Independence Day, a different skeptical perspective. I finally saw "Independence Day." My first attempt to view this blockbuster was blocked by Hurricane Bertha. Not from the water so much, as from the number of people who went to Crossgates Mall because of the rain. (The last ticket to the 4:00 show sold to the couple in front of me, oh well.) For those of you living in a plastic bubble, Independence Day (or ID4) is about a race of Bug-eyed Monsters (BEMs) that invade the earth in gigantic (15 miles in diameter) ships. On the first day they destroy NY, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Moscow, etc. Then they get serious. A fighter pilot played by Will Smith and a Computer geek (go geeks!) played by Jeff Goldblum, however, find a way to save the day. In the end the remaining combined forces of the world's armed forces, lead by the United States, kick some serious bug-eyed alien butt and save the earth. In short, ID4 is your basic alien invasion film, a genre that was popular in the 1950's, and has been making a comeback both on screen (Robert Heinlein's Puppet Masters) and in print (Niven and Pornelli's "Footfall"). The main difference between this movie, and say "Invasion of the Flying Saucers" is better acting, better special effects, better dialog, and a larger price tag. However, the larger price-tag seems to be paying off, since ID4 is expected to gross over 200 million before the weekend. If it does, it will have done so faster then Jurassic Park. Independence day is a movie that has been commented on within skeptic circles. Specifically, its been called to task for making reference to the Roswell crashed UFO myth and alien abductions, for having aliens that use telepathy, and for playing fast and loose with computers. It has also been criticized for some lame dialog ("Oh, so they're organic life forms" comes to mind). I have also heard it claimed that in ID4 Hollywood has invented a new nemesis as a replacement for the evil empire of the Soviet Union. The theory is that, now that the communists are no longer a threat, we need a new enemy or "other." Of course an earlier generation of arm-chair analysts claimed the aliens of the 1950's were a substitute for the communists. So much for consistency. So what did I think of the movie and all of its paranormal mumble jumble? It was Fantastic! 3.5 stars! Great special effects, good casting and lots of action that kept the audience (myself included) on the edge of our seats and cheering when the good guys scored. Not since "Apollo 13" have I seen an audience so engrossed and hanging on every moment in a film. And, If you like bug-eyed monster movies, ID4 has some of the buggiest. What about all the non-skeptical treatment of Roswell, and telepathy, and the computer mistakes, and all that? What can I say, that's just good writing. Look, if you are going to produce a movie where a highly advanced and militarily superior race destroys all our major cities in a single day, you need some way for the humans to win. (Ok, you don't *need* some way, but producers like to make money, and history shows that having the good guys win makes more money.) And, this is the good part, the Roswell myth provides that hook which allows us to win. Before you proceed I should warn you that some serious spoilers follow. If you are planing to see this movie, watch first then read. You have been notified. In ID4, the Roswell myth is based on fact. That is, we do have one of the BEMs crafts and do understand something (but not much) about it and them. Without that knowledge, and without an unmarked and very secret U.S. Air Force base in which to hide out for a day, the BEMs would have gotten us. It was that craft, combined with hacker Goldblum's skill (8 years at MIT didn't go to waste after all) that are used to defeat the invaders. Better yet, the method is a "computer virus," the modern plot-prop equivalent of the germs which killed the Martians in H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds." What about telepathy? We all know telepathy doesn't exist, you say. So what about telepathy? Aliens have used telepathy in scifi movies and novels for decades without (so far) bringing about the end of western civilization. After all we are talking about fiction. Well, if the BEMs have telepathy, why did they need our satellites to coordinate? Perhaps, if you really need to make up an explanation, because the telepathy is limited by distance? Perhaps it worked via an organic (there's that word again) radio? Maybe genetically engineered into the aliens? There, was that so hard? Ok, so what about the computer stuff? Wouldn't our protocols be different from theirs? Well, we *did* have the craft for 40 years. You could assume we learned something about the interface protocol. All in all I would call the hacking Goldblum's character does difficult, especially under the circumstances, but not impossible. (I did, however, catch one very glaring computer error in the structured code displayed on one of his screens. Did anybody else notice?) All of the above rationalization is part of suspending disbelief. That is, to enjoy the movie you have to turn down your critical facilities just a bit. Not all the way off, just let a few points slide, that's all. This is a common requirement for enjoying a wide range of fiction. A good book or movie, however, provides some return for the effort. In the case of ID4 that return is lots of action, adventure and patriotic (to the human race) cheering. Besides, if your going to nit-pick movies for not being accurate, how about starting with historical dramas such as "Braveheart" (hate to spoil it for you, but Isabel's lover was not William Wallace), or "Apollo 13" (the writers made up crew conflict issues). Of course ID4 did include my all time annoyance with Hollywood science fiction---noise and explosions in space. (It was especially egregious with the latter.) But, this is almost par for the course these days. Maybe someday a brave producer will do it right in a block-buster and maybe the trend will change. I doubt it will happen any time soon. Even "Apollo 13", which filmed portions in free fall, lost nerve when it came to silence in a vacuum. Overall I recommend the movie for any science fiction or adventure fan skeptical or otherwise. The film does have technical errors. (The opening scene with the mother ship passing the moon contains an error. Did you catch it?) But these are pretty well compensated by a good movie. The Roswell reference is not gratuitous, it is necessary for resolving the plot, and the computer solution pays very nice homage to the all-time classic alien invasion story. Besides, if you need a sample saucer with which to defeat the BEMs, what better then one which is part of the popular culture. Mike P.S. I do have one co-worker who commented "It's a great movie, but it does give the aliens a bad rep." I don't know if he was serious or just trying to get a rise out of me. I didn't take the bait. From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Mon Jul 22 17:40 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id RAA17237 for ; Mon, 22 Jul 1996 17:40:28 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13736-10>; Mon, 22 Jul 1996 17:39:50 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12176-4>; Mon, 22 Jul 1996 17:39:07 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa037317 Mon, 22 Jul 96 21:43:56 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 17:11:22 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: RE: ID4 Review, a different skeptical perspective. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Michael D Sofka wrote: >The main difference between this movie, and say >"Invasion of the Flying Saucers" is better acting, better special >effects, better dialog, and a larger price tag. I believe this is what we call "damning with faint praise." Your average Pauly Shore film has better dialog than many of those 1950's monster movies. >What can I say, that's just good writing. Um, don't you mean "bad writing?" >And, >this is the good part, the Roswell myth provides that hook which >allows up to win. Foo. It was a no-brainer cop-out, based on the knowledge that the public would more readily accept a plot point based on something many of thme already believe is real. Intelligent writers could have written a GOOD script that you could hang all those gee-whiz FX on, and you would have wound up with a genuinely good film. Since you mentioned it, why not film "Footfall?" Because they would have had to pay for good writers, that's why. >if the BEMs have telepathy, why did they need our satellites to >coordinate? Perhaps, if you really need to make up an explanation, >because the telepathy is limited by distance? Perhaps it worked via >an organic (there's that word again) radio? Maybe because the writers wanted a quick and brainless way to make a plot point, and thought this sounded nice and technical? The aliens had thousands of small ships that could have been used as communications relays...or the mothership could have stationed itself such that it could stay in contact with all the destroyers...or they could have just agreed to attack 49 microbleems after leaving the mothership. And YES, you do have to make up an explanation, even if it's not mentioned in the film. That's one of the key differences between good writing and junk. A good writer knows EXACTLY how and why everything in the story happens. >Ok, so what about the computer stuff? Wouldn't our protocols be >different from theirs? Well, we *did* have the craft for 40 years. During which time, according to Brent Spiner's character, the ship was inoperative. >You could assume we learned something about the interface protocol. Interface protocol is only one of the many, many problems here. Where did they come up with the UNIX-to-ZC!VD*SRRT& cross-compiler? How did they know that the mothership computers would be ANYTHING like the computer in a 40-year-old fighter, or would permit a virus (or anything) to be uploaded? >All in all I would call the hacking Goldblum's character does >difficult, especially under the circumstances, but not impossible. I'd call it impossible. And silly. >The film does have technical errors. (The >opening scene with the mother ship passing the moon contains an error. >Did you catch it?) Two, actually. There was the vibration, and they also showed the Apollo 11 plaque resting on the Lunar surface. In fact, it is bolted to the ladder leg of the Lunar Module. Three, if you count the noise... >Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++. :-) Does seem kinda de-evo, doesn't it? AHA! That's it! The aliens were SO advanced, that they were using CP/M.... Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/22/96 14:11:22-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 23 13:26 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id NAA00734 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:26:48 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14542-2>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:26:37 -0400 Received: from mail1.its.rpi.edu ([128.113.100.7]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12594-2>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:26:03 -0400 Received: from betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu [128.113.24.130]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id NAA00611 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:25:54 -0400 Received: (sofkam@localhost) by betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) id NAA27312 for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:25:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199607231725.NAA27312@betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:25:52 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Michael D Sofka To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4, a different skeptical view. