Alan Moore: Woo propagandist

[Orrex]

You may have heard about the small independent film Watchmen that debuted with little fanfare last week. Well, I was rereading the source material for the first time in about 12 years, and I came upon two quick but significant bits of classic woo thinking.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW IN WHITE TEXT: HIGHLIGHT THE SPACE BETWEEN THE ==== TO SEE THE SPOILER
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One of the between-chapter pieces is an essay on the political significance of Dr. Manhattan. In this fictional piece, the fictional scientist/author matter-of-factly refers to the increasing similarity between quantum mechanics and Taoism. This is a favorite trope among woo-thinkers, especially those who like to use nifty-sounding scientific jargon to validate their nonsensical claims about vibrations and perception and all of that.

Later, in the discussion between Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, the good blue doctor laments his wish to witness a "thermodynamic miracle," and event so unlikely as to be functionally impossible, such as oxygen spontaneously turning into gold. After a lengthy debate, Dr. Manhattan decides that every human life, arising from a vast series of improbable events, is statistically equivalent to such a miracle, and this is of course nonsense. Some event was going to happen at the end of that series of events, so it's only a miracle if we'd predicted that this particular organism was going to be the result. Dr. Manhattan, supernaturally intelligent and transcendently wise, nevertheless makes a mistake that should have been covered in STAT 101. This, too, plays into woo-thinking in general but also to Creationism in particular, which has long favored the "fine tuning" argument, which proceeds along much the same lines.
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Moore's mistakes here are likely innocent--though a fine writer, he's no scientist, and I don't hold him to that standard--but it plays directly into the kind of uncritical thought that makes it so hard to debate woos rationally.

[CanSocDem]

1. You're right of course...

Keep your children away from this film, and if you haven't already, burn all their comic books.


"...it so hard to debate woos rationally."

You don't even try around here. A few insults, then a blanket dismissal.....that's it. End of discussion.

And then Burn The Books!!

.

[Orrex]

3. My children are five and two; I probably won't take them to see it

And the rest of your rant just makes no sense, and in any case you don't actually address anything I wrote. Typical.


Why do you even post in this group, except as a self-styled windmill-tilter? The Astrology group is chock full of stuff that I find questionable, but I don't go there out of respect for that group's charter.

Are you trying to be put on Ignore?

[CanSocDem]

4. Windmill-tilter.....????

That's a good one but no, that's not why I post in this group. I post here because I'm a skeptic. I could go to other forums and express my skepticism of their beliefs but out of respect for Democratic Underground and the progressive intent of this discussion board, I try to be true to my values and to my interests.

Giving yourself big pats on the back and high-fives all around when one of you posts an article about some new-age technique that gives someone comfort is hardly high level skepticism. Defending ModernMedicineInc. is NOT defending the hallowed halls of science. Where is your response to the pain-management discussion we were having?

Of course, video evidence contradicting your beliefs doesn't count does it??

And are you going to post on DU that Hillary's meme of 'it taking a village to raise a child' is hogwash....????:popcorn:

[Orrex]

5. You're a skeptic? Color me skeptical.

And which pain-management discussion were we having? And what video evidence? :shrug:


I don't know where you got the Hillary stuff. Certainly not from anything I've ever posted. :shrug::shrug:

[CanSocDem]

6. OK

You're coloured. But you may be right about "the pain-management discussion". I looked for it fruitlessly. As I remember, I was telling you about a couple of examples (one, a video) about people who with only the power of their mind endured horrible torture...at the hands of Americans, of course.

The other example was Edd Morrell.

"Morrell was the subject of frequent torture and he soon learned self-hypnosis to endure the pain. After being released from prison, he began to give speeches about his experiences. He was illiterate, but his new wife wrote a book in his name called The 25th Man. This book became a platform for prison reform and the state of Arizona completely changed their prison policy based on this book. Jack London also wrote The Star Rover, a story of the out-of -body experiences of Ed Morrell."

http://www.eshomvalley.com/ed_morrell.html

Since you don't want any help raising your kids, I assume it's because you want to do it yourself. Does that help...???

