For Hecate
Posted by olvlzl.
Though it was perfectly all right, “Robot” (1974-75) was not my favorite Dr. Who series. For one thing it didn’t have Leelah or the first Romana. As with the first Lois Lane, I’ve always liked a woman who didn’t have any trouble putting the male leads in their place. Compared to the first one, the second Lois Lane always seemed to me like she’d had a lobotomy.
Anyway, in “Robot” Sara Jane Smith, the reporter and traveling companion of The Dr, is snooping around a meeting of the “Scientific Reform Society”. She’s gotten wind that they have hatched a plot to use an invincible robot for world domination*. Talking with the snooty, stuck-up geek who is checking credentials at the door about the Society she asks him about their plans to reform society. He makes an observation about the “unsuitability” of her outfit. She replies that what she wears is her business. “For the time being”, was the smug and sinisterly suggestive reply. At least that’s how I remember the exchange going. Rule by those clever scientists with the intent to control our lives is a mainstay of paranoid sci-fi and spoofs of such.
I’ve hurt a few feelings by publicly doubting that some of those clever scientists would be practical enough to rule much of anything in the real world. Though some of them could definitely make good legislators**. It does sort of get up my nose when they assume, as one of my adversaries from here a while back stated baldly, that non-scientists “must accept scientific authority” unquestioned.
You'll be glad to know I've cooled down and have decided to hold back on that 900 word post I threatened here the other night. The subject was the pervasive superstition of scientism*** among those who believe themselves beyond superstition.
I’ll just leave it at this. Is anyone else getting tired of the materialist bullies of the blogs telling everyone what to think? Are peoples’ personal thoughts and beliefs any of their damned business? Aren’t you getting tired of hearing how much smarter they are than you? Especially when they are in the process of proving themselves to be quite stupid as they say it?
* Interestingly, for the time, it’s a female scientist, the director of Think Tank, Miss Hilda Winters, who is the ring leader of the plot. She wears glasses.
** The governorship of Dixy Lee Ray in Washington doesn’t lead me to suspect that they should immediately be assumed to make good executives in government. Though not properly a scientist, ex-Sen. Frist is, perhaps, also a caution.
*** 2. an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science to explain social or psychological phenomena, to solve pressing human problems, or to provide a comprehensive, unified picture of the meaning of the cosmos. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary 8th edition
For more, go to a good print dictionary, preferably a philosophical encyclopedia. The Wiki article on scientism is rather hilariously biased in favor of scientism while kind of denying it exists. Try asking a devotee of this absurd idea to locate “the separation of church and state” with science and see what happens. I did recently and the results were hilarious. If you think that kind of thing is funny. Once its presence occurs to you, I believe you will notice that scientism is one of the superstitions that is endemic on the leftist blogs and in the general society.
Like many words “scientism” has recently been used and distorted by creationists. I am also researching a post to demonstrate that creationists are far from stupid and have proven themselves very able to turn the words of scientists against science. I’ll try to hold that one to under a thousand words. I do want someone to read it.
Update:
Bonus Outakes Blooper: Took me a while to catch this one.
"I’ve always liked a woman who didn’t have any trouble putting the males lead in their place."