A rant on magic vs. science.
I've been set upon one as I read The Dresden Files, which are fairly good, but also have some warts. It's
just fun pulpy reading of a noir-style detective who takes weird cases, and, um, oh yes, he's Chicago's only practicing wizard as well. Anyway, I've seen it elsewhere as well, but book 2 seems to have fallen victim to the whining about how no one wants to believe in magic, people are such skeptics, and so on. Even mentions "the religion of Science" and how it just couldn't explain the terrible happenings in place X. There's just one problem with this: it's totally false.
First off, if the real world is any indication, people would love to believe in magic. I'm not talking just the myriad of fantasy books published, either- go read the tabloids for your latest incredible unexplainable happenings, ESP phenonenma, & prophecies. Sure, science-tinted aliens seem more popular than demonic sightings these days, but the masses clearly enjoy their John Edwards.
Second of all, they show a fundamental misunderstanding of science. Science is like some tautological mutant octopus blob; it embraces everything, swallowing it up within itself. Science is a method of understanding things- anything. Short of a universe where everything happens by random chance, Science has a place in pretty much any kind of world you can come up with. There's a reason why many straight-up fantasy worlds have the wise sage-scientist-magician type in them. In a world where magic works, true scientists would be crawling all over it, learning its rules, doing experiments, and coming up with magical formulas. Sound familiar? The mage is merely a scientist whose specialty is magic, no different than a biologist or a chemist. And just as other disciplines borrow from mathematics for its insights, so the other disciplines would be affected by borrowing from magic as well. Now, obviously, magic won't always be neat & simple in every world, but if it's repeatable and practised out in the open, then men of learning would surely acknowledge its existence at the very least, short of some (non-scientific) reason for a societal cover-up. James Randi still has his million dollar challenge going to anyone who can repeatedly show off some weird power (magic, ESP, whatever)... if someone DID make the challenge, the amount of inquiry and study of the results would be massive, and hardly a "Sweep under the rug" kinda thing.
Now, magic shunned and disbelieved absolutely CAN be done well. The best and easiest example would be the Cthulu mythos. Magic is not easily repeatable and drives people insane, which doesn't tend to leave trustworthy witnesses. It's not done in the open either. Lastly, the style of magic is chaotic and bizarre, meaning that even people who study it have a hard time explaining why or how it works without sounding like a madman, if they aren't one already. This is the perfect setup to have magic disbelieved and ignored in. A good way that I'd like to see done, although I haven't quite yet... in a world where magic is fairly weak, make the frauds more known then the "real" magicians, which interferes with the attempts of the real ones to prove anything to the world. I mean, heck, if you're going to get your fortune told, which would you rather hear, some generic "You've had an important event very recently, but things are looking up" that sounds good, or an actually accurate "You'll regret breaking up with your boyfriend when you lose your job a year and half or so from now?"
So yeah. That said, in book 2, we have a series of murder cases with strange paw prints left at the scene, victims torn apart with unnatural force, and tooth & claw marks that seem bigger than they should be for animals. The places were penetrated with human intelligence too (i.e. opening doors & windows). Did I mention that these murders took place on the nights around a full moon?
If this happened in the real world- the one without even any practising wizards who can repeatedly show off their powers, but merely folktales, Hollywood & the imagination- what kind of conclusion would the tabloids and even some of the police have drawn?
Yup, people don't want to believe and are unwilling to consider that which threatens science. Yeah, right.
just fun pulpy reading of a noir-style detective who takes weird cases, and, um, oh yes, he's Chicago's only practicing wizard as well. Anyway, I've seen it elsewhere as well, but book 2 seems to have fallen victim to the whining about how no one wants to believe in magic, people are such skeptics, and so on. Even mentions "the religion of Science" and how it just couldn't explain the terrible happenings in place X. There's just one problem with this: it's totally false.
First off, if the real world is any indication, people would love to believe in magic. I'm not talking just the myriad of fantasy books published, either- go read the tabloids for your latest incredible unexplainable happenings, ESP phenonenma, & prophecies. Sure, science-tinted aliens seem more popular than demonic sightings these days, but the masses clearly enjoy their John Edwards.
Second of all, they show a fundamental misunderstanding of science. Science is like some tautological mutant octopus blob; it embraces everything, swallowing it up within itself. Science is a method of understanding things- anything. Short of a universe where everything happens by random chance, Science has a place in pretty much any kind of world you can come up with. There's a reason why many straight-up fantasy worlds have the wise sage-scientist-magician type in them. In a world where magic works, true scientists would be crawling all over it, learning its rules, doing experiments, and coming up with magical formulas. Sound familiar? The mage is merely a scientist whose specialty is magic, no different than a biologist or a chemist. And just as other disciplines borrow from mathematics for its insights, so the other disciplines would be affected by borrowing from magic as well. Now, obviously, magic won't always be neat & simple in every world, but if it's repeatable and practised out in the open, then men of learning would surely acknowledge its existence at the very least, short of some (non-scientific) reason for a societal cover-up. James Randi still has his million dollar challenge going to anyone who can repeatedly show off some weird power (magic, ESP, whatever)... if someone DID make the challenge, the amount of inquiry and study of the results would be massive, and hardly a "Sweep under the rug" kinda thing.
Now, magic shunned and disbelieved absolutely CAN be done well. The best and easiest example would be the Cthulu mythos. Magic is not easily repeatable and drives people insane, which doesn't tend to leave trustworthy witnesses. It's not done in the open either. Lastly, the style of magic is chaotic and bizarre, meaning that even people who study it have a hard time explaining why or how it works without sounding like a madman, if they aren't one already. This is the perfect setup to have magic disbelieved and ignored in. A good way that I'd like to see done, although I haven't quite yet... in a world where magic is fairly weak, make the frauds more known then the "real" magicians, which interferes with the attempts of the real ones to prove anything to the world. I mean, heck, if you're going to get your fortune told, which would you rather hear, some generic "You've had an important event very recently, but things are looking up" that sounds good, or an actually accurate "You'll regret breaking up with your boyfriend when you lose your job a year and half or so from now?"
So yeah. That said, in book 2, we have a series of murder cases with strange paw prints left at the scene, victims torn apart with unnatural force, and tooth & claw marks that seem bigger than they should be for animals. The places were penetrated with human intelligence too (i.e. opening doors & windows). Did I mention that these murders took place on the nights around a full moon?
If this happened in the real world- the one without even any practising wizards who can repeatedly show off their powers, but merely folktales, Hollywood & the imagination- what kind of conclusion would the tabloids and even some of the police have drawn?
Yup, people don't want to believe and are unwilling to consider that which threatens science. Yeah, right.