.

.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

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[Odin2005]

26. You're no skeptic. you're a solipsist who has lost her grip on reality.

Many of your views fits a diagnosis of psychosis.

[omega minimo]

28. and he's

CANADIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!! :yoiks:

[Name removed]

18. Deleted sub-thread

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[salvorhardin]

2. This is why I began to hate Star Trek over the years

Each successive incarnation of the franchise was more preposterously wooish than before. There's nothing wrong with fantasy, even when it dresses up in the robes of science fiction. And if you say Deanna read Riker's mind, that's fine too as long as it advances the story. For fantasy you don't even need to justify it. If you give it some scientifically plausible explanation based on known science then it starts to border on science fiction. However, if you give some explanation based on The Secret or the long disproved pseudoscientific ramblings of lonely upstate NY 19th C. housewives then it just becomes infuriating bullshit.

Please note: I still love the original Trek (even the jaw-dropping awful episodes like Spock's Brain) and The Animated Series. I mostly love TNG. DS9 had some fine moments in it and there were a handful of Voyager episodes that didn't make me want to tear my eyes out. The same could be said for a fraction of the episodes of the last season of Enterprise. But I kid you not. Go back and watch the episodes over the years. The progression is unmistakable. The farther we get from the Golden Age of science fiction, the more lopsided the science fiction:fantasy:woo ratio becomes.

Interestingly enough, I positively adored Farscape despite almost 100% of the science being utter crap. I just pretended it was originally written in the 1930s and suspended belief. Farscape had no pretensions beyond a great and glorious space opera.

[Silent3]

24. DS9, only a few fine moments?

I think it's the best post-original ST series. I'm in the middle of rewatching the sixth season of DS9 now. Not every episode is a gem, but the quality is pretty consistently high in my opinion. It's the only post-TOS series I find watchable starting from its first season, whereas all of the others took two to three seasons to really find their groove. Enterprise finally got good about six episodes before being cancelled. :)

When it comes to science vs. woo, I'd say all of the Trek series require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. Trek is more space opera than it is sci-fi.

[AZCat]

49. It wasn't Star Trek itself that grated on me.

It was the fans that killed the series for me. I always got the feeling the creators and writers of the Star Trek stories knew enough not to take themselves seriously, but the hordes of fanboys didn't. I lived with a few back in college, and after endless late-night arguments about science with people who were not technically savvy but had watched Star Trek I had my fill of both the series and its worshippers. The same thing applies to comic books. I'm not going to get into another argument about the Magneto (from the X-Men).

[uriel1972]

7. I loved the comic, but I didn't take the science

seriously. Like any comic with people doing magical things I took it with a pinch of salt. Like Alice in wonderland it's important to balance the magical world presented to children with the knowledge that it's only a story and the world don't work that way. And as a fully paid up member of ModernMedicineInc. I try not to let a certain persons posts get under my belt any more.

You could give them the benefit of the doubt by thinking of them as playing the devil's advocate, but they aren't clever enough to avoid the obvious clangers.

[mr blur]

8. Indeed, the Ignore feature is your friend.

Life's too short and some people are just too dumb.

[moggie]

10. I'd never use ignore against our pet

Ok, he's not house-trained, so you have to put up with puddles on the floor, and he does yap at shadows a lot. But it's just so cute the way he bumbles around and falls over.

[TZ]

11. Oh yeah.

He's so cute the way he thinks if he declares something it must be twoo...Its so pathetically bad its funny...But hey I'm just a pretend scientist so what do I know..:crazy:

[moggie]

13. What do you expect from Hoverboy?

[LeftishBrit]

15. agreed

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Alan Moore's long been known as a woo woo.

The giant dead teleporting mass-murdering psychic squids were the give-away.

:wtf:

[Orrex]

14. No, I'm okay with that part

The high-fantasy stuff doesn't bother me at all; I likewise don't believe in an omnipotent blue guy with a hydrogen atom on his forehead.


