History Main / ScienceIsUseless

Related to MagicVersusScience. May involve [[SquishyWizard Squishy Scientist]], DumbIsGood, and RockBeatsLaser. May be related to ReedRichardsIsUseless. See also the physical equivalents TechnicianVersusPerformer (where TheGift overcomes intense training) and GoodOldFisticuffs (where simple fists beats flashy kicks). Often the logical result of ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum or even ScienceIsWrong.

** Go was our salvation for a while, but in 2015, AlphaGo by Google finally ended human supremacy. Eventually, in 2017, their latest version went 60:0 versus Go masters.

"He said a man ain't nothin' but a man,\\

But I'll be laughing, 'cause you can't replace a steel drivin' man."''

-> ''"Then John Henry, he said to his captain,''\\
''He said a man ain’t nothin’ but a man,''\\
''But if you bring that steam drill round, I’ll beat it fair and honest,''\\
''I’ll die with that hammer in my hand--''\\
''But I’ll be laughing, 'cause you can’t replace a steel drivin’ man."''
-->-- '''Music/JohnnyCash''', ''The Legend of John Henry's Hammer''

* Amino High School in ''Manga/{{Eyeshield21}}'': whilst they have turned themselves into impossibly large-muscled superhumans using a variety of advanced methods, the Devilbats win in part because they've just returned from their TrainingFromHell, "the Death March." Subverted in that it's explained ''why'' they lost: the Amino team may be juiced-up and muscular, but their minimal training left them with poor endurance and a mediocre grasp of football fundamentals compared to the Devil Bats.

* Averted by ''Manga/HunterXHunter''. The world's strongest Man faces a newborn SuperiorLifeForm but his hundred years of experience and training barely manage to scratch his opponent. So how does he get rid of the Monster? He makes himself and the ennemy blow up with a low-cost nuclear bomb.
* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Ash was up against a trainer who constantly statistically analysed all the Pokemons' abilities and used it to direct his Pokemon in battle. While this served him well for a time, when battling Ash, the weakness was exposed that when the battle got too fast, he couldn't focus on both his Pokemon and his laptop at the same time. (That and the fact that Ash's Pokemon started giving off [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale "impossible" numbers]]).
** Ash battled his Pikachu against the Cubone of an InsufferableGenius from the Pokemon Academy. Due to type advantage, Cubone was immune to Pikachu's electricity, but Ash was able to beat it by battling with trickery and speed. The genius was taken back by this idea, having fought her Pokemon mostly in simulators and never seen a Pikachu win without electricity.
*** Ironically enough, she berated her junior for relying solely on type advantage beforehand when while he beat a Starmie with a Weepingbel in a simulator, he lost against Misty and in turn, Misty lost against the girl's Graveler.
* ''WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles'', where Lt. Sterling points out "Skill over Technology". And [[spoiler: humans indeed win the combat against robotic shadows]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/RockyIV''. Ivan Drago is given steroids, computer monitors and high-tech work-out equipment to show his superhuman development. Rocky trains with farm equipment in a barn. In spite of being physically inferior, Rocky wins the day through heart. This is a bit of a case of ScienceMarchesOn, as strength-training machines such as those used by Drago have been revealed to be inferior to Rocky's old-fashioned free weights.
* In ''Film/ShaolinSoccer'', the monks use their supernatural kung fu techniques against Team Evil's American steroids and high-tech training. The monks can only barely hang on, but ultimately pull out the victory with the unbeatable combination of [[ChekhovsGun two powerful techniques]].
* In ''Film/{{Soldier}}'', Creator/KurtRussell plays a veteran super-soldier who is pitted against a group of genetically-engineered uber-soldiers. Russell loses to the new soldiers in purely physical contests, but when it comes to the battlefield, he slaughters them all single-handedly using his superior tactics (read: any tactics whatsoever) and cunning gained from years of experience. The GeneralRipper in charge of the new soldiers is so completely convinced of their superiority that he ignores the sound advice of his second-in-command who wisely points out that the harsh environment of the battlefield is negating the advantages the soldiers have in both conditioning and firepower. The entire fight is completely pointless and the commander is simply showing off his new 'toys'.
* In ''Film/{{Twister}}'', TheRival is almost totally dependent on his weather-tracking technology to find and rate tornadoes while the heroes use their gut instincts and, more importantly, their past experiences with giant storms. However, he had simply taken the heroes' technology and gotten corporate backing-all the concept and experiments behind it had been done by the heroes, ''who were better scientists than he was''.

