Straw Vulcan: Difference between revisions

** Or assuming that all logical choices must make one side better off on an individual basis, without considering cooperation; this is known as a [[wikipedia:Nash equilibrium|Nash equilibrium]], although you'll never find the actual term mentioned, mostly because the word "equilibrium" is far too logical-sounding for authors claiming its inferiority.

* The Straw Vulcan, and by extension all logical thinkers, will be uncreative, or at least less so than [[Hot-Blooded|emotional people]]. He will be unable to come up with an imaginative answer to an unusual problem, while the [[The Kirk|emotional protagonist]], often despite having no real experience with this kind of situation, will be able to save the day. This is supposed to show that "logic" is inferior to "emotion" in that emotion can provide [[Take a Third Option|a third and more favorable option]] to the logician's bad and worse options.

* There's also the case where the emotional person suggests a course that shouldn't work, period, but the Straw Vulcan's ideas all involve some aspect that the "non-logical" character find objectionable. So Straw Vulcan is outvoted, they go with the dumb emotional plan, and lo, it works... due to sheer dumb luck. This is then lauded as a victory for emotion, when in fact it's a victory for the [[Million-to-One Chance]] principle.

* The [[Straw Vulcan]] will often commit the [[Fallacy Fallacy]], dismissing a conclusion simply because it was based on invalid logic or on emotion. While the fact that an argument contains a fallacy is grounds for dismissing an argument, it does not prove that the conclusion is wrong.

* Stein Heigar from ''[[Infinite Ryvius]]''. He starts out as one of the most competent members of the Zwei, but as [[It Got Worse|things get worse]] his inability to control the situation leads him to [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]] and eventually having a total breakdown.

* Taiki may count as this in episode 177 of [[Sailor Moon]] Sailor Stars, unless this more counts as an example of [[Grumpy Bear]]. In this episode, Taiki looks down on Ami for believing that dreams and romance are needed in academics, and when the prospect of rain clouds the possibility of seeing a waited-for comet, he challenges her with "can your dreams and romance beat the rain?" This being Sailor Moon, the rain stops in time for the girls and Taiki to view the comet, and Taiki concedes that he can see the dreams and romance while viewing the comet.

** Both subverted and played out straight in ''[[Star Trek VI]]''. At one point Spock answers an appeal to logic from his protege Valeris by saying, "Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end." During the remainder of the film, Spock is often telling outright lies or asking crewmembers to do so (acts that certainly go against what Vulcans traditionally consider logical) and describing the lies as "a miscommunication" and other euphemisms...anything but "a lie." But in the end, we find that {{spoiler|for reasons she considers "logical," Valeris has conspired to assassinate Klingon Chancellor Gorkon and frame Kirk for his murder. When she says she doesn't recall the names of her fellow conspirators, Spock asks, "A lie?" She replies, "A choice."}}

* I don't know that they use the word "logical," but the computer in ''[[War Games]]'' is supposed to have mastered all sorts of game theory, without ever having realized that there could possibly be a game in which neither player could win {{spoiler|(until, of course at the end, they introduce it to tic-tac-toe, and have it play against itself)}}.

* Dr. Ellie Arroway in ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'' is a SETI researcher who argues that Occam's Razor makes it more likely that humans invented the idea of God rather than God creating the world without a shred of proof pointing to his existence. During the hearing in which Ellie claimed she had a trip through the Stargate and encountered an alien (when all the witnesses and recorded data indicates the Stargate was a complete failure and nothing happened), Occam's Razor is flung back in her face: is it more likely that she hallucinated the journey or that the aliens sent her through the Stargate without leaving a shred of proof? Ellie concedes this but refuses to withdraw her position because her experience was too monumental for humanity's future to dismiss on logic alone. '''The kicker:''' the Christian philosopher whose personal religious awakening she (politely) dismissed as a psychological phenomenon is the first person to believe her: not because [[If Jesus, Then Aliens]] but because [[Not So Different|they're both committed to the truth]]. She ultimately continues her SETI research in hopes of finding more signs of extra-terrestrial life, proving that (at least where aliens are concerned) faith and logic can coexist.

** Of course that's based on a popular but flawed understanding of exactly what Occam's Razor is. It doesn't say that the simpler an explanation is the more likely it is to be true. Rather, it says that the simpler the explanation the easier it is to disprove. In other words, it's a model for efficiently testing competing theories. You start with the simplest and thus easiest to disprove and move up through increasingly complex theories until you find the correct one.

== Live-Action TV ==

** The whole trope is discussed in relation to pop culture in general and Star Trek specifically in the Skepticon lecture [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLgNZ9aTEwc 'The Straw Vulcan']. Yes, the title is taken deliberately from this trope - apparently, the speaker is [[One of Us]].

** In "The Galileo Seven", we're shown Spock's first command, as the shuttle he is in charge of crashes on a desolate planet filled with savage aliens. Spock determines that a display of superior force will logically frighten away these aliens while the crew make repairs to the shuttle. Instead, as [[The McCoy|Dr. McCoy]] points out, the aliens have an emotional reaction and become angry and attack, something Spock did not anticipate. In the end, Spock's desperate act of igniting the fuel from the shuttle to create a beacon proves to be the correct action since it gets the attention of the Enterprise and allows for a rescue. When called on this "emotional" act, Spock replies that the only logical course of action in that instance was one of desperation.

