I belong to the Star Trek Generation

[djos]

but evolution is called a theory for good reason, yes there is some supporting evidence but there's also a hell of a lot of supposition and missing pieces (and not small missing pieces either).

You obviously are confused about how science works. There aren't really any "laws" of science. Just theories. Ohms law is just a theory. One day someone might find a circuit that breaks ohms law. (not holding my breath there)

Contrary to what you seem to think, the word "theory" in science doesn't just mean some wild eyed, hair-brained conjecture (like when your mate on a fishing trip has a theory about why he hasn't caught any fish that day) It means you have a rigorous theoretical framework supported by a little or a lot of evidence.

Contrary also to your belief, evolution is supported by an absolute mountain of evidence. There isn't one single (non religious) scientist that understands it properly that doubts it. For it to turn out to be wrong now would be akin to discovering that the stars are holes in a black sphere around the earth.

I'm not confused at all and I never mentioned the word "law" - however bringing up Ohms law proves my point, Ohms law is mathematically and physically provable, there's no room for doubt.

Evolution does have a lot of supporting evidence, I made that clear to start with, it also has a lots of gaps that are currently filled by suppositions. That is a fact. I personally dont have any specific issues with the theory (the gaps in the fossil record would be the main source of my scepticism), but it does not imo have the same kind of weight behind it as "Ohms law". While I'm sceptical of it, it's easily the best "theory of life" we have.

[james_s]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

[rfeecs]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

That's the real universe explanation.  But there was an attempt to explain it, discussed at length here:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Klingon_augment_virus

This storyline, seen in the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "Affliction" and "Divergence", was intended in part to explain why Original Series Klingons had a more Human appearance, and later Klingons did not. The writers also hoped the two-parter would shed some light on the change in the Klingons' temperament and disposition between the TOS and TNG eras.

Something like the change in appearance was caused by a virus.  Years later the virus was cured and the appearance changed back.

[tpowell1830]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

That's the real universe explanation.  But there was an attempt to explain it, discussed at length here:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Klingon_augment_virus

This storyline, seen in the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "Affliction" and "Divergence", was intended in part to explain why Original Series Klingons had a more Human appearance, and later Klingons did not. The writers also hoped the two-parter would shed some light on the change in the Klingons' temperament and disposition between the TOS and TNG eras.

Something like the change in appearance was caused by a virus.  Years later the virus was cured and the appearance changed back.

I knew someone would dig that out. It is a little obscure, but amongst fans, known to some extent.

I like the TNG Klingons better than TOS Klingons, they added a real alien perspective to the show. Riker did an officer exchange on a Klingon vessel in one of the episodes. A real cultural eye opener.

[Ratch]

Now, who said I was a religious person?  Did you deduce that from the I wrote in this thread?  You should be presenting counter arguments on why you are right and I am wrong, not calling me a religious person.

Ratch

You dont believe in evolution. That makes you a religious nutter (and a typical american for that matter) . There should be no discussion about that in a star trek forum.
And you are asking me pretty much to defend, that Vulkans exist. Do you think, I can do that? Do you think, I believe in vulkans? Guess, what, I can tell you that vulkans probably dont exist as it was described in star trek. I can already tell you that history is not like it was described in star trek, as there was no war in 1992. Do you want me to defend something, that is not true?
Guess what. Star trek estimated something, that might happen. We might invent the communicator. We might invent FTL travel.
Communicator is done, in fact it was inspired by star trek. It inspired an invention, the mobile phone, which saved thousands and thousands of lifes, just by letting you call 911 from anywhere. Only this small inspiration is enough, so it achieved more, changed the world forever, more ,than you can ever imagine in your life.
Ad you argue that "hey the omega particle is improbable"... Get out of here.

