Dracula

[spiffystuff]

You are a clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are

Comments

[csn]

Too true.

[skanrashke]

Science is for losers. CRAZY CRAB INDUCED HALLUCINATIONS THAT CAUSE YOU TO WRITE BLOCKBUSTER NOVELS ARE FOR WINNERS!

[spiffystuff]

Crab induced hallucinations? Is this Bram Stoker's inspiration, or is this a common Baltimore thing? XD

[willworker]

I loved that line-- I played John Seward in a community theater production of Dracula, and I loved some of Van Helsing's comments, that one in particular.

Of course, the women outnumbered the men, and so we changed the gender of a few characters, including Renfield. Which gave an entirely different connotation to "I will wait for my master to come to me" sitting down and spreading her legs... (We changed that blocking before opening...) :P

Steve

[spiffystuff]

Renfield as a female -- dude!
... you make a perfect John Seward ;D

What other Van Helsing comments do you like? I admit, I find a lot of his a bit flowery... at least now so, later in the book :P

[aintesduck]

Actually, it's the fault of our religion that it wants to explain everything; and if it explain not, then it persecutes you for asking "forbidden" questions; and furthermore, it offers no reason for its explanations other than "because I said so, so shut up before I declare a fatwa on you or burn you at the stake or something".

The very reason most people prefer religion to science, I think, is that religion offers a facade of certainty where science says "we don't know" or "we think this is the answer, but that may change in the future".

[aintesduck]

Science can be taken "religiously"

Yes, it can. One of the problems with science in contemporary society is that too many people don't understand what science really is; a methodology for testing a hypothesis. Far too many people who say that they "believe" in science rather than religion are actually making science into a religion; they read somewhere that the established scientific orthodoxy says such-and-such, and they give that the same authority as a holy writ without realizing that it's subject to change as new evidence arises

[spiffystuff]

Hrm, afraid I must agree and disagree!
It rather depends on the religion or scientist in question ;D
The scientific method is, for sure, just way of carrying out investigations. However, science in general holds that if something has not been "proven" (usually means "can be replicated"), science says it isn't true/real/etc. Now the rub is, as you say, as long as the thing's not disproven it should't be taken as not being true, but few scientists are concerned with what's possible, or what definitely isn't, but rather with what is

[nightwitch]

I'm with Van Helsing on this...