One movie that certainly portrays a rationalist favorably is Contact. An almost-perfect humanist movie is UFOria, which weaves the two leads’ developing connection with each other and with reality together in a very organic way. Unfortunately, in the last few seconds it seems to wimp out in favor of ontological ambiguity.
Contact is about as anti-rationalist as a movie can get. The main character was right in that she really did violate the known laws of physics, but her reasoning was completely wrong. The government’s public arguments were correct because they correctly valued the prior probability that the known laws of physics are correct. The fact that the main character’s conclusion turned out to be correct anyway is then used to promote religious faith. I very much dislike this movie.
One movie that certainly portrays a rationalist favorably is Contact. An almost-perfect humanist movie is UFOria, which weaves the two leads’ developing connection with each other and with reality together in a very organic way. Unfortunately, in the last few seconds it seems to wimp out in favor of ontological ambiguity.
Contact is about as anti-rationalist as a movie can get. The main character was right in that she really did violate the known laws of physics, but her reasoning was completely wrong. The government’s public arguments were correct because they correctly valued the prior probability that the known laws of physics are correct. The fact that the main character’s conclusion turned out to be correct anyway is then used to promote religious faith. I very much dislike this movie.