Correct, I don't believe in evolution.  It is an unbelief supported by science, not religion.  I avered in a previous post that things never go from simple to complex by themselves, unless they are made to do so by an intelligence, or are prescribed to do so.  That is the basis of my bias against evolution.  Thus far, neither you or anyone else has proposed a cogent argument to refute my observation.  I don't remember asking you to prove that Vulcans exist.  None of the false physics fantasy (FPF) characters exist. FPF did not inspire the communicator or the mobile phone.  We had both of them (radios and walkie-talkies) since before WWII, only not so miniaturized.  Both of those items would have been improved and made smaller with or with out FPF.  As far as I can see, FPF disseminated a lot of false information while entertaining many folks.  I don't think that FTL travel is possible.  I think Einstein pretty well locked it down.  Before I can dismiss the omega particle, I would have to know what it is first.

Ratch

[Brumby]

Drug resistance to antibiotics is a mutation, not evolution in action.

(I'll bite my tongue.)

[Brumby]

I have no problem with the term Science Fiction.  It is quite simply fictional science.  In fact, in all of fiction, there are elements of things that are not real - they are created to provide an alternate environment in which to place a made-up story for the purpose of stimulating the reader.  Also, redefining science fiction as "false physics fantasy (FPF)" is, IMO, somewhat bizarre and it would seem the idea of "science fiction" is threatening to you.

As for our limited abilities because we don't know how to do something - that is absolute poppycock.

100 years ago we didn't know how to make a transistor - yet today we walk around with billions of them in our pocket.  There is a plethora of such examples over the history of human kind.  Such arguments are short sighted on a molecular quantum scale.


Anyone ever watched Galaxy Quest?  It's an interesting take on a science fiction "show".

Who's to say these things are impossible?  Certainly, by the knowledge we have at this time there is much that is well out of our reach - and perhaps we should be careful about taking the 'science' too literally (remember, these are scripts written by people that are not likely to have advanced engineering degrees.)  Maybe there is the possibility of creating a warp drive - but I really doubt such a device will look like Engineering on the Enterprise.

What I enjoy about science fiction is the stimulation to the imagination - and of what might be possible.  It is the inspiration to look at things beyond our current knowledge.


I am completely OK with that.

[djos]

What I enjoy about science fiction is the stimulation to the imagination - and of what might be possible.  It is the inspiration to look at things beyond our current knowledge.

That's what I love about it too.

SF also frequently explores the potential for human development - I personally would like to see the end of neo-liberalism and society head towards a more equitable ST-TNG+ like society.

[Brumby]

Thinking back to a piece of impossible technology (at the time) ...

I remember looking at the tablet (as we would call it these days) that was passed to Captain James T Kirk on a number of occasions, on which ship reports were presented.  In those days, this was indeed fiction, yet today we see such items in far more streamlined versions in use by 2 year olds.

Another thing is the transporter.  This was a creation to fulfill a production need: How to get people from a ship in space onto the planet below - quickly.  There's just so much time spent launching a craft and having it fly down to the surface - and then having it land in a suitable location.  Transporter 'technology' allowed immediate travel - as well as being able to place people right in the scene they needed to be in.

Yet now we are actively taking about transporting matter - and have actually done this at the atomic scale.  Certainly there is a huge chasm in knowledge before we could consider transporting a macro object, but we can't discard the idea as being completely out of hand.


I do like science fiction.

[Richard Crowley]

Another thing is the transporter.  This was a creation to fulfill a production need: How to get people from a ship in space onto the planet below - quickly.

The widely-reported (and unrefuted) back-story is that the transporter models were not complete at the deadline to start shooting the pilot episode. So the "transporter" was a production gimmic short-cut to meet the NBC broadcast schedule.

I came around the corner of the alley-ways between sound stages on the Paramount lot one afternoon and found the entire crew of STNG in full costume and makeup standing around the craft (food) table noshing on snacks between takes.  The food was laid out on 4x8ft sheets of plywood on saw-horses.  It seemed like half their entire sound-stage area was taken up with StarTrek sets for various of the 2nd generation shows.  Pretty amusing to see that the flats were thin Lauan mahogany with 1x2 frames, but painted to look like "space ship".  And the automatic doors were operated by cotton sash-cord and pulleys with a stage-hand behind pulling on the ropes. 