The dangerous stuff masquerades as reasonable argument and objective fact. Sure, it's fiction, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of readers see the woo elements as fact injected to make the fiction more realistic.

[semillama]

25. yup, but he's a very entertaining woo-mainly because his woo is fiction.

I'll read just about anything he writes. Although I stopped reading Promethea because it started hurting my brain. And "The Black Dossier" was just crazy - did NOT like it as much as I liked the previous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted sub-thread

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[omega minimo]

17. Methinks thou doth protest too much

[Nevernose]

19. I thought the gold thing was a reference to...

...the (fact?) that gold is only created in stars. At least I read that somewhere once, quite probably the same place that Alan Moore did.

But I'm an English teacher, not a science teacher. One of the things we discuss frequently is the difference between broad definitions and narrow definitions. You seem to take the narrow definition of "miracle," a definition involving the supernatural (either due to the unlikelihood or the literal supernatural). I choose to take the broad definition of miracle as meaning "unlikely." In the context of unlikeliness, life is indeed a miracle.

[Orrex]

20. RE: Miracle, I was using the terms used in the book

Dr. Manhattan isn't referring to a religious or supernatural miracle; instead, he's using it as you suggest, to describe a tremendously unlikely event. I don't have any problem with the word's use in this context, either, because it's clearly metaphorical.

My issue is with the misrepresentation of statistical probability, and its similarity to nonsensical pseudoscientific arguments made here on DU and elsewhere.


Also, I'm not sure what you mean about "the gold thing." I don't think I mentioned that, did I?

I don't have the book in front of me, but I recall Dr. Manhattan mentioning that fact during his reminiscences on Mars. I likewise seem to have heard it elsewhere, though I can't recall where.

[Nevernose]

21. I was trying to leave yuour highlighted spoilers out of it

Later, in the discussion between Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, the good blue doctor laments his wish to witness a "thermodynamic miracle," and event so unlikely as to be functionally impossible, such as oxygen spontaneously turning into gold.

I thought Moore was referencing was the fact that gold was only formed in the heart of stars, and I thought that's what you were talking about. Or maybe I was just projecting at the word "gold." I just wasn't getting that from this book. It seemed as if he were laying out reality as best as a layman twenty-five years ago could be expected. And that's why I love this book: so many people from so many different backgrounds can be in serious discussion about it. If we can keep it up another fifty years or so, it'll be Huckleberry Finn.

IIRC, the "gold in the heart of stars" thing is from a really well-written description of the Big Bang. I'll go look for it...

[Orrex]

22. Oh, duh. Sorry. I was thinking of the other reference.

Dr. M refers to gold at different times: once in the context of supernovae, and once in the context of The Unlikely Event. I've always taken them as separate, but it's possible that there's an intentional linkage.

As a matter of fact, there's another part in which Janey (his earlier lover) gives him a gold ring as a gift, though she's uncertain whether he'll like it. He assures her that he does, noting its highly ordered structure.


Three references relatively close together in a very large work. Interesting!

[omega minimo]

23. there's much more to it than that

including in respectful yet deleted posts the thin skinned had a hissy fit about.

So those other (literary, historic, metaphorical and what once was considered scientific) references will go unmentioned.

Thanks for bringing another relevant perspective.

[omega minimo]

38. Alchemy perhaps?

[Odin2005]

27. Bad science in sci-fi really gets on my nerves.

It's why I've never really gotten into Star Trek. I like my sci-fi hard.

[omega minimo]

29. Oh thank you Odin2005

:rofl: "I like my sci-fi hard."

[Odin2005]

30. Hey, get your mind out of the gutter! LOL!

:rofl:

[omega minimo]

31. It's really charming

:spray:

It harkens back to another question for the thread...... that you might be willing to share your POV. In my experience the science fiction that was futuristic or not "hard" at the time, came to be. The classic eras of SciFi/Fantasy yielded rich veins of new ideas, that potentially lead to new and different discoveries.....