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text Dave Palmer >Michael D Sofka wrote: >>What can I say, that's just good writing. > >Um, don't you mean "bad writing?" > >>And, >>this is the good part, the Roswell myth provides that hook which >>allows up to win. > >Foo. It was a no-brainer cop-out, based on the knowledge that the >public would more readily accept a plot point based on something many >of thme already believe is real. Intelligent writers could have >written a GOOD script that you I'm afraid we just differ on this one. I liked the way the Roswell myth was incorporated into the story. I also very much like that the BEMs were killed by a ``germ''. (There were so many references (and rip-offs---can we say "Death Star") of other movies that it would not surprise me if the connection was intentional.) Regarding the quality of writing, it wasn't great, but it was good. The film kept the audience on the edge of their seats, people cheered and shouted, and, it's going to gross over 200 million after, what, 3 weeks. If that can't fit into your definition of ``good'' I suggest you loosen the parameters a little and re-run the simulation. Good does not equal cerebral, and cerebral (as Woody Alan's continued attempts at serious drama demonstrate) does not equal good. >could hang all those gee-whiz FX on, and you would have wound up with >a genuinely good film. Since you mentioned it, why not film >"Footfall?" Because they would have had to pay for good writers, >that's why. Actually, I much preferred "Lucifer's Hammer" and "Oath of Fealty" to "Footfall." I would put "Footfall" at about number 6 for Niven and Pournelle books (there is no 3 or 5, Mote in Gods eye is number 4). However, I suspect their books would not carry over well to the big screen. Too many characters going off in too many directions doing too many things all at once, and all heroically pulled together at the end (like one of Jerry's BASIC programs). Maybe a mini-series. >And YES, you do have to make up an explanation, even if it's not >mentioned in the film. That's one of the key differences between >good writing and junk. A good writer knows EXACTLY how and why >everything in the story happens. I suspect a lot of ID4 got cut from the final release (it is a long movie, don't drink a large diet coke before the opening credits). However, you are right in that I would have enjoyed a tighter script. Perhaps that would have nudged it to 4 stars, or perhaps the details would have made the movie boring and dragged it down to 3. >>The film does have technical errors. (The >>opening scene with the mother ship passing the moon contains an error. >>Did you catch it?) > >Two, actually. There was the vibration, and they also showed the Apollo 11 >plaque resting on the Lunar surface. In fact, it is bolted to the ladder leg >of the Lunar Module. Three, if you count the noise... I already acknowledged the noise in a vacuum problem. I forgot about the plaque. Yes, that was also portrayed incorrectly. Actually, I was thinking of the sacred myth of an American flag standing next to footprints at the Apollo 11 landing site. The flag was knocked over, and the footprints filled in by the LEM taking off. Anyway, this is all hardly skeptical fodder. My main point in the review was to counter the doom and gloom "oh no, Roswell is mentioned in a popular movie script" messages. I think ID4 is good entertainment, and no more harmful to science and wester civilization then the X-Files. :-) To summarize, I liked ID4 for its action and suspense, and enjoyed the way it incorporated popular myth and references to other movies. Roger, eh David, however, thought the script was poor and the story line lacked credibility. That's one thumb up and one down. Join us next week when we review John Travolta's new movie "Phenomena." Mike -- Michael D. Sofka sofkam@rpi.edu CIS Sr. Systems Programmer AFS, e-mail, usenet, ftp, NIS, NTP. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/ From SCRIMGEOURH@ONFPGU1.AGR.CA Tue Jul 23 15:21 EDT 1996 Received: from agc3.agr.ca (gw.agr.ca [192.197.71.131]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id PAA22349 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:21:50 -0400 Received: from gateway.ncr.agr.ca (agc6.agr.ca [192.197.71.68]) by agc3.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id PAA11765 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:20:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from VMGW.AGR.CA (vmgw.agr.ca [142.61.33.3]) by gateway.ncr.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id PAA04386 for <@gateway.ncr.agr.ca:sofkam@rpi.edu>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:16:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: 23 Jul 1996 15:03:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" Subject: ID4 To: sofkam Message-id: <01I7F0463UBM00011Y@VMGW.AGR.CA> X-VMS-To: OTTGW::IN%"sofkam@rpi.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: text (I won't clutter the list with this) > The following is a review I've written for "The Why-Files." I'm > interested in any comments or criticism. With pleasure. > In short, ID4 is your basic alien invasion film, a genre that was > popular in the 1950's, Actually, I thought ID4 owed a heck of a lot to the 1950s movie of "War of the Worlds", including using a nuclear weapon as an insuccessful "last resort". > and has been making a comeback both on screen > (Robert Heinlein's Puppet Masters) and in print (Niven and Pornelli's > "Footfall"). That's "Pournelle". > Independence day is a movie that has been commented on within > skeptic circles. Specifically, its been called to task for making > reference to the Roswell crashed UFO myth What a lot of folks missed, I think, is that, even in the world of the movie, there was no UFO crash at Roswell. That was in 1947; the folks in the movie said they'd had the alien craft "since the 50s". And the folks who claim to have been abducted by aliens are treated as loons all the way through. There never is any suggestion that the aliens really had been abducting people. > It has also been criticized for some lame dialog ("Oh, so > they're organic life forms" comes to mind). Keep in mind, though, who uttered that lame line. It was the President, an ex-fighter jock. And everyone else ignored him. > What about all the non-skeptical treatment of Roswell, and telepathy, > and the computer mistakes, and all that? What can I say, that's just > good writing. Look, if you are going to produce a movie where a > highly advanced and militarily superior race destroys all our major > cities in a single day, you need some way for the humans to win. It was a good movie, for the reasons you've given, but the writing was sloppy. Many of the complaints about the plot could have been fixed early on by a sharp script editor. The Lone Hero is a classic of fiction, especially science fiction, but this would have been more plausible: Our Hero, instead of working for a cable company, is a junior employee of the National Security Agency. They pick up the radio interference as soon as it starts. (It should start when the "mother ship" spawns off the city-busters.) Naturally, someone's assigned to analyze it; it might be important. They recognize early on that it's computer data, not encrypted "message traffic". Take it from there. > (Ok, you don't *need* some way, but producers like to make money, and > history shows that having the good guys win makes more money.) And, > this is the good part, the Roswell myth provides that hook which > allows up to win. Here's something else they could have done. They've analyzed all this message traffic, and learned a lot about the aliens' computer net. But not enough. They need to get their hands on one. And then the black pilot manages to get one to crash. He drags the alien across the desert, but the really valuable thing is the craft, which provides both a working copy of a computer, and the data link into the aliens' network. (The aliens are sloppy about communications security. They're used to dealing with less advanced races, and, because they're telepathic, they don't really think of their radio computer linkup as communication). > Without that knowledge, and without an unmarked and very > secret U.S. Air Force base in which to hide out for a day, Groom Lake, Nevada. I gather there really is a base there. I could believe that it wouldn't attract the aliens' attention. No really big weapons, and no large clusters of humans to wipe out. > Better yet, the method is a > "computer virus," the modern plot-prop equivalent of the germs which > killed the Martians in H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds." See? I *told* you it was the same plot... > western civilization. After all we are talking about fiction. Well, > if the BEMs have telepathy, why did they need our satellites to > coordinate? Perhaps, if you really need to make up an explanation, > because the telepathy is limited by distance? Exactly. One of the biggest problems with present-day claims of telepathy is that it's claimed not to attenuate with distance, to be able to transmit through obstacles, to transmit without interference... > Perhaps it worked via > an organic (there's that word again) radio? That's actually plausible. And they could have worked it into the script; if it's radio, the aliens need an antenna, but they have those big frills on their skulls. Of course, if it was radio, the Prez couldn't have learned about them. > Ok, so what about the computer stuff? Wouldn't our protocols be > different from theirs? Sure, but we have lots of different protocols on this planet; encountering another unfamiliar one shouldn't throw us completely,. Especially not, say, the spooks at the NSA. > (I > did, however, catch one very glaring computer error in the structured > code displayed on one of his screens. Did anybody else notice?) Nope. They didn't give you a very long look at it, which was only sensible. > Besides, if > your going to nit-pick movies for not being accurate, how about > starting with historical dramas such as "Braveheart" (hate to spoil it > for you, but Isabel's lover was not William Wallace), And Wallace was 6'6". > Of course ID4 did include my all time annoyance with Hollywood science > fiction---noise and explosions in space. (It was especially egregious > with the latter) But, this is almost par for the course these days. And it actually requires considerable movie-making skill to get around it. In the original "Star Trek" series, they first shot the opening credits without the "whoosh". It was dead. > Maybe someday a brave producer will do it right in a block-buster Done. 2001. But nobody's tried it since. > The film does have technical errors. (The > opening scene with the mother ship passing the moon contains an error. > Did you catch it?) Yeah. They showed the "We came in peace" plaque mounted on the ground. It was actually mounted on one of the landing struts of the LEM. Very sloppy, considering they went to the trouble to get the plaque itself right. > The Roswell reference is not gratuitous, it is necessary for > resolving the plot, Yeah, but it could have been handled better. "mumble-mumble Roswell." "Naw, that was a surveillance balloon." Something else which might have been a nice touch would be to have the virus work better than expected. Those alien craft were supersonic. What if they're not very aerodynamic without their shields? What if they disintegrate if the shields go down while they're in atmospheric flight? +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M. | | Internet: 75126.2744@compuserve.com CIS: 75126,2744 | | scrimgeourh@onfpgu1.agr.ca | | "We also walk dogs..." | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ From sofkam@rpi.edu Tue Jul 23 16:22 EDT 1996 Received: from betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu [128.113.24.130]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id QAA05056; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 16:22:16 -0400 Received: from rpi.edu (sofkam@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id QAA15562; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 16:22:17 -0400 Message-Id: <199607232022.QAA15562@betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.5 12/11/95 To: "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" cc: sofkam Subject: Re: ID4 In-reply-to: Your message of "23 Jul 1996 15:03:28 EDT." <01I7F0463UBM00011Y@VMGW.AGR.CA> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 16:22:07 +22325033 From: Michael D Sofka Content-Type: text/plain Howard, Glad there's another skeptic out there who liked the movie. > > In short, ID4 is your basic alien invasion film, a genre that was > > popular in the 1950's, > > Actually, I thought ID4 owed a heck of a lot to the 1950s movie of > "War of the Worlds", including using a nuclear weapon as an > insuccessful "last resort". Yeah, I notice that too. That and the shimmering green force field. I was thinking of expanding the review to point out more of the connections. > > and has been making a comeback both on screen > > (Robert Heinlein's Puppet Masters) and in print (Niven and Pornelli's > > "Footfall"). > > That's "Pournelle". Caught that one (actually, looked it up in my scifi.bib