History Main / UnscientificScience

* ''Film/PacificRim'': When the kaiju Leatherback uses an EMP, the plot demanded that Striker Eureka be disabled but Gipsy Danger remain operational. Instead of a mundane explanation (far enough away from the blast) or no explanation at all ("Hey, look, Gipsy Danger still works"), the writers bothered to throw in two unrelated explanations: Gipsy Danger had a nuclear reactor instead of [[{{Phlebotinum}} whatever powers the other Jaegers]], and was therefore "analog, not digital," and thus invulnerable to an EMP. In reality, there are 3 problems: the "analog" descriptor doesn't make sense (how can a hologram-generating, mind-melding machine have zero "digital" parts?); even if it did, non-digital electronics can be destroyed by an EMP; and even they couldn't, a nuclear reactor has no properties that make it less vulnerable to EMP than a diesel motor or jet engine.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', we just believed that if there was any explanation for no one to recognize Ladybug and Cat Noir, not even their family or friends, it would be magic. After all they transform by magic, their mask is never removed by magic, so naturally magic would be the explanation for that. Then ''Miraculous World: New York'' came along and revealed to us that no one recognized them because of their "quantum mask". Only that. Without ever explaining what exactly quantum mechanics did to preserve their secret identity or what "quantum mask" was supposed to mean at all.

* In the direct-to-TV film ''[[Film/Momentum2003 Momentum]]'', the protagonist is a physics professor who is also secretly a [[MindOverMatter telekinetic.]] Two cops are investigating a series of bank robberies performed by people doing seemingly impossible feats. After he foils a convenience store robbery and is caught on camera, they come to ask him a few questions. They randomly bring up telekinesis. He points out that he's not an expert on anything like that. So they ask him in his capacity as a physics professor...because physics professors are supposed to know about things like that, apparently. His answer involves something about the telekinetic making a connection on the "cellular" level to the object he or she is moving. This guy needs to be fired immediately for saying stuff like that. The only way this could be reasonable was if it was limited to organic matter, which would exclude a vast majority of what they might want to use telekinesis on.

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* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', the vampires are supposed to be science-based. It was explained that when a person is turned into a vampire, they have all of their bodily fluids converted into a sort of venom, their eyes change color, their skin loses all pigmentation, they get flawless features (considered universally beautiful), and their cells become crystal-like. All of this is from venom "injected" by a single bite from normal teeth (that is, no fangs). Furthermore, the description of the sparkling means that the cells must be lined with tiny mirrors. Erm...

* ''Film/PacificRim'': When the kaiju Leatherback uses an EMP, the plot demanded that Striker Eureka be disabled but Gipsy Danger remain operational. Instead of a mundane explanation (far enough away from the blast) or no explanation at all ("Hey, look, Gipsy Danger still works"), the writers bothered to throw in two unrelated explanations: Gipsy Danger had a nuclear reactor instead of [[Phlebotinum whatever powers the other Jaegers]], and was therefore "analog, not digital," and thus invulnerable to an EMP. In reality, there are 3 problems: the "analog" descriptor doesn't make sense (how can a hologram-generating, mind-melding machine have zero "digital" parts?); even if it did, non-digital electronics can be destroyed by an EMP; and even they couldn't, a nuclear reactor has no properties that make it less vulnerable to EMP than a diesel motor or jet engine.

* The ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' series has a couple. The biggest one is in ''The Mutation''. The Nartec apparently used to be people who mutated after their island 'sunk'. This makes no sense. The explanation? [[ILoveNuclearPower Radiation sped up their mutation.]] Lampshaded when the protagonists [[BetterThanABareBulb note how nonsensical it sounds,]] and it's made clear that the Nartec are pretty much all insane.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', we just believed that if there was an explanation for no one to recognize Ladybug and Cat Noir, it would be magic. After all they transform by magic, their mask is never removed by magic, so naturally magic would be the explanation for that. Then ''Miraculous World: New York'' came along and revealed to us that no one recognized them because of their "quantum mask". Only that. Without ever explaining what exactly happened or what "quantum mask" was supposed to mean at all.