[Cerebus]

The word "theory" is perhaps one of the most misunderstood terms in science. It is not a guess or speculation. Gravity is a theory, magnetism is a theory, relativity is a theory, these are all things that we understand quite well. We don't know *everything* about them, but we know they're real, and we have a reasonable understanding based on mountains of observable evidence supporting the theory. Most of the laws of physics and energy are based on scientific theories.

It's fine to be skeptical of something, science revolves around skepticism, but skepticism needs to be based on something observable. If you're skeptical of Ohms law for example, show me an applicable situation where Ohms law doesn't explain the result.

The best example I've come across of something that has 'theory' in the customary title that is clearly in no way speculative is 'axiomatic set theory'. Axiomatic set theory is completely and rigorously defined, there is no aspect of it that could be 'theoretical' in the 'it might work this way' sense so loved of the crowd who use the 'theory' in 'Theory of Evolution' as a basis for argument.

[Ratch]

I have no problem with the term Science Fiction.  It is quite simply fictional science.  In fact, in all of fiction, there are elements of things that are not real - they are created to provide an alternate environment in which to place a made-up story for the purpose of stimulating the reader.  Also, redefining science fiction as "false physics fantasy (FPF)" is, IMO, somewhat bizarre and it would seem the idea of "science fiction" is threatening to you.

As for our limited abilities because we don't know how to do something - that is absolute poppycock.

100 years ago we didn't know how to make a transistor - yet today we walk around with billions of them in our pocket.  There is a plethora of such examples over the history of human kind.  Such arguments are short sighted on a molecular quantum scale.


Anyone ever watched Galaxy Quest?  It's an interesting take on a science fiction "show".

Who's to say these things are impossible?  Certainly, by the knowledge we have at this time there is much that is well out of our reach - and perhaps we should be careful about taking the 'science' too literally (remember, these are scripts written by people that are not likely to have advanced engineering degrees.)  Maybe there is the possibility of creating a warp drive - but I really doubt such a device will look like Engineering on the Enterprise.

What I enjoy about science fiction is the stimulation to the imagination - and of what might be possible.  It is the inspiration to look at things beyond our current knowledge.


I am completely OK with that.

I have a problem with writers who incorporate impossible science into their plots.  I am referring to science that could never happen or come into being because it violates the laws of physics.  I have no problem with fiction which uses science advancement provided it does not become outlandish and is financially conceivable.  To say that we have things now that we never dreamed about previously, therefore just about anything is possible, is arguing by analogy, which is a false premise.  When one thinks about it, a great many things we now have are because of miniaturization, not a newly discovered principle.  One example that comes to mind is the evolution of the large radar stations on the coast of Britain during WWII to the ubiquitous microwave ovens today.  So when writers and producers use science in their productions, they should keep it real, keep it reasonable, and keep it believable.

Ratch

[Brumby]

That's absurd - and being rather precious, IMO.

The whole idea is to explore ideas - to expand people's thinking beyond what they understand or believe.  If that means putting the laws of physics, as we know it, to one side for the purpose of presenting an idea, then I have no problems with it at all.

Why?

It's very simple.  It's science fiction.  So why can't the science be fiction?

I look at such fantastic concepts beyond their physics.  I look at the potential for inspiration - perhaps resulting in the development of a real technology using real physics.  Consider it a parallel to brainstorming.


Still, I can see you are going to stand firm on your planar planetary perspective, so it would seem further comment will bear no benefit.

[raspberrypi]

I was always one of those who thought that, after going to all the trouble and expense of getting into orbit, looking for somewhere else to go land was not the best idea ever. Thirty years ago I thought that by now we would have some kind of manufacturing and/or mining operations running full time in orbit, and that there would be a significant people living there on a semi-permanent basis. Apparently economically beneficial opportunities have yet to be identified.