file, I never can remember how to spell his name). > > Independence day is a movie that has been commented on within > > skeptic circles. Specifically, its been called to task for making > > reference to the Roswell crashed UFO myth > > What a lot of folks missed, I think, is that, even in the world of the > movie, there was no UFO crash at Roswell. That was in 1947; the folks > in the movie said they'd had the alien craft "since the 50s". I missed that, thanks. Also, was the base Area 51? I'm not sure if the geography works. Will smith flew a helicopter from the base to Los Angeles, and walked there from his crashed jet. Do you recall if the base was ever mentioned by name? So, pretty much Roswell was mentioned only by Jeff Goldblum's father (the actor's name escapes me for the moment), and the secretary of defense says "not all of its myth sir" or something like that. > And the folks who claim to have been abducted by aliens are treated > as loons all the way through. There never is any suggestion that the > aliens really had been abducting people. Yeah, I didn't mention that in the review, but it struck me that Randy Quad was just a little looney and you never really knew if he was abducted or had post traumatic stress disorder from Vietnam. Certainly UFO boosters on the roof gave the impression of being a little disconnected from the events around them "I hope they bring Elvis back." > > It has also been criticized for some lame dialog ("Oh, so > > they're organic life forms" comes to mind). > > Keep in mind, though, who uttered that lame line. It was the > President, an ex-fighter jock. And everyone else ignored him. Hum. It does read well as an attempt by him to sound more knowledgeable then he was. Personally, I thought Bill Pullman was excellent in the role of that president. Based on his previous movies I was thinking, that lunkhead, how could he be president. Which, I gather is about what the rest of the country in ID4 thought. Overall the movie was well cast. > > What about all the non-skeptical treatment of Roswell, and telepathy, > > and the computer mistakes, and all that? What can I say, that's just > > good writing. Look, if you are going to produce a movie where a > > highly advanced and militarily superior race destroys all our major > > cities in a single day, you need some way for the humans to win. > > It was a good movie, for the reasons you've given, but the writing was > sloppy. Many of the complaints about the plot could have been fixed > early on by a sharp script editor. Agreed. I got the impression there were a few scenes that never made it to the final version. > The Lone Hero is a classic of fiction, especially science fiction, but > this would have been more plausible: Our Hero, instead of working for > a cable company, is a junior employee of the National Security Agency. > They pick up the radio interference as soon as it starts. (It should > start when the "mother ship" spawns off the city-busters.) Naturally, > someone's assigned to analyze it; it might be important. They > recognize early on that it's computer data, not encrypted "message > traffic". Take it from there. I went with, Dave (Jeff Goldblum) was so absorbed in the ``interesting'' interference pattern he didn't notice everything else that was going on. After 8 years at MIT (I get the impression he never finished a degree) he absorbed all sorts of information about codes, encryption, conspiracies, etc. It was just an interesting hack to him until somebody made him look at at TV. Not sure which version I like better. The one ID4 used was ok, but could have been tighter. Your version has the advantage of not needing to use our satellites. My favorite line, btw, was the exchange between him and his father: Dave: I can triangulate on her location. Dad: I didn't know you can do that. Dave: All cable guys can. It was spoken not like mumble, jumble conspiracy stuff, but like he was getting his father back for the earlier remark "what do you know that they don't Mr. Cable Guy." > > (Ok, you don't *need* some way, but producers like to make money, and > > history shows that having the good guys win makes more money.) And, > > this is the good part, the Roswell myth provides that hook which > > allows up to win. > > Here's something else they could have done. They've analyzed all this > message traffic, and learned a lot about the aliens' computer net. > But not enough. They need to get their hands on one. And then the > black pilot manages to get one to crash. He drags the alien across > the desert, but the really valuable thing is the craft, which provides > both a working copy of a computer, and the data link into the aliens' > network. (The aliens are sloppy about communications security. > They're used to dealing with less advanced races, and, because they're > telepathic, they don't really think of their radio computer linkup as > communication). That's nice. I wondered about the crashed ship from Will Smith's battle, and had assumed for a time it was where the working demo would come from. Perhaps you should consult for "ID4-II: Revenge of the BEMs." :-) > > Without that knowledge, and without an unmarked and very > > secret U.S. Air Force base in which to hide out for a day, > > Groom Lake, Nevada. I gather there really is a base there. I could > believe that it wouldn't attract the aliens' attention. No really big > weapons, and no large clusters of humans to wipe out. Did they mention Groom Lake by name? I guess Nevada isn't too far from Los Angeles. Stretching it for helicopter distance, but then I found that to be the corniest part of the movie. Better would have been a search team finding the survivors, and since the first lady was one of them the whole lot are taken to Groom Lake. > Exactly. One of the biggest problems with present-day claims of > telepathy is that it's claimed not to attenuate with distance, to be > able to transmit through obstacles, to transmit without > interference... > > > Perhaps it worked via > > an organic (there's that word again) radio? > > That's actually plausible. And they could have worked it into the > script; if it's radio, the aliens need an antenna, but they have those > big frills on their skulls. Of course, if it was radio, the Prez > couldn't have learned about them. I was thinking about this. Maybe the large heads are organic batteries such as electric eels (actually, they're long fish) have. These fish live in muddy water, and use the magnetic field generated for navigation. If the BEMs evolved on a dark, swampy world they may have a similar mechanism which later evolved (or was coaxed) into being a communications method. This leaves open the possibility that they can use the field as a weapon (the psionic blast), and maybe, with effort, manipulate the grey matter of other species. You note the alien had to drop Brett Spinner to attack the President. > Nope. They didn't give you a very long look at it, which was only > sensible. If you see the movie again, just as Jeff Goldblum is using the powerbook to launch the missile (or was it to activate the virus) they showed something that looked like: really_destructive_procedure(with, some, parameters) { nasty_parameter = really_nasty_level; some_really_really_nasty_stuff(more, nasty, parameters) { we = really + mean + it; execute; And, Jeff presses return on execute. So, first it's source code not a command language he's entering the command into. And, second, it is in the middle of two open blocks of code. At the least, he should have typed "execute; }}" if he were in an interpreted language. (it looked like C++, but could have been Java). > > Maybe someday a brave producer will do it right in a block-buster > > Done. 2001. But nobody's tried it since. But, its effects on the science fiction film industry didn't last. There have also been movies form the 50's ("Destination Moon" for example) that were very careful about space effects. > Yeah. They showed the "We came in peace" plaque mounted on the > ground. It was actually mounted on one of the landing struts of the > LEM. Very sloppy, considering they went to the trouble to get the > plaque itself right. They also showed the flag standing, and the footprints. The flag was knocked over, and the prints filled with dust when the LEMs took off. > Yeah, but it could have been handled better. "mumble-mumble Roswell." > "Naw, that was a surveillance balloon." > > Something else which might have been a nice touch would be to have the > virus work better than expected. Those alien craft were supersonic. > What if they're not very aerodynamic without their shields? What if > they disintegrate if the shields go down while they're in atmospheric > flight? Less chance to show off the special effects. The air battle was a good scene, especially Randy Quad flying is jet up the ship's plasma generator (I'm assuming that's what the weapon was) after his missile jammed. Shades of Slim Pickins riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove. Mike -- Michael D. Sofka sofkam@rpi.edu CIS Sr. Systems Programmer AFS, e-mail, usenet, ftp, NIS, NTP. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/ Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++. From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 23 15:39 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id PAA25799 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:39:30 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <15314-2>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:39:24 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14953-6>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:37:23 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa037533 Tue, 23 Jul 96 19:41:35 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:45:48 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4, a different skeptical view. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Michael D Sofka wrote: >If that can't fit into your definition of ``good'' I suggest >you loosen the parameters a little and re-run the simulation. Lower my standards so I fit in with the rest of the flock, and don't make waves? Yep. I've been hearing that for 40 years now. It's STILL not an appealing idea. >Good >does not equal cerebral, and cerebral (as Woody Alan's continued >attempts at serious drama demonstrate) does not equal good. Not automatically, no. But I am quite distressed that even educated and intelligent people seem to have bought the notion that cerebral (or even merely "not stupid") CANNOT equal good. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard people say, "hey it's not SUPPOSED to be realistic, it's just a movie." Hogwash. >However, you are right in that I would have enjoyed a tighter script. >Perhaps that would have nudged it to 4 stars, or perhaps the details >would have made the movie boring and dragged it down to 3. No, I think you missed my point here. I wasn't suggesting that they should have spent any more or less screen time justifying things. What I was saying is that a good writer writes things for a reason. Nothing is just "made up" for a convenient plot point. Everything happens for a reason that is consitent with the "universe" the writer is creating, even if that reason is never explicitly stated in the work. The ID4 writers were not good writers. They put in all sorts of junk that was inconsistent with their "universe" just for the sake of having something, anything, for the characters to do while waiting for the next FX shot. Ditto for "Twister," "Jurassic Park," and probably the next 20 special effects extravaganzas to come. However, the day is coming very soon when the teeming masses will yawn at these gee-whiz special effects, just as they quickly got accustomed to sound, color, wide screen, and every other cinema technical advance. Some ID4-wannabe producer is going to lose the bankroll, and not have a clue why. The film "Forrest Gump" showed that a film can have CGI effects and make tons of money, and ALSO have pretty good writing and acting. To date, it is the only film in this class. >footprints at the Apollo 11 landing site. The flag was knocked over, >and the footprints filled in by the LEM taking off. Right. That makes four errors. However, it was only the footprints nearby the LM that were likely to have been wiped out. >Anyway, this is all hardly skeptical fodder. Welllll, in a way it is. What I'm beefing about here is the fact that "stupid and wrong" apparently sells. This should be of great concern (although no great surprise) to skeptics, as should the fact that so few people even NOTICE basic scientific and logic errors. It should also be of concern to skeptics that so much of popular entertainment is subtly reinforcing incorrect notions. OK, so I'll allow the Roswell story to be true after all in a fiction film about an alien invasion. But look at more "realistic" films, and you'll see an undercurrent of "X Files" mentality, where, apparently, the sole job of the government is to stage huge coverups, where psychic powers, bigfoot, flying suacers, and faith healing are real. Popular entertainment mirrors popular attitudes, but also vice-versa. The movies have always been as much a guide as a mirror of popular culture. >lacked credibility. That's one thumb up and one down. Join >us next week when we review John Travolta's new movie "Phenomena." Haven't been able to bring myself to see that one... However, I note that a film opening this week bills itself as coming from the people who made "Dumb and Dumber." Oh good. Now THERE'S a good reason to see it. Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/23/96 11:45:48-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 23 17:37 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id RAA19134 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:37:28 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13958-9>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:36:52 -0400 Received: from mail1.its.rpi.edu ([128.113.100.7]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12512-4>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:36:18 -0400 Received: from betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu [128.113.24.130]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id RAA18891 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:36:07 -0400 Received: (sofkam@localhost) by betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) id RAA28206 for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:36:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199607232136.RAA28206@betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:36:08 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Michael D Sofka To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text Ok, trying to (mostly) keep it to issues related to skepticism. Dave Palmer >It should also be of concern to skeptics that so much of popular >entertainment is subtly reinforcing incorrect notions. OK, so I'll >allow the Roswell story to be true after all in a fiction film about >an alien invasion. It's been pointed out to me that the saucer in ID4 cannot be from from Roswell since Brett Spinner says they've had it since the 1950's. > But look at more "realistic" films, and you'll see >an undercurrent of "X Files" mentality, where, apparently, the sole >job of the government is to stage huge cover-ups, where psychic powers, >bigfoot, flying suacers, and faith healing are real. Popular entertainment >mirrors popular attitudes, but also vice-versa. The movies have always >been as much a guide as a mirror of popular culture. I think you're being a bit cynical. (And, coming from a cynic that's saying something.) You're a physicist (or have a background in physics) so the physical errors get to you. Fine, but for better or worse a large portion of movie audiences don't notice them. I'm sure doctors and lawyers notice the medical and legal errors in movies, and construction workers say "you don't put a v-joint over a y-gap (or some such) and waitresses say "yeah, right, she's going to wait tables in those heels." (that *is* a quote). In short, people are good at their fields of expertise, and those very from person to person. It don't make them stupid. And, directors do hire experts in these areas and sometimes take that expert advice. Tempered, of course, by their sense of art, audience, critics, and market economics. I have no doubt that many popular notions of physics, history, medicine and what have you do come from the movies and TV. And, if the produces of such shows were in the business of educating people they are doing a poor job. But, most people who hand over 40 million for a movie are less interested in education then in getting their money back, and this has affected many films (many of them badly). Over time, however, the level of knowledge among audiences has been increasing. Today, because of Jurassic park, if you're going to have work hard for convincing and accurate dinosaurs. Because of "Apollo 13" filming in free fall is do-able goal. Maybe someday the noise and explosions in a vacuum will be unconvincing. (Apollo 13 really pulled back on that one after working so hard at realistic effects, which was more annoying to me then the noise itself.) Right now the political climate is such that government conspiracies are big. I found it interesting that the closest thing to a conspiracy in ID4 is a less then forthright secretary of defense, who was fired, and out of the loop from that point on---just like in real life. In ID4 the government, the office of the president, the military and scientists are the good guys! The beloved bug-eyed aliens, on the other hand, are evil and even blow up a gathering of UFO buffs. Maybe the tides are turning? Finally, when skeptics complain about the use of Roswell in ID4, or are quoted in newspapers ticking off the evils of the X-Files, they're alienating a large audience that has already shown an interest in science fiction and the paranormal. Your going to have a hard time convincing them (or me) that they're somehow mentally deficient for enjoying such programs. But, you may be able to use those programs as a hook to get them reading a couple of select Skeptical writings. Mike -- Michael D. Sofka sofkam@rpi.edu CIS Sr. Systems Programmer AFS, e-mail, usenet, ftp, NIS, NTP. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/ From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 23 18:41 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id SAA27133 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:41:17 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14637-7>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:40:38 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14092-3>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:38:46 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa037568 Tue, 23 Jul 96 22:43:13 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:51:34 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 838173672.005 From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Michael D Sofka wrote: >It's been pointed out to me that the saucer in ID4 cannot be from >from Roswell since Brett Spinner says they've had it since the 1950's. Ummm, sorry, you lost me here. Why not? The Roswell event happened in 1947. >You're a physicist (or have a background in >physics) so the physical errors get to you. Nah. I'm just a smart-ass know-it-all ;-) >In short, people are good at >their fields of expertise, and those very from person to person. It >don't make them stupid. But I'm not talking about the trivia errors that only a person in some particular profession would notice (lucky thing, too. ID4--and most other techno films are off the scale on these). I'm talking about things that any reasonably educated (say, high school or beyond) person SHOULD know if they expect to survive in our technological society. I'm talking about the kind of errors and illogic that should cause any person with half a brain to say, "waitaminnit, there's something not right there." This is what makes this relevant to skeptics (just to keep things more-or-less on topic here). The US is a nation that boasts of its scientific and technical prowess, yet is peopled by scientific and technical illiterates--from the president on down (or UP, depending on your view of politics..). Bill Pullman's character in ID4 might have been the most realistic: a US president who doesn't have a clue about science. "Ah, so they're an organic lifeform." Carl Sagan discusses this a bit more eloquently than I in his "Demon Haunted World." >And, directors do hire experts in these areas >and sometimes take that expert advice. Tempered, of course, by their >sense of art, audience, critics, and market economics. It's been my observation that technical advisors are ignored far more often than they are heeded. And having had some dealings with show biz folk, I can say that, far too often, what is justified as "artistic license" is, instead ego and willful ignorance. I think the person with absolutely the WORST job in show business (other than Rosanne's latest husband...) is the poor S.O.B. who is the scientific advisor for Star Trek: Voyager. I understand he's an honest-to-gosh scientist, but these Hollywood hacks come to him, ask him questions, then go off and produce their godawful show, and then put his name on it as having provided the science. And again, this comes back to a key question: who says good entertainment can't be reasonably technically accurate? Certainly, good entertainment MUST be internally accurate. That is, it must not contradict its own assumptions. >Because of "Apollo >13" filming in free fall is do-able goal. Ooops. Left "Apollo 13" off my list of decent FX movies. I thought the glaring errors (e.g. sound in space) did not overwhelm the rest of it. Apologies to Ron Howard. >I found it interesting that the closest thing to a >conspiracy in ID4 is a less then forthright secretary of defense, who >was fired, and out of the loop from that point on---just like in real >life. Huh? What about the hundreds--maybe THOUSANDS--of support people that would be required to keep such a place going and secret? This is usually the thing that the real-life conspiracy theorists ignore: such things can't survive on just one or two people skulking about. Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/23/96 14:51:35-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 23 22:30 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id WAA18978 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:30:32 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13496-10>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:29:55 -0400 Received: from mail1.its.rpi.edu ([128.113.100.7]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <1335-9>; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:29:21 -0400 Received: from sofkam (rts3p17.xyp.rpi.edu [128.113.29.66]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id WAA18910 for ; Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:29:14 -0400 Message-Id: <31F5883D.2CB7@rpi.edu> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:19:41 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 838176622.000 From: "Michael D. Sofka" To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02Gold (Win95; I) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Status: RO Dave Palmer wrote: > > Michael D Sofka wrote: > >It's been pointed out to me that the saucer in ID4 cannot be from > >from Roswell since Brett Spinner says they've had it since the 1950's. > > Ummm, sorry, you lost me here. Why not? The Roswell event happened in > 1947. Last I checked 1947 was in the 40's. Ok, so Dr. Data could have meant *we* have had it since the 1950's, but others had it earlier. > But I'm not talking about the trivia errors that only a person in some > particular profession would notice (lucky thing, too. ID4--and most > other techno films are off the scale on these). I'm talking about things > that any reasonably educated (say, high school or beyond) person SHOULD know > if they expect to survive in our technological society. I'm talking > about the kind of errors and illogic that should cause any person with > half a brain to say, "waitaminnit, there's something not right there." There is an interesting literature on the effectiveness of physics courses in overcoming common miss-conceptions of physics. To summarize, they tend not to work. Partly, it seems that a couple courses (or even an undergraduate degree) does not necessarily cary over to ``real life'' That is, outside the context of the physics exam, people tend to apply folk-physics. There are similar findings with other areas of study, and with differing degrees of expertise. > Bill Pullman's character in ID4 might have > been the most realistic: a US president who doesn't have a clue > about science. "Ah, so they're an organic lifeform." Yeah, the more I think about that one the more I like it. Great casting all around. I've also been noticing more and more (and though conversations with others) that ID4 is a remake of War of the Worlds right down to the B2 (decendent of the YB-49 flying wing used in the original) dropping an unsuccesful atomic bomb on the BEMs shimmering green sheilds. > It's been my observation that technical advisors are ignored far more > often than they are heeded. And having had some dealings with show biz > folk, I can say that, far too often, what is justified as "artistic > license" is, instead ego and willful ignorance. I've heard much the same all around from many sources. Robert Heinlein wrote a bit about his experience with Destination Moon, and why he wanted to stay out of Hollywood. > >I found it interesting that the closest thing to a > >conspiracy in ID4 is a less then forthright secretary of defense, who > >was fired, and out of the loop from that point on---just like in real > >life. > > Huh? What about the hundreds--maybe THOUSANDS--of support people that > would be required to keep such a place going and secret? This is usually > the thing that the real-life conspiracy theorists ignore: such things > can't survive on just one or two people skulking about. So they got a black project going. Ever hear of the F117A? Or Arora? Or Roswell? :-) Mike From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 24 00:08 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id AAA27075 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:08:27 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13416-4>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:08:14 -0400 Received: from agc3.agr.ca ([192.197.71.131]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12356-10>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:05:24 -0400 Received: from gateway.ncr.agr.ca (agc6.agr.ca [192.197.71.68]) by agc3.