We need Mad Scientists...

When you look at what our scientific ability is capable of doing...

A brain being kept alive and hooked up to a machine body
A human brain being hooked into a computer
Nanites that can increase our strength and allow us to hold our breath for over an hour
Rapid Tissue regeneration
Brain regeneration
Organic microchip processors

Just to name a few.

Do think that, perhaps, the reason the DCU and Marvel, and many other fictional universes, are more advanced than our universe, other than just because it is written that way, is because they have mad scientists actually using their technology in, some ways, immoral ways...

Think about it... If we just had one mad scientist that understood the brain connected to mechanical body thing and pushed the limits without worry of the ethical consequences we would likely have more understanding of how brains worked and how to make cyborgs...

So... could we say that all our fictional universes are actually less moral than we are due to wrecklessly charging forward OR is it that we'e immoral because in not charging wrecklessly forward we cost the lives of those we could save otherwise?

Science is a tool for figuring things out. Much like a gun is a tool. Both science and guns are also weapons. One can argue without science the would be no guns or other advanced weapons. The fictional and real universes have the morality and ethics, or lack there of, that we the creators put into them.

Also who is to say what kinds of "Mad Science" is going on now in secret in military and private research. I guarantee that some of it is being done with reckless abandon and suspect moral decisions. Just because we are not hearing of it, does not mean it's not happening. It's been said that the military has technology that is 50 years or more advanced what is available to civilians. I don't doubt it either.

I happen to have a friend who is a cyborg. It's a fact she has electrodes implanted in her brain and a battery implanted in her chest. Without this technology she would be wheelchair bound and unable to walk. With it she can lead an active life and walk, run and even dance. The implanted electrodes send signals to parts of her brain that do not work properly due to an existing medical condition. The same parts of the brain that make it possible for her to walk. She even has a remote control which deactivates her implant She is a pretty amazing person, and I am honored to know her.

Durakken, the science and technology you mentioned is all being used in the real world all ready. Just not all of it has been made public. There is a lot of money invovled in these technologies and whoever controls patents for such things stands to make ridiculous amounts of money. For that reason alone, I guarantee this stuff is all being done, and done now. If only I had access to the budget details from all of the classified research and black projects being done for the military, i could prove it.

Whatever you do, don't go looking for experiments about detaching monkeys' heads and attaching them to other monkey bodies or to machines. While they're conscious. Without anesthetic. I'm completely serious: don't do it, it's unbelievably cruel and horrible.

Mad scientist, indeed. More like, "Shoot that mother-****** on sight," is what he is. There's some **** we really don't need to do. We certainly don't need to torture animals to do it.

We don't have those scientific advances like the fictional universes simply because it is far easier to write "they hooked his brain up to a cyborb body" than is is to actually hook his brain up to a cyborg body, just like it is far easier to write "he drew a square circle" than is is to draw a square circle.

Throughout our history we have had some "Mad Scientists" and most of them are universally reviled. The most glaring example, Joseph Mengele, the Angel of Death, but he is far from alone. There's also less personalized cases of Mad Science like the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. When they were not universally reviled, they had some rather "interestingly bad" ideas, like Tesla (who is responsible for us having Alternating Current rather than the safer, but harder/more expensive to use Direct Current Edison was after), Einstein (one of the great scientists of our age, but refused on principle to accept Quantum Mechanics and even gave us the "God does not play dice" quote because of it) and the real fringe out-of-their-mind crazies like Velikovsky who was right about the Van Allen Belts but completely wacko-jacko on everything else.

Beyond the public knowledge there's DARPA, which is filled with all sorts of nutty ideas that the X-Files would have had a field day with (and it did get name checked in a number of episodes). DARPA is or has been into everything form Mind Control, psychic Warfare and Remote Viewing to more pedestrian (and successful) things like lasers, microwave weapons and mass drivers. Plus, you know, the entire bloody internet was their brainchild.

Beyond even that are the real "black bag" projects of governments around the world. Stuff we may never find out about unless it's successful. Occasionally someone will slip their leash and say something about one of these projects and it will quickly get hushed up by whoever is in charge. The original atomic bomb projects in the US and USSR were these.

Mad Science simple doesn't work by virtue of being "Mad Science." Those who would fall into that category simply have too many bad ideas that detract from actual advancement on their few good ideas. As I said earlier, reality doesn't work on human imagination, it has its own rules that we must follow in order to actually get anywhere, the real life "mad scientist" may understand that, but doesn't act as if they do. Those few that do act as if they do have methodologies that are universally reviled by civilized society and tend to lack the necessary discipline in the sciences to not do slip-shod work. To paraphrase Mystery men "See? This is why a garden-variety scientist is preferable to a Mad Scientist...."

Two words:

Jurassic Park.


"Everyone asks whether or not we can. No one asks whether or not we should."

