| Oh darn! I was writing something and I accidentally hit the Back button. Ack. Cut to the chase.
I'll just say, I like Luke's character quite a bit. He's one of the few young genius-type peeps I've seen over the years who isn't overly snobbish, elitist, and condescending, and that more than a splinter of the audience can identify and relate to (especially things like his problems with big bro).
However I just also wanted to mention, in what possibly be a nitpick, in 1x09, "St. Joan", Luke says something that didn't add up to me. Usually the writing for him on the show I have found to be consistently and scientifically accurate -- or close to that -- AFAIK... HOWEVER, this one just glared out to me.
When Luke told Will this:
Luke - Well, that just depends if you define necessity as the power of natural law that cannot be other than what it is, but if--
Yeah, sure, it sounds alright, at first, like so much of what Luke says, although not so technical (this is one of the simpler phrases). But, if you notice that catchphrase "natural law"... and google for it... well, there's your answer right there.
"Natural law" is an often-abused catchphrase used to attack everything from homosexuality to genetically modified foods, as in "it goes against natural law!" Creationists with not much basis in science but will pretend anyway, will say vague prattle like "it is against God and natural law to say the Earth is so old." It is a term which originally had a lot more weight but is currently loathed by skeptics as something sputtered out all too often as an excuse.
SO, two possibilities here:
1) A fact is that Luke is a genius. He keeps up to date on many of the latest and greatest developments in scientific news, including usage of terminology (why else would he speak so complicated)? This "natural law" bit struck me as strongly out of place. Ergo, conclusion 1 draws the possibility that this was indeed an oversight. Still subjective, not a big one, but nevertheless, still an oversight. (In an example of keeping with the times: Popular teens usually don't say "that's hip" or "that's fab", they say "that's COOL". Nor do they greet each other with formal salutations... it is more a "what's up dude" kind of thing.)
2) Luke knew what "natural law" was all about in present times, and was in a hurry to convince his Dad for the $50 for capacitors... therefore he knew he could sputter off any technical-sounding gibberish and his Dad would buy it (according to his internal probability theories)! AHA. So that one checks out.
I suppose you could go with a 3rd possibility on the off-chance that Michael is sticking to his guns and still using a term like that despite how it is not really used by rational, scientific people to most of the time... but it's sketchy. Natural Law is not really science -- it, however, masquerades as such even though it has more to do with the philosophies of the world and some things that can not be quantifiably measured by empirical observation but yet argued for years and years on end. Clearly, something as human as romance doesn't come naturally to Luke, and that says a lot.
Ha ha ha ha...
I want to say that this show appeals to my spiritual AND scientific sides, and for that I am thankful that it doesn't whitewash and completely blur what a scientific procedure is all about. After all, if God created the universe, God created science... and science is a valuable tool to be used discerningly. Go Lukey goooo [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] |