I think the 5000$ USD per pound (500 gramsish) cost of putting things into LEO is the problem. Mining equipment is really heavy. Plus you have to think how much  a one time use heat shield would cost being loaded up with rocks behind it. Even if you squashed things into telephone poles with a little cross section you are increasing the mass behind it so the shield would have to be more robust. Unless you could sacrifice some of the ore as the heat shield. Might be hazardous to shoot ballistic kinetic energy missiles at the thing you are standing on.

[rrinker]

 As a degreed engineer and employed in a technical field, I have done/do plenty of reading for learning/work stuff, and even plenty for my hobbies. But usually when I want to just relax I just want to get lost in a good fiction book. SF is my usual choice, and while there are plenty of poorly written books out there that just make me face palm at the absurdity of the 'science' there are ALSO plenty that, while I may intellectually know that what is described is impossible based on our current understanding of physics, it's not so blatantly obvious because the author didn't use some silly pseudo-science to justify it all. And I don;t find it hard to overlook such things. I also like action/adventure and fantasy, and you have good and bad there as well. A good author has well-defined characters and if they are going to have superhuman powers, there still are rational limits. Otherwise you end up with tripe like the Twilight series where the supernatural powers are whatever the author needed to get the character out of a specific situation. That kind of BS is just unreadable. Sometimes an author has so many of the details correct, that when I hit something where they just get it totally wrong I literally cringe. Something that stands out to me because of my interests - a lot of times these types of things revolve around transportation. The author will have every detail of the characters weapons correct. Every detail of the streets in the city they are in correct (and it's not, according to the author's bio, where they live - so they HAD to do some research), and then they make up some BS car for the character to drive. Happens in movies all the time - one of the ones that really hit me that I IMMEDIATELY saw is in the movie Ray, about Ray Charles. A scene from the 1950's, Ray and his band are driving to a gig. In a period proper car. With other period proper cars on the side of the street and also driving along. They drive under a railroad bridge - and a modern double stack container train passes overhead. I guess the director figured no one would ever notice so there was no reason to reshoot the sequence. And I suppose he was right, because while I saw it immediately, I was watching it with my ex father in law, who worked his entire life for the railroad (as did his father before him) and didn't see it until I backed up and replayed the scene. It wasn't way off in the background, it's like the top 1/3 of the frame.

 Anyway, despite my science and technical education, I do retain the ability to suspend disbelief and enter a fantasy world where things like warp drive exist and actually enjoy it, rather than pick it apart for breaking all known laws of physics. To be honest, I sometimes pity those who can't escape the real world, ever so briefly. I think it keeps me sane.

[raspberrypi]

The worst as far as mixing up time was the movie "The Island" in the first half  of the movie the vehicles were all futuristic with the exception of steve buschemi's pick up truck thing that douche bag people drove in the 2000's then all of a sudden they are driving in regular traffic with 1990's and 2000's make cars. It was so bad, it was like the director an out of money and just said "fuck it". They are driving past minivans in their anti gravity motorcycle (with blue ion flames so you know its high tech). Is it the future or not?

[Ratch]

That's absurd - and being rather precious, IMO.

The whole idea is to explore ideas - to expand people's thinking beyond what they understand or believe.  If that means putting the laws of physics, as we know it, to one side for the purpose of presenting an idea, then I have no problems with it at all.

Why?

It's very simple.  It's science fiction.  So why can't the science be fiction?

I look at such fantastic concepts beyond their physics.  I look at the potential for inspiration - perhaps resulting in the development of a real technology using real physics.  Consider it a parallel to brainstorming.


Still, I can see you are going to stand firm on your planar planetary perspective, so it would seem further comment will bear no benefit.