Perhaps many here didn't grow up with or have access to the wealth of science fiction that inspired -- and continues to -- exploration of ideas and imagination, including science and futuristic technology, that peaked in the 70's/80's and went off a cliff with the rest of our culture after. It still exists, but the media masters like to regurgitate old ideas and not so much with the support of new voices/artists/writers that don't have Sure Thing written all over.

It's this limited scope of the possible, the willingness to shut down imagination and vision, including the inevitable merging of old ideas with new; and previous concepts thought separate seen with new awareness of interconnections.

Aren't scientists still looking for The Theory of Everything? :evilgrin:

Does unhard scifi not stimulate the imagination any more? Pushing the envelope?

[Odin2005]

32. Depends on what one means by "Hard" Sci-Fi.

I consider Both Asimov and Clarke (I devoured 2001, Foundation, and Caves of Steel/I, Robot series growing up) to be pretty hard Sci-Fi, as is the excellent recent author Kin Stanley Robinson, known for mixing science with left-wing politics (his Mars Trilogy is excellent, as is his global warming trilogy). Many ideas in those books came to pass (such as the Internet). I tend to not like the Cyberpunk stuff, too dystopian and depressing for my Transhumanist leanings.

IMO the big problem Sci-Fi faces right now is an identity crisis. The optimistic techno-progressivism of the Greatest Generation writers of the Golden Age died with them, replaced by dystopian tendency I see dominating now.

[beam me up scottie]

33. Comparing "new age" sci-fi/fantasy to the greats is like comparing romance novels to Shakespeare.

All that's missing is Fabio on the cover.

[Odin2005]

34. A-fucking-MEN

I've always wondered if the 3rd book in the Foundation series raised a ruckus in it's day because the protagonist is a strong-minded young woman.

[beam me up scottie]

35. My dad was feeding me hard core sci-fi when I was still in grade school.

My brothers didn't start reading for recreation until they were teens and they LOVED the fantasy genre. Fast food fiction, ew.

[omega minimo]

36. and who said anything about "new age"

:shrug:

[beam me up scottie]

39. There is a science fiction group on DU.

This is not it.

You have repeatedly insulted skeptics not only in GD, the Lounge and your Asstrology group, but in our own group as well.

You have called us "toxic blowhards", "douchebags", "emotionally stunted", "a pack of jackals", and "intolerant, abusive and emotionally retarded".

You don't get to qualify your insults after the fact. You tried to do just that to pacify the glbt posters who felt they needed to defend themselves in your group, remember? You told them to "LEAVE THIS GROUP".

[omega minimo]

40. You need to drop your prejudice

and the pretense that you know who I "insulted." I have addressed that in another post.

So stop lying about it.

That's the kind of shit that makes other people believe and REALLY act irrational.

Based on lies.

[beam me up scottie]

41. Defending skeptics from attacks in THE SKEPTIC GROUP is not prejudice.

Those are your own words and I can provide links to all of those posts, so quit pretending you've come here to extend an olive branch.

And the "but I didn't mean ALL gay people skeptics were bullies" defense won't work any better here than it did in your group.

You brought this on yourself when you decided to disrupt our group.

I didn't seek you out, you came here with your pitchfork and torch only to find your own ass is the one that was impaled and roasted. Now you're trying to save what's left of your dignity by accusing me of lying.

Save it.

[omega minimo]

42. okay I'll give up on your potential

but I will not brag about it. :hug:

oh and you're still lying about the context of those posts.

If you take them personally that's up to you.

Unless you are a bully, they don't apply.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[omega minimo]

45. another misrepresentation, misquote and yes, it sure does, "friend"

[beam me up scottie]

46. You disrupted poorly.

That's not my fault, all I did was repost your own words.

[omega minimo]

47. Your denial along with your hateful acts exmplifies bullying

[beam me up scottie]

48. LMAO! You're still whining about how you're being treated in here?

[mr blur]

50. Has someone stolen your rattle? Get a grip. (nt)

[omega minimo]

37. Thank you Odin2005, great post.

[Odin2005]

43. You're very welcome! :-)