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Straw Vulcan: Difference between revisions
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* 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.
* A Straw Vulcan will have to consider everything about the problem in full detail even in time-critical situations, while the emotional person will make the snap decisions necessary in this sort of situation. This will demonstrate how the "logical" Straw Vulcan is useless under pressure and therefore inferior to the emotional protagonist.
* 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
* 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.
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See [[Dumb Is Good]], [[You Fail Logic Forever]], [[Giving Up On Logic]] and [[Unweaving the Rainbow]]. Compare [[Straw Hypocrite]]. The existence of this character means that the writer falls on the Romanticist side of [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment]].Contrast to [[Emotions vs. Stoicism]]. [[Opposite Tropes]] to [[Strawman Emotional]].
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
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** This one is especially weird because the Daleks are shown elsewhere to be anything but a "perfectly logical" race, being very emotional indeed (albeit the usual emotion being "hate"). And they don't even have the excuse, such as it is, of falling into [[Did Not Do the Research]]; this story was written by Terry Nation, the Daleks' creator and the writer of over half the other Dalek stories to this point.
** 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
*** His reasoning here is that the Movellans are not too rigidly logic but rather ridiculously short-sighted. After the first rock versus rock loss, if one assumes that the opponent will try the counter to rock (paper), then the logical response is to counter that with scissors - and they both do. Then they both think the opponent will try rock to break scissors and both play paper, and so on and so forth. The Doctor thinks one step ahead and plays the counter of that counter-counter round after round. A perfectly logical being would have deduced that such short-sighted automatic responses fail! The Movellans are not purely logic, they just suck at playing [[I Know You Know I Know]].
** 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.
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*** Just after the Cybermen have boasted of elegance, we see the procedure they go through to fire their built-in weapons. The Dalek's simple point-and-exterminate is far more elegant -- and effective.
**** Although as far as logic goes, both sides would be a lot better off spending less time shouting "Delete"/"Exterminate" and [[Just Shoot Him|just shooting already]].
* In ''[[Super Sentai]]'', [[The Hero]] is almost always a loudmouth with more adrenaline than brains (similar to the ''[[Digimon]]'' franchise's [[Goggles Do Nothing|goggle-wearer]]). In an episode of ''Magiranger'' in which [[The Hero]] and his mentor switch roles, the very [[Family
** This exact plot was copied over in ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'', the Americanized version of ''Magiranger''.
* ''[[Bones]]'' lives on the [[Odd Couple]] relationship between emotional and intuitive Booth and logical and rational Brennan: she's frequently shown as being wrong in the end, or being right for the wrong reasons.
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== Music ==
* In the [[Grateful Dead]] song ''Terrapin Station'', a potential love interest [[Secret Test of Character|tests]] the [[Single Woman Seeks Good Man|worthiness]] of the heros, a [[The Spock|soldier]] and a [[The McCoy|sailor]], by [[Moral Dissonance|throwing her fan into the lion's den]] and promising her love to whoever would retreive it for her. The sailor [[Mad Love|decides to]], while the soldier refuses, and says "Strategy is my strength, not disaster." The sailor [[Million
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* A variation of this can happen to Alchemicals in ''[[Exalted]]'' -- as they grow into cities, install Exemplar charms, or go long periods without human interaction, they accumulate Clarity. The sourcebook for Alchemicals goes out of its way to point out that this means they focus on efficiency and do not become needlessly cruel.
** [[Subverted Trope|On the other hand]], most can become aware of this and are usually willing to at least listen to their more emotional advisers.
* In ''[[Genius: The Transgression (Tabletop Game)|Genius: The Transgression]]'', we have Atomists, the [[Well
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* Averted in, of all places, ''[[The Replacements]]''. One episode revolves around the problems of Riley displaying some "Straw Vulcan" behavior.... however, it's never labeled as "logical", and in the end, it's determined that it's not innately inferior to more impulsive behavior... but just that each is better-suited to certain problems and situations.
* 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 (Animation)|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.
* The original Prowl from [[Transformers]] was described as being logical to the point of shutting down when faced with an unexpectedly crazy situation. In the cartoon, this wasn't really touched on and he was portrayed more as a just-the-facts-ma'am style military policeman.
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== Real Life ==
* The [[Josef Stalin|Stalin era]] Soviet Union followed the 'everything but this specific model is not really logic'. For example, probability mathematics was declared a 'bourgeois pseudoscience' and the Law of Large Numbers a 'false theory'. The idea of anything less than [[You Can't Fight Fate|perfect and total determinism]] just somehow ''irked'' them. Things improved a bit after Stalin croaked, and but the damage had already been done.
** Bear in mind, this is a government which banned ''genetics'' because things like Mendel's laws were incompatible with their politics. Hmm... [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|where have we heard]] [[The Fundamentalist|this one before]]?
* There is a well known paradox called ''Buridan's Ass'', which tries to show the problem with relying too much on logic. The eponymous ass (donkey) is positioned equidistantly between two equally sized piles of hay. It wants to eat one of them, but can't choose between them, since there is nothing to distinguish between each one, and hence, no reason why the option "Eat haystack A" should be considered better or worse than "Eat haystack B". The idea is that a logical answer is an answer which is better than all others, and thus, when there's no "better" choice, you can't choose at all. However, since "Stand here forever and starve to death" is obviously a less favourable option than either choice, the answer that's actually most logical is to pick one at random and start eating.
** This is formally known as the false dichotomy fallacy.
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