** In the second game, Revolver Ocelot is possessed by the ghost of his old boss, previous BigBad Liquid Snake, after replacing his missing arm with the dead mans' own, and the third game implies that Ocelot is the son of a psychic medium called The Sorrow which could help explain why. ''Guns of the Patriots'', however, makes it that his DemonicPossession was actually a highly elaborate deception where he hypnotised himself in order to fool the totalitarian A.I. that secretly run the planet, reasoning that they would somehow react differently to his threat if they thought he was Liquid (who did not know their secrets) rather than Ocelot (who knew all of their secrets), a convoluted plan that is simultaneously DoingInTheWizard yet requires the A.I. to believe that the Wizard / ghosts do in fact exist anyway- which previous canon establishes they ''do''- yet not believe that if Liquid Snake ''did'' possess Ocelot he might have access to Ocelots' memories, or that Ocelot might have simply told Liquid when the latter was still alive.

** The villain Vamp, an undead KnifeNut who likes to drink blood, is revealed to have survived otherwise fatal injuries (such as repeatedly getting shot in the head) because nano machines give him an accelerated HealingFactor...which he had not demonstrated at all in his previous appearance, where his first head wound did not close throughout the game, and leads to serious GameplayAndStorySegregation where he keeps healing no matter how many bombs and bullets you hit him with, unless you suppress the nano machines with a special injection. His ability to pin your shadow to the floor is weakly dismissed as a form of hypnotic suggestion, while his power to walk on water is just plain forgotten.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is full of this, and it's {{played for laughs}}. For example, the engine of the starship Heart of Gold needs to generate infinite improbability, but it is only possible to generate finite amounts of improbability, which led physicists to say it's virtually impossible for one to exist. Then someone reasoned that a ''virtual impossibility'' is the same as a ''finite improbability'', and when the numbers were plugged into a finite improbability drive, it just spontaneously popped into existence. (After which its creator [[TorchesAndPitchforks was hunted down and strung up]] by a mob of his fellow physicists for being a smartarse, for which it is difficult to entirely blame them.) And then there's the Starship Bistromath from ''Life, The Universe and Everything'' which takes it UpToEleven, using what can only be described as [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum nonsensoleum-based]] MinovskyPhysics based around ''splitting the bill in a restaurant'' of all things to delicately bend the laws of physics to get around the light barrier, which ironically enough also causes ''less'' of the unfortunate RealityIsOutToLunch effects that happen with the Infinite Improbability Drive.

* ''[[Literature/ThePendragonAdventure The Reality Bug]]'' by D. J. [=MacHale=]. In it, the Reality Bug tries to break out of fantasy into reality. The explanation is that Jumpers are somehow giving the Bug physical power.

* In a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to bypass WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief and the RuleOfCool, the explanation for how GunKata works in the movie ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' is that experts were able to review thousands of gunfights and calculate the most likely trajectories of enemy fire, allowing a practitioner to dance around speeding bullets without getting shot. While the psychological aspects of this are vaguely plausible in that a large part of many functional martial arts involves similar exploitation of predictable instinctive human behaviors and blind spots, the problem is that these patterns change with a person's level of competence (and overlooks that shooting is more of a martial science than an art, and has virtually no technical "rules" to exploit. The most likely trajectory of return fire in reality is always ''from the target''). Even when going by the movie's premise, the most dangerous individual to a practitioner of Gun Kata would have attended ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: their incompetence [[AccidentalAimingSkills means the area they hit might accidentally overlap]] with the zone where the Gun Kata practitioner knows no person with eyes should be aiming. As noted on the academy's trope page, this is often TruthInTelevision, but real experts who have actually studied real shootouts unanimously conclude the only effective way to survive a gunfight is to [[BoringButPractical get behind the best available cover and hope for a miracle.]]

