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Doing in the Scientist is the "rational" counterpart of Doing in the Wizard -- this is where story element (or possibility) that was originally explained by 'science' is retconned into actually being due to magic or supernatural forces. This tends to be poorly received, partly because Fantasy is even more stigmatised than Science Fiction and partly because it tends to throw the established "rules of The Verse" out of the window. Contrast How Unscientific. Not to be confused with The Magic Goes Away. If magic is the whole basis for a civilization's technology, see Magitek.

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  • Doing in the Scientist
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  • Doing in the Scientist is the "rational" counterpart of Doing in the Wizard -- this is where story element (or possibility) that was originally explained by 'science' is retconned into actually being due to magic or supernatural forces. This tends to be poorly received, partly because Fantasy is even more stigmatised than Science Fiction and partly because it tends to throw the established "rules of The Verse" out of the window. Contrast How Unscientific. Not to be confused with The Magic Goes Away. If magic is the whole basis for a civilization's technology, see Magitek.
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  • Doing in the Scientist is the "rational" counterpart of Doing in the Wizard -- this is where story element (or possibility) that was originally explained by 'science' is retconned into actually being due to magic or supernatural forces. This tends to be poorly received, partly because Fantasy is even more stigmatised than Science Fiction and partly because it tends to throw the established "rules of The Verse" out of the window. Contrast How Unscientific. Just so we're clear, this trope is not about blatantly magical elements being explained by very soft science. This is about science being replaced by magic, regardless of how hard the science originally was. This is often seen in "updated" superhero origins. Once upon a time being on the range during a Gamma-bomb test, or being bit by and/or spliced with a radioactive spider, sounded semi-plausible. Nobody thought it could actually work (hopefully...) but it sounded vaguely like something that could happen. Science Marches On, however, and now there are some things that no scientific origin can plausibly excuse. Magic, on the other hand, can (by definition) do anything. Sure, it's technically even less plausible, but sometimes that's what you're after- maintaining Willing Suspension of Disbelief through a simple handwave that doesn't even try to be scientific is often much less taxing than trying to swallow nonsense about something that really exists. A subtrope is Magic-Powered Pseudoscience, when it applies to revealing that seemingly-scientific Phlebotinum was powered by the creator rather than Techno Babble. Not to be confused with The Magic Goes Away. If magic is the whole basis for a civilization's technology, see Magitek. Examples of Doing in the Scientist include:
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