That's the thing though, most of the madder science tends to be done via first world countries Military contracts and the like, so we have no idea what's going on with regards this.

Your Portal/Half-life style Apeture Science/Black Mesa facilities really aren't likely, I'm not going to say they couldn't though.

Now you're William Gibson style cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, that stuff is probably a lot closer than we'd like to think but not for the public, the prediction is 2020 for computers being able to provide enough processing power to match the human brain but I would bet that would be military use and probably another 10 years before we see it in the public domain.

That's just what I think though.

There is this little issue of funding. Science isn't cheap. Especially Mad Science.

But lets look back 30 years and see what sorts of "mad science" we have come up with:

GPS. You mean this little box can tell me exactly where I am, anywhere in the world?

Internet. Al Gore made this? No wai!

Genetic mapping and designer drugs. Not only can we map your genes we can make drugs to target specific ones.


Not so "mad" anymore. Im 37, so my memories and awareness of what was going on 30 years ago is pretty good. Even "cordless" telephones of the day sucked big time. Woods (golf clubs) were still made of.... you know, wood. Aluminum baseball bats were all the rage, compared to the alloyed thin-walled destroyers of today. Atari 2600.... dammit, I thought it was awesome.

Lets look at the original list:

A brain being kept alive and hooked up to a machine body
A human brain being hooked into a computer
Nanites that can increase our strength and allow us to hold our breath for over an hour
Rapid Tissue regeneration
Brain regeneration
Organic microchip processors

Brain hooked to a machine body? Ok, why? The brain is already the least durable part of our body, thats why is overly protected. And its still organic and will degrade over time. And if we take such damage that our bodies would have died, our brains probably took a little damage along the way as well, so putting a damaged, traumatized "brain" in a mechanical body suddenly seems like a really bad idea.
Rapid Tissue/Brain Regen: Sure it sounds good, but cells can only regerenerate so many times before they die. Its pre-programmed in our genetic code. Speeding up this process would just hasten the death of the cells. Fixing the pre-programmed death of cells, now thats worth researching.
Organic micro-processors: Bad. Bad. Bad. Why waste time here? Organic is analog. And when it comes to raw computational power, digital is biggest bang for the buck. Our organic brains are really rather poor in the mathematical realm, but its ability to consider 1000's of possibilities simultainously and manage the body's systems is where it shines. Its really almost better to think of the brain as 1000s of small mini processors with really good interconnects for data sharing and re-routing if a bank gets damaged.

A human brain being hooked into a computer: Done. Okay, its not a direct connection, usually a 1-way path, but thats because there is no defined interface as the pieces are completely different. But even with prothetics, we are working on figuring out at a basic level feedback/bi-directional loops.

Nanites: Fear the grey goo or why nanites are a pipe dream. Lets face it, the raw amount of power required to manipulate atoms at the level of building machines in any sort of mass production capacity simply escapes us. This is always something that gets glossed over in the super-hero world. Energy.

The long and the short of it is, the super hero world ignores the laws of physics regarding energy. It cannot be created or destroyed. So all that energy used by a hero/villian/scientist has to come from somewhere. Supes gets his from the sun, ok, he of all heroes makes sense, but think about it for a moment, where does he store that energy? Some sort of organic battery? Now that would be mad science!! Imagine being able to change yourself to allow the storage of massive amounts of energy and then discharge it at will. The essence of super-powered beings.

Of cource tho, when you died, all that energy would get released, probably very violently. And even when injured or incapacitated, you might lose control of your battery storage and go boom (or get REALLY hot really fast).


tl;dr
Mad science takes money and energy. Two things that aren't in the highest supply. Solve energy, and money goes away two. Fusion power... that is the key to the super future.

net

military science is probably the single biggest producer of useful improvements throughout the 20th century. Granted we all cringe just a bit when the topic is brought up, but truth be told, technological advances are what you make of them and aren't tied to the conspiracy theory that formed around them, the internet being the most visible of these advancements. the only area where this isn't true, is medical research, where private industry leads the advancements.

the first fully working prototype of the F117 stealth fighter was flying in 1978 or 9, but wasn't first introduced in open warfare, and to the general public, until desert shield. this is around 12 years of hush hush that actually worked, not to mention all the developmental time pre-working prototype. with the exponential growth in the scientific fields throughout the 20th century and this millennium, can you imagine what they are working on right now that we won't get to see for another 12 years? i want to hold HIGH level elected office, not because i would like to lead, but because i really really really want to know all the cool stuff folks are working on

net minder, check out popsci website, search for immortal mice (or something like that), someone went and figured out how to stop the preprogrammed death of mouse cells, stopping the effects of aging (and reversing it in older mice). come to think of it, article might be named ageless mice. great read, with huge implications for those of us under 40, given enough time to work out some kinks, it could mean a whole different game for our "golden years".