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id AAA00552 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:04:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from VMGW.AGR.CA (vmgw.agr.ca [142.61.33.3]) by gateway.ncr.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id AAA12809 for <@gateway.ncr.agr.ca:skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:00:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <01I7F8IZC1UA00021H@VMGW.AGR.CA> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 19:09:18 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" To: skeptic Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-VMS-To: OTTGW::IN%"skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu" X-VMS-Cc: SCRIMGEOURH X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text Dave Palmer writes: >Michael D Sofka wrote: >>It's been pointed out to me that the saucer in ID4 cannot be from >>from Roswell since Brett Spinner says they've had it since the 1950's. > > Ummm, sorry, you lost me here. Why not? The Roswell event happened in > 1947. The dialogue implied that they'd had this craft since the late 50's. If it had come from Roswell, they'd have had it since 1947. > It's been my observation that technical advisors are ignored far more > often than they are heeded. Indeed. Makes you wonder why they hire them in the first place. > I think the person with absolutely the WORST job in show business (other > than Rosanne's latest husband...) is the poor S.O.B. who is the scientific > advisor for Star Trek: Voyager. Ben Bova, a literate and well-informed SF writer, was the science advisor on "The Starlost". The "science" they used there was far worse than "Voyager". > Ooops. Left "Apollo 13" off my list of decent FX movies. I thought the > glaring errors (e.g. sound in space) did not overwhelm the rest of it. How about "Andromeda Strain"? Good FX for its day, and stands up reasonably well even today. Mind you, they did tinker with a couple of things that they should have left alone, but I'd rate it as one of the best of its era. +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M. | Obligatory disclaimer: Employer | | Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada | is named for identification | | Food Production & Inspection Branch | purposes only; no similarity of | | Guelph, Ontario, Canada | opinions is implied or intended.| | SCRIMGEOURH@ONFPGU1.AGR.CA | They'd never understand this | | "We also walk dogs..." | stuff anyway. | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 24 12:17 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id MAA05574 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:17:07 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14136-8>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:16:39 -0400 Received: from Princeton.EDU ([128.112.128.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <9609-7>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:16:07 -0400 Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.125/princeton) id AA19751; Wed, 24 Jul 96 12:14:31 -0400 Received: from tucson.Princeton.EDU (ydobyns@tucson.Princeton.EDU [128.112.131.153]) by ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA03941 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:14:30 -0400 Received: (ydobyns@localhost) by tucson.Princeton.EDU (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA06979 for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:14:28 -0400 Message-Id: <199607241614.MAA06979@tucson.Princeton.EDU> Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:14:28 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "York H. Dobyns" To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text "Wade T. Smith" writes: [...] >Where is it written that a movie script _can and must not_ be true to >established physical laws? (For that matter, where is it written that >Science_Fiction should disregard these same laws? Nowhere in my lexicon....) I think there's a comment by Vernor Vinge, regarding his story "True Names" and similar works, that it was a good thing he didn't know too much about computers when he started writing stories about them; otherwise, he might have written "*real* hard SF computer stories, about keypunches, card readers, and mainframes." (This serves the subsidiary function of dating Vinge's writing career, but I digress.) If there's one lesson to be learned from looking at SF written in the 1800's, it is that *some* of our "established physical laws" are going to go down the tubes as we learn more about the Universe. Moreover, even if our current understanding is exactly correct in all details, immense amounts of technical progress remain possible. (Robert Forward, for example, has suggested in both fiction and nonfiction the possibility of a neutrino rocket; a not entirely implausible goal, given that about 80% of the annihilation energy of a proton/antiproton pair appears as neutrinos. A vehicle that propels itself on a spray of high-energy neutrinos is obeying Newton's Third Law as surely as any other rocket, but it sure *looks* like a reactionless drive to the uninformed observer!) SF that strictly binds itself to *all* current beliefs of physicists is a perfectly legitimate subdomain, but SF in general "should" also retain the freedom to go beyond them. There is, of course, a difference between legitimate, informed speculation, and the "new physical law of the week club" that Star Trek writers seem to use as a recurring deus ex machina. York Dobyns ydobyns@phoenix.princeton.edu From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 24 13:58 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id NAA23768 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:58:26 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13791-10>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:57:47 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12207-1>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:57:01 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa037614 Wed, 24 Jul 96 18:01:49 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:04:27 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii "Michael D. Sofka" wrote: >So they got a black project going. Ever hear of the F117A? Or Arora? Yes, and so have a lot of other people...and that's why they hardly count as supersecret shadowy government conspiracies. To shift gears here to another area of interest to skeptics, there is a big difference between the alleged "massive conspiracies" put forth by conspiracy nuts, and genuine top-secret projects. Probably without exception, large (real-world) top-secret projects don't stay that way very long. The more people involved, the greater the liklihood that something will leak out. This has certainly been the case with the F117A, which a plastic model kit company released a reasonably accurate model of before the government admitted the plane existed, and the Aurora, which the government still hasn't admitted to, yet has been written up in Popular Mechanics. Another important aspect of genuine black projects is that they're usually legal. That is, there is a whole government framework that allows, say, the head of the NSA to go before Congress and say, "yeah, we've got black projects, but I'm not going to talk about them." The same system would NOT protect these alleged conspiracies...and, indeed, we've seen plenty of real small-time conspiracies (such as in the Watergate affair) fall apart under the probing of Congress or some other organization. The REAL illegal conspiracies that have been uncovered almost always involve a small number of people, usually a dozen or less. Now look at another aspect of the secrecy world. It's probably not an extraordinary claim that the CIA has somewhere in its files incredibly secret information that nobody outside the Agency has a clue about. But how many people INSIDE the Agency know the details of such things? Darn few: depending on the nature of the material, maybe less than 10, and they are all professionals whose job it is specifically to keep things like that secret. Almost always, the imagined supersecret conspiracies would have to involve dozens, maybe hundreds, or even thousands of people, many of whom are NOT professional secret-keepers. Take, for example, that silly cable-TV film about Roswell a couple of years back. It portrayed dozens of average GI Joes (and civilians) seeing the debris, the bodies, everything. OK, so the general orders the troops "not to talk about it." Think that's going to stop the barracks talk? Or stop the gossip among the civilians? Now the conspiracy advocates would say, "OK, but that's what we're seeing: the average guys who witnessed these things are talking." The trouble with this is that such stories fall into two categories: those that can't be checked out, and those that can be checked out, which fall apart when the ARE investigated. Maybe we could add a third class: stories that contradict solidly known information. This has been the case with most of the later Roswell stories, which contradict the fact that the very earliest witnesses (mostly civilian) agreed that the debris were just a few pounds of cloth, string, and tin foil. Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/24/96 10:04:28-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 24 14:13 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id OAA26448 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:13:49 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14054-6>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:13:17 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14363-5>; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:09:05 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa037616 Wed, 24 Jul 96 18:13:41 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:56:56 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" wrote: >The dialogue implied that they'd had this craft since the late 50's. >If it had come from Roswell, they'd have had it since 1947. Yes, but weren't you aware that it's standard government procedure to store all crashed flying saucers in obscure warehouses for 10 years or so before examining them? >Ben Bova, a literate and well-informed SF writer, was the science >advisor on "The Starlost". The "science" they used there was far >worse than "Voyager". There was science on that show? >How about "Andromeda Strain"? Good FX for its day, and stands up >reasonably well even today. I was thinking of the new breed of CGI-intensive films. There have actually been a fair number of good films in the last half-century where they also did a reasonably good job on the science. "2001," "Forbidden Planet," and "Day the Earth Stood Still" all spring to mind. On TV, "Babylon 5" is usually quite good. It CAN be done when you hire intelligent writers and directors. Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/24/96 10:56:56-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Thu Jul 25 00:10 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id AAA09673 for ; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:10:13 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13725-6>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:09:57 -0400 Received: from TTACS1.TTU.EDU ([129.118.1.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13399-8>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:06:00 -0400 Received: from ttacs.ttu.edu by ttacs.ttu.edu (PMDF V5.0-5 #13298) id <01I7GV9BETOG98AWLS@ttacs.ttu.edu> for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 23:05:43 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:05:43 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: xybnw@ttacs1.ttu.edu To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticsm. In-Reply-To: <199607241614.MAA06979@tucson.Princeton.EDU> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, York H. Dobyns wrote: > "Wade T. Smith" writes: > > [...] > >Where is it written that a movie script _can and must not_ be true to > >established physical laws? (For that matter, where is it written that > >Science_Fiction should disregard these same laws? Nowhere in my lexicon....) > > I think there's a comment by Vernor Vinge, regarding his story "True > Names" and similar works, that it was a good thing he didn't know too > much about computers when he started writing stories about them; > otherwise, he might have written "*real* hard SF computer stories, about > keypunches, card readers, and mainframes." I read an interview with Douglas Adams where he mentioned that people complain that his new books aren't as funny as his earlier ones were. He said he found that reaction ironic since he had learned a lot more about science than he knew when he began the _Hitchhiker's Guide_ series... From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Thu Jul 25 00:31 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id AAA11349 for ; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:31:02 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13813-5>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:30:40 -0400 Received: from camail2.harvard.edu ([128.103.26.23]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12622-4>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:30:02 -0400 Received: from [204.96.32.72] by camail2.harvard.edu (post.office MTA v1.9.3 ID# 0-12718) with SMTP id AAA14037 for ; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:28:25 -0400 Message-Id: <19960725042824.AAA14037@[204.96.32.72]> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:28:25 -0400 Reply-To: "Wade T. Smith" Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu (Wade Smith) To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: SF and skepticsm. Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: POPmail 2.3b6 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Douglas Adams where he mentioned that people > complain that his new books aren't as funny as his earlier ones were. He > said he found that reaction ironic since he had learned a lot more about > science than he knew when he began the _Hitchhiker's Guide_ series... I am wondering if this hasn't gotten off-beam. My original comment (which I think still stands) was that Science-Fiction (or Speculative Fiction) _needs_ to get the science right, but nowhere did I intend that to mean that there would be no speculation about the directions or technologies _as yet undeveloped_ within the SF work, rather the contrary- that is precisely the genre! To expand and develop upon a technology or science and draw it out to stretching point within the society that grows up around it. If Vernor Vinge _did_ write about punchtapes and such, he would _not_ be writing SF. Too much of SF, or what attempts to pass for it (like Babylon 5 IMHO) _does not_ take the speculative step necessary to be SF. Nor do they stand firmly enough upon the bedrock of science fact to enable the jump.... Actually, to me, York's experiments in ganzfeld psi sound like precisely the sort of science fiction I'm talking about, as does any of Sarfatti's quantum ramblings.... But at core is an imaginative story. I, and others, only ask that our imaginations not be encumbered with the patently false.... ************************************************** Wade T. Smith "There ain't nuthin' you wade_smith@harvard.edu shouldn't do to a dog." === http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ ======= From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Thu Jul 25 08:17 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id IAA02834 for ; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 08:17:24 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13797-7>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 08:16:50 -0400 Received: from locke.ccil.org ([205.164.136.88]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <1329-9>; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 08:16:31 -0400 Received: (alia@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) id IAA23363; Thu, 25 Jul 1996 08:38:32 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 08:38:30 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: rachael schechter To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: SF and skepticsm. In-Reply-To: <19960725042824.AAA14037@[204.96.32.72]> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, Wade Smith wrote: > Too much of SF, or what attempts to pass for it (like Babylon 5 IMHO) _does not_ > take the speculative step necessary to be SF. Nor do they stand firmly enough > upon the bedrock of science fact to enable the jump.... > > Actually, to me, York's experiments in ganzfeld psi sound like precisely the > sort of science fiction I'm talking about, as does any of Sarfatti's quantum > ramblings.... > > But at core is an imaginative story. I, and others, only ask that our > imaginations not be encumbered with the patently false.... Yes, yes, yes. When one steps into the world of SF, one accepts that world as the real one. Sitting around saying "Faster-than-light travel is impossible" is to miss out on the whole new world where that which is impossible can be explored. The really irritating stuff is indeed the "patently false." That use of parsec as a measure of time in _Star Wars_ jolts me out of my suspended disbelief every time (by the way, I give that movie more credit for being in the British-American literary tradition than most of you seem to). And does anybody remember that idiotic statement in _Star Trek IV_ that the alien probe had "ionized the entire atmosphere"? Yeah, right. There's no excuse for that sort of thing. However, if you are going to quibble over every item of dramatic technique or possibility beyond the scope of current science, you are missing the whole point of SF. (Grumble, grumble--people going around like Scrooge shouting "Bah, humbug!" at Christmas--probably don't like babies or kittens either--probably the same ones who mourn the loss of footnotes laid out at the bottom of the page. . . .) ras From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sun Jul 28 11:02 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA23496 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:02:56 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13780-7>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:02:33 -0400 Received: from agc3.agr.ca ([192.197.71.131]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <3340-3>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:02:01 -0400 Received: from gateway.ncr.agr.ca (agc6.agr.ca [192.197.71.68]) by agc3.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id LAA20790 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:00:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: from VMGW.AGR.CA ([142.61.33.3]) by gateway.ncr.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id KAA27832 for <@gateway.ncr.agr.ca:skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 10:56:44 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <01I7LR4KJLMQ000G13@VMGW.AGR.CA> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:01:42 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" To: skeptic Subject: Re: ID4 and skepticism. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-VMS-To: SKEPTIC X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text Dave Palmer writes: > Yes, but weren't you aware that it's standard government procedure > to store all crashed flying saucers in obscure warehouses for > 10 years or so before examining them? I guess not. Must be a secret. B-) >> Ben Bova, a literate and well-informed SF writer, was the science >> advisor on "The Starlost". The "science" they used there was far >> worse than "Voyager". > > There was science on that show? No, but that wasn't Bova's fault. > There have > actually been a fair number of good films in the last half-century where > they also did a reasonably good job on the science. "2001," "Forbidden > Planet," and "Day the Earth Stood Still" all spring to mind. Causing locomotives world-wide to stand still? Good science? > On TV, "Babylon 5" is usually quite good. It CAN be done when you > hire intelligent writers and directors. I concur. +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M. | Obligatory disclaimer: Employer | | Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada | is named for identification | | Food Production & Inspection Branch | purposes only; no similarity of | | Guelph, Ontario, Canada | opinions is implied or intended.| | SCRIMGEOURH@ONFPGU1.AGR.CA | They'd never understand this | | "We also walk dogs..." | stuff anyway. | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sun Jul 28 11:34 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA25019 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:34:54 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13696-3>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:34:52 -0400 Received: from haus.efn.org ([198.68.17.3]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <4688-9>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:33:59 -0400 Received: from garcia.efn.org (garrison@garcia.efn.org [198.68.17.5]) by haus.efn.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA16344 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 08:36:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:33:52 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Garrison Hilliard To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Science? Fiction In-Reply-To: <01I7LR4KJLMQ000G13@VMGW.AGR.CA> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Jul 1996, Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM wrote: > Dave Palmer writes: > > > > On TV, "Babylon 5" is usually quite good. It CAN be done when you > > hire intelligent writers and directors. > > I concur. Ack, sputter, sputter! "Babylon 5", the show with not one but THREE different subplots centering on the "Psi Corps" and esp is scientifically sound? I beg to differ (although B5's scripting is usually tight)! From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sun Jul 28 12:49 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id MAA28454 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:49:39 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14025-5>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:49:24 -0400 Received: from agc3.agr.ca ([192.197.71.131]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <9489-8>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:48:36 -0400 Received: from gateway.ncr.agr.ca (agc6.agr.ca [192.197.71.68]) by agc3.