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is full of this, and it's {{played for laughs}}. For example, the engine of the starship Heart of Gold needs to generate infinite improbability, but it is only possible to generate finite amounts of improbability, which led physicists to say it's virtually impossible for one to exist. Then someone reasoned that a ''virtual impossibility'' is the same as a ''finite improbability'', and when the numbers were plugged into a finite improbability drive, it just spontaneously popped into existence. (After which its creator [[TorchesAndPitchforks was hunted down and strung up]] by a mob of his fellow physicists for being a smartarse, for which it is difficult to entirely blame them.) And then there's the Starship Bistromath from ''Life, The Universe and Everything'' which takes it UpToEleven, using what can only be described as [[RunsOnNonsensulum nonsensulum-based]] MinovskyPhysics based around ''splitting the bill in a restaurant'' of all things to delicately bend the laws of physics to get around the light barrier, which ironically enough also causes ''less'' of the unfortunate RealityIsOutToLunch effects that happen with the Infinite Improbability Drive.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is full of this, and it's {{played for laughs}}. For example, the engine of the starship Heart of Gold needs to generate infinite improbability, but it is only possible to generate finite amounts of improbability, which led physicists to say it's virtually impossible for one to exist. Then someone reasoned that a ''virtual impossibility'' is the same as a ''finite improbability'', and when the numbers were plugged into a finite improbability drive, it just spontaneously popped into existance.

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': During the FinalBattle in the GosakuOta manga chapters, Mazinger-Z was thrown in a LavaPit... and it emerged unscathed. When BigBad Dr. Hell blurted out it was impossible (not even MadeOfIndestructium Mazinger-Z can endure a lava bath, let alone Made Of Flesh Kouji Kabuto), Kouji replied he had used the rockets located on Mazinger's feet to stir the lava and create an air bubble around his robot... which actually is harder to buy than the "It's NighInvulnerable and it emerged out very quickly" excuse.

* In the direct-to-TV film ''[[Film/Momentum2003 Momentum]]'', the protagonist is a physics professor who is also secretly a [[MindOverMatter telekinetic]]. Two cops are investigating a series of bank robberies performed by people doing seemingly impossible feats. After he foils a convenience store robbery and is caught on camera, they come to ask him a few questions. They randomly bring up telekinesis. He points out that he's not an expert on anything like that. So they ask him in his capacity as a physics professor... because physics professors are supposed to know about things like that, apparently. His answer involves something about the telekinetic making a connection on the "cellular" level to the object he or she is moving. This guy needs to be fired immediately for saying stuff like that. The only way this could be reasonable was if it was limited to organic matter, which would exclude a vast majority of what they might want to use telekinesis on.
* In a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to bypass WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief and the RuleOfCool, the explanation for how GunKata works in the movie ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' is that experts were able to review thousands of gunfights and calculate the most likely trajectories of enemy fire, allowing a practitioner to dance around speeding bullets without getting shot. While the psychological aspects of this are vaguely plausible in that a large part of many functional martial arts involves similar exploitation of predictable instinctive human behaviors and blind spots, the problem is that these patterns change with a person's level of competence (and overlooks that shooting is more of a martial science than an art, and has virtually no technical "rules" to exploit; the most likely trajectory of return fire in reality is always ''to the target''). Even when going by the movie's premise, the most dangerous individual to a practitioner of Gun Kata would have attended ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: their incompetence [[AccidentalAimingSkills means the area they hit might accidentally overlap]] with the zone where the Gun Kata practitioner knows no person with eyes should be aiming. As noted on the academy's trope page, this is often TruthInTelevision, but real experts who have actually studied real shootouts unanimously conclude the only effective way to survive a gunfight is to [[BoringButPractical get behind the best available cover and hope for a miracle]].

