Science Versus

Urban Fantasy is becoming a bigger genre at the moment, with the basic underlying premise of "there is magic around, but only a few people know about it"... and there is also another rider that is variably emphasised "and science can't deal with it". Which is currently catching me in the mood of pissing me off.

The magic is seen as something special, so come enter this special world that only a few people know about. Become one of a special ones. [Yes, this is can be seen as a metaphor for teens becoming aware of more of the world, but this isn't just teen focused.]

The problem I have is that if it's so pervasive then every day people should be encountering it. I don't care if it is rare, it is still a phenomena happening in the world. And yet, it really feels like "haha! here's this special thing that science doesn't know about, because Up Yours Science, you can't deal with this!"

But no, science is an approach, and any "magic" is as open to that approach of testing and hypothesis as anything else. Nope, magic is special that science doesn't know about, only an exclusive few people do... be one of the exclusive special few!

Now, if you do treat is as pervasive, then yeah, you are dealing with a rather different world state that "our world + secret stuff," but that would be more realistic to how such a world would operate.

And now I'll go a further step in my rant: before it was the case that religion was the dominant way of thinking, with science slowly discovering things. Religion was squeezed into "God of the Gaps", but science closed those gaps. However, people still want something out there that isn't science... and so magic! Science doesn't know about magic! And so, in the desire for supernatural, we have magic and such, taking over the religion-space that science doesn't deal with.

You can say "it's dangerous to interact with magic" and "magic corrupts electronics" (see The Peter Grant series and the Laundry Case Files), but you are still dealing with "magic has a tangible effect," and the scientific approach is still applicable. The Peter Grant series does try to address a scientific approach, but hampered by the small fact that there isn't actual magic so Ben Aaronovitch needs to develop a whole new set up to deal with it.

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