MovieChat Forums > Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) Discussion > This movie is ridiculous

This movie is ridiculous

posted 9 years ago by MaximRecoil
50 replies | jump to latest

Though I have always liked it for the humor.

Some examples of absurdity:

1. The probe is supposedly intelligent, or at least, created by intelligence, yet it didn't know that its transmissions would wreak havoc on the planet? Not only was there not enough intelligence to predict such a thing, but there wasn't enough to detect it while it was happening either.

2. Uhura detects whale song from orbit. Not only do sound waves not travel in space, but even if there were some magical way to detect them without dropping a microphone down into the atmosphere, there's no way you're going to pick out whale song among the unfathomable level of noise present in a major city, without knowing exactly where to look for it.

3. According to Scotty, regenerating dilithium crystals can't be done in the 23rd century, even though it is as easy as collecting some nuclear fission radiation, and the device to do so can be cobbled together from whatever happens to be aboard the average Klingon ship. No one in the 23rd century ever thought of that, even though it took Spock all of 10 seconds to think of it. I guess this "discovery" puts a damper on the value of dilithium crystals and associated mining operations in the future.

4. The crew of the "nuclear wessel" detects a "power drain" while Chekov and Uhura are collecting radiation, even though they are only collecting radiation that has already escaped through the shielding that would otherwise just get absorbed or settle somewhere on or outside of the ship. That radiation is always escaping whether someone is collecting it or not. It would be like detecting a "water drain" if someone happened to be filling a cup with water coming out of their bilge pump.

5. Uhura detects Chekov at the hospital, but they can't simply beam him back to the ship? Even if for some reason they don't know his location precisely enough to beam him back at that point, once Kirk and company are right there in the operating room with him, they certainly could have beamed them back.

6. McCoy ridiculing the doctor who planned to evacuate Chekov's epidural hematoma:

"My God, man, drilling holes in his head is not the answer. The artery must be repaired."

Okay, genius, what are you going to do with the hematoma (blood clot) that's still applying pressure to the brain after the artery is repaired? Beam it out of there? I didn't know that little pocket-sized Heal-O-Matic was also a transporter. In any event, drilling a small hole in the skull to evacuate the hematoma is a sound procedure; I know because I had that exact condition (epidural hematoma) after a roll-over car accident in 1992, and the exact procedure mentioned by the doctor in this movie (evacuation of epidural hematoma) saved my life.

7. The probe receiving George and Gracie's whale song from outer space (see #2).

8. The whole idea that whales are intelligent and capable of anything beyond the most rudimentary "thoughts" and forms of communication that plenty of other critters are also capable of. They aren't even smart enough to avoid whaling ships. If they were even smart enough to "spread the word" among themselves that ships of any kind are best avoided, they wouldn't be in a mess to begin with, but that is far too complex a thought for them to comprehend. Their reputedly "intelligent" cousins, dolphins, aren't smart enough to avoid tuna nets, so we have to adjust our method of tuna fishing so the dumbasses don't constantly get tangled up and drown in the nets. Yes, they can learn "tricks", but so can dogs, elephants, monkeys, apes, and plenty of other creatures.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

8. The whole idea that whales are intelligent and capable of anything beyond the most rudimentary "thoughts" and forms of communication that plenty of other critters are also capable of. They aren't even smart enough to avoid whaling ships. If they were even smart enough to "spread the word" among themselves that ships of any kind are best avoided, they wouldn't be in a mess to begin with, but that is far too complex a thought for them to comprehend.

This is perhaps the silliest of your list of silly criticisms.

The reputedly "intelligent" cousins of whales and dolphins - humans - are so stupid that they routinely blunder into lion/tiger/elephant/shark territories and get killed or eaten. Humans are smart enough to 'to "spread the word' among themselves that [lions/tigers/rhinoceros/elephants/snakes/spiders/sharks/etc,] of any kind are best avoided" yet people die from encounters with these beasties every year.

Their reputedly "intelligent" cousins, dolphins, aren't smart enough to avoid tuna nets, so we have to adjust our method of tuna fishing so the dumbasses don't constantly get tangled up and drown in the nets.