** In another episode from ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', Captain Solok has been hassling Benjamin Sisko across the known galaxy for the past two decades, all in the name of proving that emotional, illogical humans (like Sisko) are inferior to emotionless, logical Vulcans (like himself). Somewhat subverted by the end of the episode, when the Deep Space Nine crew successfully goad Solok into losing his temper.

**** "Human? Did I leave my spots at home?" "All that Vulcan intelligence, and he doesn't even know what a hew-mon looks like."

** In early episodes of both ''The Original Series'' and ''The Next Generation'', humans who have uploaded their minds into android bodies discover that they have lost some ineffable, illogical, ''human'' quality in the transfer. Despairing at this loss, they choose to terminate their existence -- a strangely emotional reaction for [[Tin Man|beings which now supposedly have none]].

*** Ironically, this is referenced and deconstructed by ''Data'', of all people, in an episode of ''The Next Generation''; a scientist wants to disassemble him and dump his memory into a computer so he could study him and learn how to create more like him, and Data refuses, fully believing in that same ineffable quality to memory and believing he, himself would lose it in the transfer, despite ''himself being an android''. In an attempt to explain this, he compares it to how learning how to play poker from a book isn't the same as actually playing the game, in person, implying that the "ineffable quality" being lost is the personal importance and significance of those experiences, the context which makes the event special for that individual, which -- when read out of that context as a mere descriptive text readout -- cannot be fully understood or appreciated -- an actually logical argument when you think about it.

** The ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series|Animated Series]]'' episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" neatly subverts or perhaps averts this. In a parallel universe where magic works, McCoy scoffs at Spock's attempt to perform a magical ritual. His reply? "It must work, Doctor. It is ''logical'' -- here."

** Tuvok on ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'' often acted as a [[Straw Vulcan]].

** The prime directive of the Daleks is not Omnicidal destruction, it's the survival of the Dalek race, as seen in the Victory of the Daleks. They will do anything to complete their mission of destroying all life as long as they themselves dont get completely wiped out. That seems to me like being very logical.

*** The real weird is when the Doctor demonstrates the problem of perfect logic by getting two Movellans to take part in [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]] and noting that they always draw? Why should they draw? The game is a game of pure chance, there is no logical reason to chose any option so purely logical beings should just produce random choices. (Unless their random number seeds were all set to the same value).

** The more recent episode, ''Evolution of the Daleks'', works the logic/emotion debate more realistically, as Sec's newly acquired ability to feel emotions other than hate makes him far more "logical". This is a genuine [[Heel Face Turn]] (considering {{spoiler|his [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}), but there was pragmatism here, as the recurring flaw of the Daleks, especially in the post-time-war era, is their tendency to let genocidal xenophobia trump their logic. Sec reasoned, quite logically, that the best way to ensure the survival of your race was not to carry the [[Villain Ball]] everywhere.

** The Cybermen in particular suffer from this trope; they've removed all of their emotions and are supposed to function completely by logic, as according to them, emotion is weakness; the fact that they don't have any emotions often completely scuttles them, because their logic is thus totally flawed.

** When Brennan [[Easy Amnesia|lost her memory of the last couple days]] and was framed for murder; she argued ''in favor her own guilt'' as the most logical conclusion even though the police had no motive whatsoever and Booth pointed out she was not capable of murder.

** Speaking of ''[[Bones]]'', {{spoiler|Zack's decision to work for a cannibalistic serial killer because "his logic is unassailable".}} Really? Even accepting all his premises, where exactly does eating people and making a skeleton from their remains fit in to this plan?

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''; the hyper-logical Asgard, on the verge of defeat in their war against the Replicators, come to Earth seeking ideas from a more primitive, more savage race. Immediately averted by Jack saying "You're actually saying you need someone dumber than you are?" Carter, as it turns out, is indeed dumb enough to win that battle. The fact that the Asgard, practically alone among [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]], are able to acknowledge they are not perfect and, more importantly, humanity and Earth in particular actually have something to contribute is one reason they are such great guys.

** Of course, the Asgard's main reason for coming is that they are so advanced they have trouble coming up with low-tech solutions (for example, launching pieces of metal at a high speed using a small explosive to deal with targets that have shielding against energy weapons) or solutions to problem their technology can't solve. Which makes sense, as similar things happen IRL. People living in the 21st century would often not think (or even be aware) of several tricks and trades used centuries prior - and not think of using such tricks when they might again be useful (see the [[Real Life]] section of [[Rock Beats Laser]] for example).

* Dr. Perceptron in ''[[Futurama]]'' is utterly crippled as a psychoanalist by his adherence to "logic". For example, he ignored Fry's claims of humanity solely because he was in an institution for robots, thus meaning he was clearly a robot.

* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', [[Fantastic Science|research magician]] Twilight Sparkle disregards repeated observational evidence of [[Cloudcuckoolander|Pinkie Pie's]] [[Spider Sense|"Pinkie Sense"]] because it's not [[Sufficiently Analyzed Magic]]. Then, under the influence of [[Amusing Injuries|severe repeated head trauma]] and possible [[Burning with Anger|stress-induced brain anyeurism]], she concludes that it "just makes sense," and that you [[Science Is Wrong|"just have to choose to believe"]] in things you don't understand. In defense of the show, after the inevitable [[Internet Backlash]], the creator of the show, [[Lauren Faust]], apologized, saying that that wasn't meant to be the moral to take away from the episode.