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id MAA23305 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:47:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from VMGW.AGR.CA ([142.61.33.3]) by gateway.ncr.agr.ca (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id MAA01945 for <@gateway.ncr.agr.ca:skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:43:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <01I7LUQ7TTLE000GFQ@VMGW.AGR.CA> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:48:14 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" To: skeptic Subject: Re: Science? Fiction MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-VMS-To: OTTGW::IN%"skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu" X-VMS-Cc: SCRIMGEOURH X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text Garrison Hilliard writes: >> > On TV, "Babylon 5" is usually quite good. It CAN be done when you >> > hire intelligent writers and directors. >> >> I concur. > > Ack, sputter, sputter! "Babylon 5", the show with not one but THREE > different subplots centering on the "Psi Corps" and esp is scientifically > sound? I beg to differ (although B5's scripting is usually tight)! I meant that I concurred that you can do good SF if you hire intelligent people and listen to them. However, I might point out that, in the B5 "universe", there is sound scientific evidence for telepathy. Sine the show is fiction, however, and makes no pretense to be anything else, that has nothing to do with how plausible or well demonstrated psi might be in *this* universe. +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M. | Obligatory disclaimer: Employer | | Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada | is named for identification | | Food Production & Inspection Branch | purposes only; no similarity of | | Guelph, Ontario, Canada | opinions is implied or intended.| | SCRIMGEOURH@ONFPGU1.AGR.CA | They'd never understand this | | "We also walk dogs..." | stuff anyway. | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sun Jul 28 16:43 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id QAA11392 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:43:23 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13817-2>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:43:08 -0400 Received: from haus.efn.org ([198.68.17.3]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <11584-6>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:42:25 -0400 Received: from garcia.efn.org (garrison@garcia.efn.org [198.68.17.5]) by haus.efn.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA03550 for ; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 13:45:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:42:15 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Garrison Hilliard To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction In-Reply-To: <01I7LUQ7TTLE000GFQ@VMGW.AGR.CA> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Jul 1996, Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM wrote: > Garrison Hilliard writes: > > >> > On TV, "Babylon 5" is usually quite good. It CAN be done when you > >> > hire intelligent writers and directors. > >> > >> I concur. > > > > Ack, sputter, sputter! "Babylon 5", the show with not one but THREE > > different subplots centering on the "Psi Corps" and esp is scientifically > > sound? I beg to differ (although B5's scripting is usually tight)! > > I meant that I concurred that you can do good SF if you hire > intelligent people and listen to them. I am in complete agreement, Doc, but I differ from your viewpoint on the show's ESP theme... I think it's another example of blurring the public's separation betwixt the "scientific" and the "magical". (Yes, here's where I cite the Arthur C. Clarke quote) From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Mon Jul 29 11:09 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA05110 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:09:33 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13678-7>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:09:18 -0400 Received: from dragon.ti.com ([192.94.94.61]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2443-3>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:08:33 -0400 Received: from lesol1.dseg.ti.com ([157.170.147.17]) by dragon.ti.com (8.6.13) with ESMTP id KAA17872 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:08:08 -0500 Received: from m2.rts.dseg.ti.com (m2.dseg.ti.com [128.247.216.212]) by lesol1.dseg.ti.com (8.6.9/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA27105 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:07:38 -0500 Received: from 128.247.18.13 (TomServo.dseg.ti.com) by m2.rts.dseg.ti.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA13557; Mon, 29 Jul 96 10:11:44 CDT Message-Id: <31FCD371.5D04@dseg.ti.com> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:06:25 -0400 Reply-To: mmeyer@dseg.ti.com Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Mark Meyer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction References: <01I7LUQ7TTLE000GFQ@VMGW.AGR.CA> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM wrote: > However, I might point out that, in the B5 "universe", there is sound > scientific evidence for telepathy. Sine the show is fiction, however, > and makes no pretense to be anything else, that has nothing to do with > how plausible or well demonstrated psi might be in *this* universe. Howard's right. C'mon, it's just a TV show. Count me as another skeptic whose knee does _not_ jerk every time Talia Winters, Alfred Bester, or Lyta Alexander appear on the screen. Besides, in the B5 universe psi didn't start appearing until some time after the 1990s... -- Mark Meyer Net: mmeyer@dseg.ti.com Texas Instruments, Inc. Plano, TX ICBM: 33d3'55"N 96d41'41"W My opinions. Mine! How many times do I gotta explain it? "I want watch Bab'lon 5 now, please." -- my daughter (I'm so proud!) From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Mon Jul 29 11:27 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA08895 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:27:29 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14163-1>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:26:17 -0400 Received: from gate.gentech.com ([204.30.41.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14172-6>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:24:53 -0400 Received: from gentech75.gentech.com by gate.gentech.com (NTMail 3.00.06) id aa042754 Mon, 29 Jul 96 15:29:49 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:53:42 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Dave Palmer To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: RE: Science? Fiction MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Garrison Hilliard wrote: >Ack, sputter, sputter! "Babylon 5", the show with not one but THREE >different subplots centering on the "Psi Corps" and esp is scientifically >sound? and "Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM" wrote: >Causing locomotives world-wide to stand still? Good science? First off, I DID say "a reasonably good job on the science." I can't think of ANY SF film off the top off my head that got ALL the science right. When compared to some of the outlandish dreck that passes for SF, the films I cited are nearly physics textbooks. And secondly, what's so outlandish about stopping locomotives? If we're going to allow characters in these productions to travel across the galaxy, why not let them have some way of selectively inhibiting the working of internal combustion engines? As to the B5 psi corps (I'm not sure whether I find the Psi Cops / CSICOP parallel amusing or offensive), the show handles that about as well as can be expected. I don't think there's anything inherently bogus about ESP, it's just that we haven't found any convincing evidence for it in the real world. What B5 does do fairly well is keep its universe consitent, which was my big complaint against ID4. Now, true, B5 IS just one more reinforcement that all this paranormal stuff is real (they've even worked 20th century alien abductions into the mix). But by setting the story in the future, they've removed it slightly from the "real world," so I guess I cut it a bit of slack. Hey, we all have our weaknesses... Regards, Dave Palmer dpalmer@gentech.com -- http://www.gentech.com/~employee/david/home.htm ******************-SENT:07/29/96 07:53:42-********************************* As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such mail received. **************************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Mon Jul 29 11:33 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA10354 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:33:44 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13953-1>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:33:27 -0400 Received: from locke.ccil.org ([205.164.136.88]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <8142-10>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:32:57 -0400 Received: (alia@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) id LAA03730; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:56:42 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:56:39 -0400 Reply-To: rachael schechter Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: rachael schechter To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction In-Reply-To: <31FCD371.5D04@dseg.ti.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: rachael schechter X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, Mark Meyer wrote: > Howard's right. C'mon, it's just a TV show. Count me as another > skeptic whose knee does _not_ jerk every time Talia Winters, Alfred > Bester, or Lyta Alexander appear on the screen. Good. I think most skeptics can still enjoy a good story within the framework established by the author, so long as that framework is reasonably self-consistent. Also, we can vary our degree of suspension of disbelief to accept and enjoy stories at different levels of real-life implausibility. Nobody is confusing _The X-Files_ with _Nature_. ras alia@locke.ccil.org "Mac, I'd like you to meet Dana Scully. Agent Scully, Duncan MacLeod..." From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Mon Jul 29 22:44 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id WAA19480 for ; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 22:44:57 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13709-7>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 22:44:35 -0400 Received: from bos1b.delphi.com ([192.80.63.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2073-5>; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 22:43:56 -0400 Received: from delphi.com by delphi.com (PMDF V5.0-7 #10880) id <01I7NTXX8AIO94G68N@delphi.com> for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Mon, 29 Jul 1996 22:43:54 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <01I7NTXX8K5U94G68N@delphi.com> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 23:43:54 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: PAGAN@delphi.com To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-VMS-To: IN%"skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII rachael schechter writes: >On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, Mark Meyer wrote: >> Howard's right. C'mon, it's just a TV show. Count me as another >> skeptic whose knee does _not_ jerk every time Talia Winters, >> Alfred Bester, or Lyta Alexander appear on the screen. >Good. I think most skeptics can still enjoy a good story within the >framework established by the author, so long as that framework is >reasonably self-consistent. Also, we can vary our degree of >suspension of disbelief to accept and enjoy stories at different >levels of real-life implausibility. Nobody is confusing _The >X-Files_ with _Nature_. My $0.02 on the subject (not directed at anyone in particular) Frankly, I find the X-Files a better sleeping draught than two hours of accounting lecture and Babylon Five is just plain silly. OTOH, I enjoy the the Barsoom stories, the Shanarra Books, Landover and I think _The Magic Goes Away_ is the best fantasy story ever written. I also watch Hercules and Zena when I'm home on a Saturday night. I used to watch Star Trek TNG until they got too eager to start shooting. I hated Battlestar Galactica. Just because I think science and the scientific method as the best solution for real world questions doesn't mean I don't enjoy speculative fiction and outright fantasy. Anybody remember the Telzy stories? How about Jason Din'Alt (Deathworld) -- he was telepathic/telekinetic. Even Issac Asimov had a telepathic character in the Foundation stories. Come on folks, a story is just a story... >"Mac, I'd like you to meet Dana Scully. Agent Scully, Duncan >MacLeod..." Ok, you got me there. I follow the adventures of the Highlander as well. Stephen Carville - pagan@delphi.com The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Ignorance, Gullibility, Charlatanism and Absurdity From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jul 30 05:05 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id FAA12067 for ; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 05:05:06 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13554-3>; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 05:04:52 -0400 Received: from comsun.rz.uni-regensburg.de ([132.199.1.163]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2252-10>; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 05:04:11 -0400 Received: from ngate.ngate.uni-regensburg.de (ngate.rz.uni-regensburg.de) by comsun.rz.uni-regensburg.de with SMTP id AA25551 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:03:26 +0200 Received: from 9.stud.ngate.uni-regensburg.de by ngate.ngate.uni-regensburg.de; Tue, 30 Jul 96 11:03 GMT Received: from MARS1/SpoolDir by mars1.ngate.uni-regensburg.de (Mercury 1.21); 30 Jul 96 11:00:38 +0100 Received: from SpoolDir by MARS1 (Mercury 1.22-b2); 30 Jul 96 11:00:10 +0100 Message-Id: <39B18406DC8@mars1.ngate.uni-regensburg.de> Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 06:00:08 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Holger A Leuz" To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: RE: Science? Fiction X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.23) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text > I can't > think of ANY SF film off the top off my head that got ALL the science > right. The German astronomy magazine "Star Observer" currently publishes an SF novel written by a professor of physics. This novel gets all the science right,sure, but it's so damn boring that you'd prefer one of his scientific articles for entertainment. That's the other aspect of scientifically sound SF. Holger ****************************************************************** I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Thomas Jefferson ****************************************************************** From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 31 10:45 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id KAA02837 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:45:08 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14479-8>; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:44:24 -0400 Received: from locke.ccil.org ([205.164.136.88]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2252-5>; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 09:25:54 -0400 Received: (alia@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) id JAA21315; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 09:50:35 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 09:50:34 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: rachael schechter To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction In-Reply-To: <01I7NTXX8K5U94G68N@delphi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Jul 1996 PAGAN@delphi.com wrote: > rachael schechter writes: > > >"Mac, I'd like you to meet Dana Scully. Agent Scully, Duncan > >MacLeod..." > > Ok, you got me there. I follow the adventures of the Highlander > as well. Don't worry about it. Since posting that line I have discovered, to my surprise, that more than one cool intellectual of analytical bent has come to consider _Highlander_ his/her secret vice. ras From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Wed Jul 31 21:39 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id VAA20042 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:39:15 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13535-5>; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:37:02 -0400 Received: from dns.midcoast.com ([204.117.57.2]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <2137-1>; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:36:21 -0400 Received: from nfs.midcoast.com (modem83.midcoast.com [204.117.57.133]) by dns.midcoast.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) with SMTP id VAA31733 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:29:08 -0400 Message-Id: <2.2.32.19960801013611.0094f740@midcoast.com> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:36:11 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Norman F. Stanley" To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: nfs@midcoast.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:06 AM 7/29/96 -0400, Mark Meyer wrote: >Howard J. Scrimgeour DVM wrote: >> However, I might point out that, in the B5 "universe", there is sound >> scientific evidence for telepathy. Sine the show is fiction, however, >> and makes no pretense to be anything else, that has nothing to do with >> how plausible or well demonstrated psi might be in *this* universe. > >Howard's right. C'mon, it's just a TV show. Count me as another >skeptic whose knee does _not_ jerk every time Talia Winters, Alfred >Bester, or Lyta Alexander appear on the screen. > >Besides, in the B5 universe psi didn't start appearing until some time >after the 1990s... > >-- >Mark Meyer Net: mmeyer@dseg.ti.com >Texas Instruments, Inc. Plano, TX ICBM: 33d3'55"N 96d41'41"W >My opinions. Mine! How many times do I gotta explain it? > "I want watch Bab'lon 5 now, please." -- my daughter (I'm so proud!) > My impression is that the telepaths in B5 are presented as mutants of comparatively recent origin. In a recent episode Bester boasted that they were the superior race destined to supplant (or subjugate) ordinary humans, and tha it was his mission to further that end. Also, the subplot of Minbari souls being born in human bodies presupposes a mind-body dualism compatible with psi phenomena. The show also takes a sympathetic, though eclectic, toward religion; an early episode had an amusing scene in which Sinclair responded to an alien's query about human religion by presenting a long line of people, led off by an atheist, each having a different brand of faith. In our real world, Joe Straczynski has stated that he is an atheist. B5 is the only SF show that moves me to watch reruns. Repeated viewings frequently bring out nuances that I'd previously missed. Norm From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Thu Aug 1 21:05 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id VAA09957 for ; Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:05:37 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13989-1>; Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:05:10 -0400 Received: from bos1h.delphi.com ([192.80.63.8]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <12633-9>; Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:04:18 -0400 Received: from delphi.com by delphi.com (PMDF V5.0-7 #10880) id <01I7RXC6PTIU8WW1IG@delphi.com> for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Thu, 01 Aug 1996 21:04:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <01I7RXC6PTIW8WW1IG@delphi.com> Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 22:04:05 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: PAGAN@delphi.com To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Science? Fiction MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-VMS-To: IN%"skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII rachael schechter writes: > On Mon, 29 Jul 1996 PAGAN@delphi.com wrote: >> rachael schechter writes: >> >> >"Mac, I'd like you to meet Dana Scully. Agent Scully, Duncan >> >MacLeod..." >> >> Ok, you got me there. I follow the adventures of the Highlander >> as well. >Don't worry about it. Since posting that line I have discovered, to >my surprise, that more than one cool intellectual of analytical bent >has come to consider _Highlander_ his/her secret vice. Shucks, I ain't worried. I don't watch much TV and when I do I sure don't want to see _reality_. There is very little in my life that would make an interesting movie. The whole point of fiction is to be entertained and the reality I live in just isn't all that entertaining. From my experience (no hard data) I tend to think that skeptics are more likely to appreciate speculative fiction and fantasy than the gullible. Perhaps it is because we have fewer illusions about how the real world works so we don't take fiction so seriously. Stephen Carville - pagan@delphi.com If God exists there can be no morality. Only when the promise of Heaven or threat of Hell is removed will a man's true nature be revealed. From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Fri Aug 2 11:40 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id LAA29045 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:40:24 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14268-9>; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:40:06 -0400 Received: from mail1.its.rpi.edu ([128.113.100.7]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14252-1>; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:36:20 -0400 Received: from betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu [128.113.24.130]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with ESMTP id LAA27941 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:35:43 -0400 Received: (sofkam@localhost) by betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) id LAA19930 for skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:35:42 -0400 Message-Id: <199608021535.LAA19930@betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:35:42 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Michael D Sofka To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Jr. Scientologists, and skeptical about cartoons. X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: text David Palmer: >Homer, Abe, Barney, Krusty, Quimby, Willy - Dan Castellaneta >Marge, Patty, Selma, Jackie - Julie Kavner >Bart - Nancy Cartwright >Lisa - Yeardley Smith >Maggie - Liz Taylor (in one episode) >Santa's Little Helper, most animal noises - Frank Welker >Burns, Smithers, Skinner, Flanders - Harry Shearer >Wiggum, Moe, Apu - Hank Azaria with other contributions by Garrison Hilliard and Wade Smith. >Hope this clears things up. No, not at all. Everybody in that show has 4 fingers, Lisa reads Fate Magazine (and wears the very same Flintstone style dress in every episode), Homer met with God (Bart met with the Devil), Otto's bus driving violates the laws of physics as well as the laws of the road (you would think he would be fired), and how can Mr. Burns not remember who Homer Simpson is after all those episodes. (And, what about that episode where Apu is shot, but the bullet is stopped by a bullet from a previous shooting!!!) Not to mention all the episodes with the flying saucer. How can skeptics even watch such an unrealistic show????!!!!:-(:-/:-);-). Its Friday, I've had a busy week, and I couldn't resist (I am soo weak). But, I think that there is a point to be made here regarding the range of fantasy/fiction/reality skeptics of all persuasions are willing to accept in their entertainment. (Not to mention the difficultly with being absolutely consistent with one's beliefs---it is so much easier to just rationalize after the fact.) BTW, who does the guy that drives the Gremlin? (Can't think of his name right now, but the last time I saw him de-programmers had brainwashed him into thinking Homer was his father.) Mike P.S. Thanks for the voice list. You forgot Phil Hartman as Troy McClure. -- Michael D. Sofka sofkam@rpi.edu CIS Sr. Systems Programmer AFS, e-mail, usenet, ftp, NIS, NTP. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/ From owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Fri Aug 2 12:57 EDT 1996 Received: from listproc.hcf.jhu.edu (listproc.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.35.183]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id MAA12609 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:57:20 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <14433-7>; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:57:05 -0400 Received: from haus.efn.org ([198.68.17.3]) by listproc.hcf.jhu.edu with SMTP id <13289-9>; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:56:28 -0400 Received: from garcia.efn.org (garrison@garcia.efn.org [198.68.17.5]) by haus.efn.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA27653 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 09:59:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:56:11 -0400 Reply-To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Sender: owner-skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: Garrison Hilliard To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Subject: Re: Jr. Scientologists, and skeptical about cartoons. In-Reply-To: <199608021535.LAA19930@betelgeuse.its.rpi.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 2 Aug 1996, Michael D Sofka wrote: > > BTW, who does the guy that drives the Gremlin? (Can't think of his > name right now, but the last time I saw him de-programmers had brainwashed > him into thinking Homer was his father.) Hans Moleman-Hank Azaria