Humans get lost in national parks every year and some fraction of them get lost in the bush or fall down ravines or.... I guess we're "dumbasses" too!
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

This is perhaps the silliest of your list of silly criticisms.

Your mere assertion is dismissed.

The reputedly "intelligent" cousins of whales and dolphins - humans

There's nothing "reputedly" about it, though there are many exceptions, and you have just established yourself as one of those exceptions.

are so stupid that they routinely blunder into lion/tiger/elephant/shark territories and get killed or eaten. Humans are smart enough to 'to "spread the word' among themselves that [lions/tigers/rhinoceros/elephants/snakes/spiders/sharks/etc,] of any kind are best avoided" yet people die from encounters with these beasties every year.

Is that a joke? There are ~7.5 billion people on Earth, and people killed by all of those animals each year number in the hundreds. Additionally, pretty much everyone is aware of the dangers associated with certain animals; most of them who died took a calculated risk. Whales/dolphins are clearly oblivious to the risks associated with a boat/net.

Humans get lost in national parks every year and some fraction of them get lost in the bush or fall down ravines or....

What does getting lost have to do with anything?

I guess we're "dumbasses" too!

You are, which you've established by posting false analogies, and by being oblivious to the amount of human intelligence required just to enable you to read and post on this message board.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

Your mere assertion is dismissed

This doesn't make sense. Do you mean something like "the fact that you (Simon) haven't argued against, or provided any evidence showing that claims 1)-8) are are 'silly' means that I can ignore (dismiss) your criticisms"?

If so, then your claim was premature. I made that claim in an opening paragraph, that was there tom establish my position. The arguments in favour of my opening statement - that is, the arguments showing that your claim 8) was silly - followed in the subsequent paragraphs.

There's nothing "reputedly" about (human intelligence), though there are many exceptions...

]

"Intelligence" is an attribute that was once (in the 19th C) believed to set humans apart from other animals.

However, human scientists soon discovered that other animals had "intelligence" in abundance,

Meanwhile, the U.S. army wanted an "intelligence" (problem solving) test, that would allow them to assign "intellectually" difficult jobs to those rare "intelligent" people, while the rest were sent off to be cannon fodder. This was how the IQ test was created. Of course, the WWI IQ test was (deliberately or accidentally) riddled with racial, verbal and other biases, which is why so many smart, African americans wound up dead, while well-educated twits remained safe in desk jobs.

Soon afterwards, the military realised that their "IQ tests" weren't measuring "intelligence" but rather how well a person conformed with white, middle-class behaviour, language use, and a modicum of "general intelligence," when the test was only supposed to measure the last item. Thus, the ideas of "true, problem solving ability in one's environment, called g", of "cultural bias" and "IQ" finally entered the language as separate concepts.

To this day, there is no general test or score for g. Octopus can work out how to find and use keys to escape from their pens, which indicates that they might have impressive g values, but nobody can measure octopus g, let alone compare average octopus g with average human g.

In short, humans probably are intelligent (have unusually high g values) but we cannot say whether average human g values are higher than average octopus g, average whale g, average dolphin g or any other species' average g-value. All we can measure are individual IQ scores for humans, which have no necessary connection to average g-scores, especially when the natural habitat of the animal (whether octopus, whale, etc.) is radically different from the habitat of humans.

By the way, humans and every other seemingly "intelligent" animal, might not be "intelligent" at all. It's possible, albeit very unlikely, that they are actually mimicking intelligence. For example, an Artificial Neural Network could be trained to appear intelligent over their life-span, by some genuinely intelligent agent. (c.f. Searle's Chinese Room argument) and we would never know.

Is that a joke? There are ~7.5 billion people on Earth, and people killed by all of those animals each year number in the hundreds. Additionally, pretty much everyone is aware of the dangers associated with certain animals; most of them who died took a calculated risk. Whales/dolphins are clearly oblivious to the risks associated with a boat

It's possible that "whales/dolphins/etc." are aware of the threat posed by a tiny fraction of boats equipped with harpoons,, and take a "calculated risk" despite the dangers of "certain boats." What is your point?

