love'', Clarissia is "mother nature" to Joe's "father science".
* A notable early aversion of this trope is [[E. T. A.
* In ''[[The Belgariad]]'' prequels, Polgara notes that her mother encouraged her to learn by accepting, whereas her father taught her to question everything.
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