I don't think that trash fiction (devices and situations that can never occur), or ready made daydreams, are much of an inspiration to anyone.  At least there must be better ways to garner ideas.  Like maybe one's own directed imagination.

Ratch

[james_s]

I don't think that trash fiction (devices and situations that can never occur), or ready made daydreams, are much of an inspiration to anyone.  At least there must be better ways to garner ideas.  Like maybe one's own directed imagination.

Why are you even in this thread then? I enjoy science fiction, not everything turns out to be feasible but over the decades a surprising number of "impossible" things depicted in sci-fi have become reality.

Go be negative somewhere else, let the rest of us be unhampered by your rigid personal beliefs.

[Rick Law]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

I think there is another factor in play - human (writer's) experiences at the time, and they are trying to fit it into what they perceived other nations/people to be like, sterotype inaccuracies included.

These are of course my observerations and I have nothing to back it up:
Federation -
   Federation=us (the writer's own): USA, Western-Europe... we, in our own views are of course the good guys.
Klingons -
  looks like they are trying to portrait Soviet Empire (TNG was 1980 and it was still Soviet Union then).
Ferengi -
  I think they are trying to use Chinese as the archetype.
Romulans -
   Romulans are clearly fashioned after the Roman empire, not a present day thing but everyone knows about the Roman Empire so it is easy to write in as the "wild card" enemy yet-unknown.

So, if I am right, their portrayal Klingons/Ferengi will change with our world view today - if they are to make another series of StarTrek.

[Ratch]

I don't think that trash fiction (devices and situations that can never occur), or ready made daydreams, are much of an inspiration to anyone.  At least there must be better ways to garner ideas.  Like maybe one's own directed imagination.

Why are you even in this thread then? I enjoy science fiction, not everything turns out to be feasible but over the decades a surprising number of "impossible" things depicted in sci-fi have become reality.

Go be negative somewhere else, let the rest of us be unhampered by your rigid personal beliefs.

I believe you think I am a nattering nabob of negativism.  Do you want to suppress the messenger more than the message?  You hurt my feelings.  But, I take heart in the fact that you have not yet embraced any free energy schemes (AKA vacuum energy, over-unity energy, singularity point energy, perpetual motion, etc).

Ratch

[Richard Crowley]

Much of what passes for "science-fiction" these days is squarely in the "Fantasy" classification, IMHO.
Mythical creatures and people with "super powers" just leave me yawning.

I have always preferred more reality-based Sci-Fi.  For example my favorite Sci-Fi movie is "The Andromeda Strain". In the early days of space exploration, NASA had a rigorous "decontamination" protocol for returned craft and people because we just didn't know (at the time).

[raspberrypi]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

I think there is another factor in play - human (writer's) experiences at the time, and they are trying to fit it into what they perceived other nations/people to be like, sterotype inaccuracies included.

These are of course my observerations and I have nothing to back it up:
Federation -
   Federation=us (the writer's own): USA, Western-Europe... we, in our own views are of course the good guys.
Klingons -
  looks like they are trying to portrait Soviet Empire (TNG was 1980 and it was still Soviet Union then).
Ferengi -
  I think they are trying to use Chinese as the archetype.
Romulans -
   Romulans are clearly fashioned after the Roman empire, not a present day thing but everyone knows about the Roman Empire so it is easy to write in as the "wild card" enemy yet-unknown.

So, if I am right, their portrayal Klingons/Ferengi will change with our world view today - if they are to make another series of StarTrek.

The Ferangi aliens were the negative stereo type of Indian people. Super cheap, always trying to con the other species because they think they are smarter then them, and they are the same color, at least on my TV. And non stop haggling. I worked at circuit city when I was 18 and half my coworkers were indian and had the last name patel, and even they hatted when they got another Indian person as a customer. You would sell a $2000 stereo system with a service plan, and a whole bunch of BS monster cables, then some indian guy would reluctantly buy a 99.00 boom box (That paid 4.25$ commission), no service plan or accessories and ask for all kinds of free shit or threaten to not buy it. I would just tell them to go to best buy across the street because it was two dollars cheaper. That would totally blow their minds and they would lose any bargaining power they thought they had. It was nice making 18.00 an hour after school, although I thought all jobs were going to be like that.