Regarding the deaths of humans in national parks, my point is that, despite all the care park management take to maintain and signpost walking tracks, some people are still so "stupid" that they get disoriented and die there - just as dolphins are so "stupid" that they get caught in fishing nets. It's an analogy and a fair one.

You are (stupid) which you've established by posting false analogies...

No, my analogies are not false. You've simply misunderstood them.

You are (stupid) which you've established
... by being oblivious to the amount of human intelligence required just to enable you to read and post on this message board.

There is no doubt that a large part of our brain is concerned with language processing. That is probably a by-product of our large brains, which require fuel, and our lack of defences (claws, teeth, etc): so we can only hope to survive by collaborating. (What a shame Adam Smith didn't understand this!)

As a consequence, we can blog, but dolphins can't. (Some chimps may be able to do so in the near future.) This tells us quite a lot about average human, chimp and dolphin IQs, but nothing about their average g-values.

You've wrongly assumed that the ability to solve problems (g) is strongly correlated with the language component of IQ scores. This false assumption shows a lack of imagination.

Finally, if you can't argue without abusing your opponent, are you sure your arguments are good? I couldn't give a flying fvck about "decency" but I'm puzzled by your emotional investment in this topic.

____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

This doesn't make sense. Do you mean something like "the fact that you (Simon) haven't argued against, or provided any evidence showing that claims 1)-8) are are 'silly' means that I can ignore (dismiss) your criticisms"?

If so, then your claim was premature. I made that claim in an opening paragraph, that was there tom establish my position. The arguments in favour of my opening statement - that is, the arguments showing that your claim 8) was silly - followed in the subsequent paragraphs

You never showed any such thing, therefore, it was a mere assertion, and can legitimately be dismissed out of hand.

"Intelligence" is an attribute that was once (in the 19th C) believed to set humans apart from other animals.

However, human scientists soon discovered that other animals had "intelligence" in abundance,

Meanwhile, the U.S. army wanted an "intelligence" (problem solving) test, that would allow them to assign "intellectually" difficult jobs to those rare "intelligent" people, while the rest were sent off to be cannon fodder. This was how the IQ test was created. Of course, the WWI IQ test was (deliberately or accidentally) riddled with racial, verbal and other biases, which is why so many smart, African americans wound up dead, while well-educated twits remained safe in desk jobs.

Soon afterwards, the military realised that their "IQ tests" weren't measuring "intelligence" but rather how well a person conformed with white, middle-class behaviour, language use, and a modicum of "general intelligence," when the test was only supposed to measure the last item. Thus, the ideas of "true, problem solving ability in one's environment, called g", of "cultural bias" and "IQ" finally entered the language as separate concepts.

To this day, there is no general test or score for g. Octopus can work out how to find and use keys to escape from their pens, which indicates that they might have impressive g values, but nobody can measure octopus g, let alone compare average octopus g with average human g.

In short, humans probably are intelligent (have unusually high g values) but we cannot say whether average human g values are higher than average octopus g, average whale g, average dolphin g or any other species' average g-value. All we can measure are individual IQ scores for humans, which have no necessary connection to average g-scores, especially when the natural habitat of the animal (whether octopus, whale, etc.) is radically different from the habitat of humans.

By the way, humans and every other seemingly "intelligent" animal, might not be "intelligent" at all. It's possible, albeit very unlikely, that they are actually mimicking intelligence. For example, an Artificial Neural Network could be trained to appear intelligent over their life-span, by some genuinely intelligent agent. (c.f. Searle's Chinese Room argument) and we would never know.

Human accomplishments are proof of human intelligence; lack of critter accomplishments is proof of their stupidity.

It's possible that "whales/dolphins/etc." are aware of the threat posed by a tiny fraction of boats equipped with harpoons,, and take a "calculated risk" despite the dangers of "certain boats." What is your point?

Absurd. We had to back off, else they would be extinct. That's a major crisis for them, and they never showed even the slightest indication of awareness of it. This means they can't communicate even remotely complex concepts among themselves.

Regarding the deaths of humans in national parks, my point is that, despite all the care park management take to maintain and signpost walking tracks, some people are still so "stupid" that they get disoriented and die there - just as dolphins are so "stupid" that they get caught in fishing nets. It's an analogy and a fair one.

