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Vaguely reminds me of the TNG episode where Data has amnesia(!) and sells radioactive metals to a pre-industrial town. Hilarity does not village.
It's a great episode. It discusses empirical reasoning, peer review, mob mentality, and more. It's written very intelligently.
At the risk of being a Connie Contrarian, I don't think it is. Data makes wild, un-evidenced leaps of assumption that are only "empirical" because we the audience understands what he's saying is correct. But in-universe his ideas are ridiculous and unjustified. More-over Data invents a 'cure' for radiation sickness pulled directly from his butt, with no testing of safety or efficacy before he administers it to a large population.
The B-plot is also a great illustration of the fact that the writers have no idea what to do with Troi. The character was included on the show literally just for sex appeal, and by season 7 the writers were scrambling to justify her existence in a way that didn't openly acknowledge the fact that she was only included because Roddenberry was a womanizing horndog.
Meanwhile if the show had written her as an actual person from the start, she'd have already proved herself a thousand times over. An empath on a ship whose primary missions are diplomatic and exploratory is INSANELY useful:
(a rock monster appears on the view-screen)
"Lower your shields for cultural exchange."
"Counselor, opinion?"
"Despite the strangeness of this species and their lack of outward emotional cues, I sense only curiosity and openness coming from them. We should comply"
>Data makes wild, un-evidenced leaps of assumption that are only "empirical" because we the audience understands what he's saying is correct. But in-universe his ideas are ridiculous and unjustified.
Same with Spock, he presents "logical" conclusions where the priors are not knowable from where he stands.
Maybe it is just a popular caricature of logic, that if you are just not purely "emotional", then you are the opposite: logical.
Don't tell people that Spock is not logical though. You'll get an emotional response.
And raises questions about "who am I" besides my memories. Maybe a lot.
I have read of this transmission method being used deliberately to depopulate regions of South America in recent decades, and of North America in times earlier.