* The legend of John Henry is an OlderThanRadio example, but here it's an UnbuiltTrope: Steel-driving man versus steel-driving machine... Man wins, but dies soon after. Even the mightiest of steel-drivin' men would have to kill himself to barely beat out modern machinery. Man might win the moral victory, but machinery wins the long race.

* In the Literature/LeftBehind series, science ultimately proves to be useless, particularly against the Bowl Judgments during the Tribulation when medical science couldn't figure out how to deal with the outbreak of sores upon those who took the MarkOfTheBeast and worshiped his image.

* Averted in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/PaulBunyan'': A normal man challenges Paul to a contest where he and Paul are given a set time to chop and transport to a central location as much wood as possible to demonstrate the then-new chainsaw, using a train to send the wood back. When it's all over, the entrepreneur beats Paul (albeit by a very narrow margin), prompting Paul to retire, figuring that, with new technology allowing anyone to be as efficient as himself, he and his ways have become obsolete.

* OlderThanRadio: The legend of John Henry, which is a decidedly mature take on the trope: Steel-driving man versus steel-driving machine... Man wins, but dies soon after. Even the mightiest of steel-drivin' men would have to kill himself to barely beat out modern machinery. Man might win the moral victory, but machinery wins the long race.

Further, there are two different flavors of this trope. If the point is to stress the importance of hard work, then the technological/scientific opponent is presented as [[DavidVersusGoliath an intimidating Goliath]] that the plucky underdog must struggle to overcome. This can be done fairly enough - [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped after all, hard work IS very important]].

In a competition of science and technology versus simple hard work, science and technology will almost invariably lose. Since science usually finds an easier, faster way to achieve something, it is therefore "cheating" and far less honorable than honest sweat and effort. Thus, no matter how much a scientist researches, experiments and innovates, he will never achieve what someone else can with good old practice and hard work.

# Hardly anyone in the audience knows much about RealLife science, and

* Averted by ''Manga/HunterXHunter''. The world's strongest Man faces a newborn SuperiorLifeForm but his hundred years of experience and training barely manage to scratch his opponent. So how do he get rid of the Monster? He makes himself and the ennemy blow up with a low-cost nuclear bomb.

This is not the quite the opposite of HardWorkHardlyWorks, because TheGift beats ''both'' hard work and science, and science may actually be given a fair shake by being represented as the hard work it is. But for hard-workers, science is the lowest spot on the tropic totem pole.

* Averted hard by ''Manga/HunterXHunter''. The world's strongest Man faces a newborn SuperiorLifeForm but his hundred years of experience and training barely manage to scratch his opponent. So how do he get rid of the Monster? He makes himself and the ennemy blow up with a low-cost nuclear bomb.

* Averted in Disney's ''[[WesternAnimation/MiscellaneousDisneyShorts Paul Bunyan]]'': A normal man challenges Paul to a contest where he and Paul are given a set time to chop and transport to a central location as much wood as possible to demonstrate the then-new chainsaw, using a train to send the wood back. When it's all over, the entrepreneur beats Paul (albeit by a very narrow margin), prompting Paul to retire, figuring that, with new technology allowing anyone to be as efficient as himself, he and his ways have become obsolete.

Very much related to [[SquishyWizard Squishy Scientist]], DumbIsGood and RockBeatsLaser. May be related to ReedRichardsIsUseless. See also the physical equivalents TechnicianVersusPerformer (where TheGift overcomes intense training) and GoodOldFisticuffs (where simple fists beats flashy kicks). Often the logical result of ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum or even ScienceIsWrong.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]