Dolphins were constantly getting caught up in tuna nets. There is no known instance of a dolphin backing off from its pursuit of tuna because it recognized the danger ahead. Human deaths from getting lost are rare. Your "analogy" is not only invalid, it is asinine.

No, my analogies are not false. You've simply misunderstood them.

Your mere gainsaying is dismissed, and this is a Comical Irony Alert for you.

There is no doubt that a large part of our brain is concerned with language processing. That is probably a by-product of our large brains, which require fuel, and our lack of defences (claws, teeth, etc): so we can only hope to survive by collaborating. (What a shame Adam Smith didn't understand this!)

As a consequence, we can blog, but dolphins can't. (Some chimps may be able to do so in the near future.) This tells us quite a lot about average human, chimp and dolphin IQs, but nothing about their average g-values.

You've wrongly assumed that the ability to solve problems (g) is strongly correlated with the language component of IQ scores. This false assumption shows a lack of imagination.

Finally, if you can't argue without abusing your opponent, are you sure your arguments are good? I couldn't give a flying fvck about "decency" but I'm puzzled by your emotional investment in this topic.

I wasn't talking about language, simpleton, I was talking about the plethora of underlying technologies which allow you to read and post on this forum. Where do you think those came from? Not from some glorified fish, obviously.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

So you believe intelligence is the ability to create technologies - especially technologies that endanger other species. Is that accurate?

____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

Of course it is. Without intelligence you can't create technologies, which is why no critter has ever created any technologies whatsoever. No critter has ever done anything which demonstrates that they are anything other than exceedingly stupid by human standards.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

While I suspect that you've completely missed my point, as shown by your dismissal of humans getting killed in the,wild and the way you''ve ignored my previous post, I hope that rant made you feel better.

Perhaps a cup,of delicious Folger's coffee (heave!) has calmed you down..

____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

Your non sequitur is dismissed, and given your lack of arguments, your tacit concession on the matter is noted.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] jmhammerstein-980-842586 8 years ago

About your 8. Whales and dolphins are extremely intelligent. Look here http://us.whales.org/whales-and-dolphins/brain-power You say whales and dolphins can learn tricks, but so can dogs, monkeys, elephants, and apes. Well, dogs, elephants, monkeys, and apes are extremely intelligent too. Whales don't avoid whaling ships because they don't know what they are. I think you mean something different by intelligent than scientists mean.

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

Whales and dolphins are extremely intelligent.

No, they aren't.

You say whales and dolphins can learn tricks, but so can dogs, monkeys, elephants, and apes. Well, dogs, elephants, monkeys, and apes are extremely intelligent too.

They aren't extremely intelligent either. There's no such thing as an intelligent critter, much less an "extremely intelligent" one. They can only be considered intelligent with a qualifier, i.e., if you don't compare them to human intelligence, but rather, only to the intelligence of other critters.

Whales don't avoid whaling ships because they don't know what they are.

Which shows an inability to learn even simple things.

I think you mean something different by intelligent than scientists mean.

No. Intelligence is the ability to learn. If dolphins were even remotely intelligent on a human scale, we wouldn't have to change our tuna fishing method to prevent those morons from constantly getting themselves caught in the nets and drowning. They would have been teaching their offspring to avoid boats and nets. Likewise, whales would have long since started avoiding massive, slow whaling ships. They lack the intelligence to understand such a concept, much less communicate that concept to others of their kind.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

Intelligence is the ability to learn. If dolphins were even remotely intelligent on a human scale, we wouldn't have to change our tuna fishing method to prevent those morons from constantly getting themselves caught in the nets and drowning. They would have been teaching their offspring to avoid boats and nets.

You are terribly confused: you conflate innate intelligence, with cultural knowledge, communication and technology.

Modern fishing vessels uses ultrasonic imaging to locate schools of fish, GPS to coordinate the fishing fleet, deploy their nets and drag the catch into a mechanised processing boat. What a piece of work is man! But wait. On a 3-4 ship fleet I'd be amazed if even one person understood how ultrasound location equipment or a GPS works, let alone how to build one.