* The ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' series has a couple. The biggest one is in ''The Mutation''. The Nartec apparently used to be people who mutated after their island 'sunk'. This makes no sense. The explanation? [[ILoveNuclearPower Radiation sped up their mutation]]. Lampshaded when the protagonists [[BetterThanABareBulb note how nonsensical it sounds]], and it's made clear that the Nartec are pretty much all insane.
* In the ''Literature/MaximumRide'' series, the gang have wings and other bird-like attributes, and Erasers are basically werewolves. This is explained by the fact that their DNA was altered. Apparently, there is one specific gene for bird wings (which there actually isn't), and there's a gene that allows humans to... transform into werewolves?
* In ''Literature/IAmNumberFour'', the Loriens have seemingly magical powers. It's explained... that it happened by evolution. And apparently, these adaptations were to protect the planet they lived on. We're genuinely not sure whether or not the authors intended for this to make sense or not.

* Played with and mixed with DoingInTheWizard in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'''s episode "Bloody Mary". A Marian statue begins bleeding out its ass, and is held to be a miracle. The Pope does what the real world Catholic church does and investigates. After examining it closely, he concludes that it isn't a miracle... because the ''stone statue'' is actually bleeding out its vagina and not its ass.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is full of this, and it's {{played for laughs}}. For example, the engine of the starship Heart of Gold needs to generate infinite improbability, but it is only possible to generate finite amounts of improbability, which led physicists to say it's virtually impossible to build one. Then someone reasoned that a ''virtual impossibility'' is the same as a ''finite improbability'', and thus it could be built.

When a writer explains something blatantly unscientific with something that's ''also'' blatantly (or not so blatantly) unscientific, he has shown an example of Unscientific Science. For example, a writer might explain why two characters can hear each other in space by invoking [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything quantum physics]].

When a writer explains something blatantly unscientific with something else that's blatantly (or not so blatantly) unscientific, he has shown an example of Unscientific Science. For example, a writer might explain why two characters can hear each other in space by invoking [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything quantum physics]].

* Played with and mixed with DoingInTheWizard in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'''s episode "Bloody Mary". A Marian statue begins bleeding out its ass, and is held to be a miracle. The Pope does what the real world Catholic church does and investigates. He concludes it's no miracle because the ''stone statue'' is bleeding out its vagina, and "chicks bleed out their vagina all the time."

Compare NewRulesAsThePlotDemands (when the science is normally consistent until this trope comes into play) and MagicAIsMagicA (when the writers are consistent about how the nonsensical science works).

When a writer explains something blatantly unscientific with something else that's blatantly (or not so blatantly) unscientific, he has shown an example of Unscientific Science. For example, a writer might explain why two characters can hear each other in space by saying that someone has put air into space.

* The ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' series has a couple. The biggest one is in ''The Mutation''. The Nartec apparently used to be people who mutated after their island 'sunk'. This makes no sense. The explanation? [[ILoveNuclearPower Radiation sped up their mutation]]. Of course, the book itself kind of acknowledges this when the protagonists note how nonsensical it sounds, and it's made clear that the Nartec are pretty much all insane.

* In a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to bypass WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief and the RuleOfCool, the explanation for how GunKata works in the movie ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' is that experts were able to review thousands of gunfights and calculate the most likely trajectories of enemy fire, allowing a practitioner to dance around speeding bullets without getting shot. While the psychological aspects of this are vaguely plausible in that a large part of many functional martial arts involves similar exploitation of predictable instinctive human behaviors and blind spots, the problem is that these patterns change with a person's level of competence (and overlooks that shooting has very few technical "rules" to exploit compared to many martial arts; the most likely trajectory of return fire in reality is always "towards the target"). Even when going by the movie's premise, the most dangerous individual to a practitioner of Gun Kata would have attended ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: their incompetence [[AccidentalAimingSkills means the area they hit might accidentally overlap]] with the zone where the Gun Kata practitioner knows no person with eyes should be aiming. As noted on the academy's trope page, this is often TruthInTelevision, but real experts who have actually studied real shootouts unanimously conclude the only effective way to survive a gunfight is to [[BoringButPractical get behind the best available cover and hope for a miracle]].