Archive for the 'reviews'

“As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason.” – Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth My fiancee and I watched What the Bleep Do We Know? Why? Because it was there. By reputation it is a terrible new-age movie that claims to be about science. The film makers attempt to explain quantum mechanics and neurochemistry, in the service of a general squishy feel-good message similar to “The Secret” implying that if you send positive energy to the universe, good things will happen to you. Some of the movie kind of, sort of, almost conveys some important ideas of science successfully. They describe the double slit experiment; they take a stab at chaos theory, in which small random interactions affect macroscopic objects. They also, unfortunately, attempt to have a plot. I want to focus in on that, since it doesn’t seem to be discussed in many reviews. Early in the movie they introduce a lady who is a deaf magazine photographer. She is portrayed as a severe grouch, so I pegged what this character was for right away. “Aha,” I said. “I’ll bet this character is going to be initially skeptical of whatever claims the movie is trying to make, and then she will be won over in the end.” It’s a lazy technique that yields a required character in many styles of evangelistic tract: the converted skeptic proxy. It operates under the same principle as the old “I used to be an atheist” claim. The message is: “This character is you, skeptic. She has been where you’ve been, and she was convinced. If you are reasonable like her, you will be convinced too.” I say it’s a lazy technique because the writers are not attempting to win you over through the legitimate strength of their arguments; instead, they want to lower your defenses by getting you to identify with their position. Last week on the show I mentioned that...
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