[james_s]

At least in DS9 where they are much more prevalent, I took the Ferengi race as a parody of our obsession with capitalism. Their entire society openly worships capitalism and the pursuit of profits above all else.

[rfeecs]

Did the Star Trek communicator really inspire the cell phone?

There are tons of articles that claim Martin Cooper, "Father of the cell phone", was inspired to create a handheld personal mobile phone after seeing Star Trek.

Then there's Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)

By the early 1970s, Cooper headed up Motorola's communications systems division.[7] Here he conceived of the first portable cellular phone in 1973 and led the 10-year process of bringing it to market.[5] Car phones had been in limited use in large U.S. cities since the 1930s but Cooper defied the industry's narrow vision of car phones and championed cellular telephony for personal, portable communications.[15] Cooper knew that people needed the freedom of anytime, anywhere telephony. He knew the cellular phone should be a "personal telephone – something that would represent an individual so you could assign a number; not to a place, not to a desk, not to a home, but to a person." [7] While it has been stated Cooper's vision for the handheld device was inspired by Captain James T. Kirk using his Communicator on the television show Star Trek,[16] Cooper himself later refuted this, stating that his actual inspiration was Dick Tracy's wrist radio.[17]

And there's this:
https://youtu.be/wN-_VA5HFwM

[timb]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

Much larger budget for special effects most likely, and a desire to make them more interesting and less like a human in a weird suit.

I think there is another factor in play - human (writer's) experiences at the time, and they are trying to fit it into what they perceived other nations/people to be like, sterotype inaccuracies included.

These are of course my observerations and I have nothing to back it up:
Federation -
   Federation=us (the writer's own): USA, Western-Europe... we, in our own views are of course the good guys.
Klingons -
  looks like they are trying to portrait Soviet Empire (TNG was 1980 and it was still Soviet Union then).
Ferengi -
  I think they are trying to use Chinese as the archetype.
Romulans -
   Romulans are clearly fashioned after the Roman empire, not a present day thing but everyone knows about the Roman Empire so it is easy to write in as the "wild card" enemy yet-unknown.

So, if I am right, their portrayal Klingons/Ferengi will change with our world view today - if they are to make another series of StarTrek.

The Ferangi aliens were the negative stereo type of Indian people. Super cheap, always trying to con the other species because they think they are smarter then them, and they are the same color, at least on my TV. And non stop haggling. I worked at circuit city when I was 18 and half my coworkers were indian and had the last name patel, and even they hatted when they got another Indian person as a customer. You would sell a $2000 stereo system with a service plan, and a whole bunch of BS monster cables, then some indian guy would reluctantly buy a 99.00 boom box (That paid 4.25$ commission), no service plan or accessories and ask for all kinds of free shit or threaten to not buy it. I would just tell them to go to best buy across the street because it was two dollars cheaper. That would totally blow their minds and they would lose any bargaining power they thought they had. It was nice making 18.00 an hour after school, although I thought all jobs were going to be like that.

Actually, the Ferangi were supposedly Jewish, at least according to someone who claims to have worked on TNG production staff. I guess they *do* sort of kind of look like those horribly racist Nazi caricatures of Jews (the ones where they look evil, have huge noses and are holding bags of money). And most of the actors that played Ferangi *were* Jewish, but...

I don't buy it. There's no way they could get away with something so blatantly racist and nobody at the network caught on. That said, I do find it interesting that different people see different races in the Ferangi (Chinese, Indian, Jews, etc).

In reality, the Ferangi aren't modeled after a particular race, instead they're modeled on an economic system: Capitalism. They're meant to show what the never ending pursuit of profits turns a society into.