Science and Logic in Fantasy

[Darth Wong]

It has been widely claimed that science should "not apply" at all to any subject involving fantasy. However, it has also been shown quite clearly that:

1. Anti-science whores do apply science, but only when it suits them.
2. Anti-science whores do not understand how science is used in real life (if an observation is made which contradicts a scientific theory, we revise our theories to incorporate both the old data and the new data, rather than simply throwing everything out the window).
3. Anti-science whores are woefully ignorant of science, which is probably the single biggest reason for their behaviour.
4. Anti-science whores do not recognize that if you can prove a particular anime, comic, or fantasy series is depicted in a hopelessly subjective way, that it is impossible by definition to produce objective conclusions, with or without science. In essence, any excessively subjective depiction of a story becomes a one-sided myth like the Bible, in which you can take nothing at face value because no effort was made at objectivity in the first place. They want to have their cake and eat it too: pretend that you can generate objective conclusions without having to obey any of the rules for objectivity and logic.
5. Anti-science whores think that people who apply science intend to dismiss any event which is not possible according to known science, because they seem to be too stupid to recognize that this is not what we're trying to do (see item #2).

In short, the anti-science whores are liars and hypocrites, who use the "science doesn't apply" argument not because they have thought it through or are even willing to evenly apply it, but because they think it's a convenient way to dismiss arguments that they can't deal with any other way.

If you're an anti-science whore and you think I'm being unfair to flame you in an announcement like this, then go to another fucking website. I am under no obligation to create a website which was primarily created to discuss sci-fi and other subjects from a rational, objective point of view and then humour people who want to remake this board in the image of some other shit board full of scientific ignoramuses that they would rather be on.

If you want to discuss this subject, go here and enjoy the flames: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=25912

[Darth Wong]

It seems some people require examples, since they do not understand concepts. In particular, many fantasy geekboys come here and say that magic cannot be quantified. Perhaps they do not understand what quantification is, or how numbers apply. Allow me to provide an example:

A fantasy wizard has a magic spell which is said to make him invincible. Let us further suppose that we see him use it against a foe who can throw lightning, and it seems to work.

The magic geekboy would look at this and conclude "yes, this spell makes him invincible. We know because he used it and it worked. Therefore, God himself could not overwhelm this spell."

An empirically-minded (read: scientifically minded) person looks at this same evidence and says "if we had not seen the spell in action, we would not know whether it works at all. Now that we have seen it in action, we know that it works well enough to block or at least redirect a lightning strike. We can use data from normal lightning strikes as a rough estimate for the energy and power levels involved, and this would represent a lower limit for its capabilities."

Any further extrapolation of its abilities is unreasonable unless you assume literal semantic inerrancy on the part of the source. And bear in mind that even if one does assume literal semantic inerrancy on the part of the source, all you have to do is find a single flaw in the literal semantic inerrancy of the entire book (or comic series, or entire series of books, etc) and that house of cards comes crashing down.