Individually, humans are (often) not very clever at all. Individually, a lot of people could not solve problems that cephalopods find trivial. People sometimes seem clever, because they can draw on important knowledge, stored by earlier generations, but this doesn't make the individuals intelligent.

Were the people of the 15th- and 16th-C, who burned witches in the belief that the banishment of maleficent forces would increase their crop yields, showing an "ability to learn"? No.

In contrast, a crow in Aesop's Fables (and more recently) was seen adding stones to slender jar, with a small amount of water in the bottom. As the crow added more stones, the water level rose, until the crow was able to reach the water and drink it.

The crow's behaviour seems to a lot more "intelligence" than any of the fishermen.

The fact that humans have reached their (planet destroying) technical and culture peak does not show that we are the most intelligent animals on earth, ever.

On several occasions in the 100,000 years (e.g. the Lake Toba catastrophe of 50,000 years ago) the entire human population was dimished to 1,000-10,000 breeding pairs, with almost no cultural heritage to speak of.

If you had been sitting around a camp-fire at that time (assuming you knew how to make one) do you think you would have been slapping your fellow travellers on the back, saying "We are the manifest destiny of this planet!" Personally, I would have been putting money on the crow.

____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

You are terribly confused

Comical Irony Alert

you conflate innate intelligence, with cultural knowledge, communication and technology.

No, simpleton. Intelligence is what enables knowledge, complex communication, and technology. There is zero evidence that any critter has ever had an even remotely complex thought.

Modern fishing vessels uses ultrasonic imaging to locate schools of fish, GPS to coordinate the fishing fleet, deploy their nets and drag the catch into a mechanised processing boat. What a piece of work is man! But wait. On a 3-4 ship fleet I'd be amazed if even one person understood how ultrasound location equipment or a GPS works, let alone how to build one.

They could be taught, unlike a dolphin or any other critter.

Individually, humans are (often) not very clever at all.

Vastly more clever than any critter, even ones with e.g., Downs Syndrome in most cases.

Individually, a lot of people could not solve problems that cephalopods find trivial.

There is no problem that a cephalopod or any other critter can solve that even people with a 60 or 70 IQ couldn't easily solve.

People sometimes seem clever, because they can draw on important knowledge, stored by earlier generations, but this doesn't make the individuals intelligent.

You need intelligence to gain knowledge in the first place, simple fellow, and you also need intelligence to apply existing knowledge to new situations.

Were the people of the 15th- and 16th-C, who burned witches in the belief that the banishment of maleficent forces would increase their crop yields, showing an "ability to learn"? No.

Of course they had an ability to learn, else we wouldn't know anything about what they did, because none of them would have been able to write or otherwise communicate the details of the events to anyone. Show me some records intentionally recorded by dolphins or any other critter about what they were doing in the 15th and 16th centuries, or even what they were doing yesterday. Of course, there are none, because critters are far too stupid to even contemplate such things, not that such records would be interesting anyway, given that critters have always done pretty much the same things, given that their activities are almost entirely instinct-driven.

In contrast, a crow in Aesop's Fables (and more recently) was seen adding stones to slender jar, with a small amount of water in the bottom. As the crow added more stones, the water level rose, until the crow was able to reach the water and drink it.

The crow's behaviour seems to a lot more "intelligence" than any of the fishermen.

Given that chimps and 5-year-old children can solve the same problem, it would be a simple problem for adult fishermen to solve.

The fact that humans have reached their (planet destroying) technical and culture peak does not show that we are the most intelligent animals on earth, ever.

Yes, it does, and our level of intelligence is way off the charts compared to any critter's level of intelligence. They can only compare in certain ways to the dumbest members of our species, such as very young children and people with mental disabilities.

On several occasions in the 100,000 years (e.g. the Lake Toba catastrophe of 50,000 years ago) the entire human population was dimished to 1,000-10,000 breeding pairs, with almost no cultural heritage to speak of.

If you had been sitting around a camp-fire at that time (assuming you knew how to make one) do you think you would have been slapping your fellow travellers on the back, saying "We are the manifest destiny of this planet!" Personally, I would have been putting money on the crow.

Your non sequitur is dismissed.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

One final point. In theory, a 'person' could live their entire life, without anyone noticing anything unusual about them, and yet lack the ability to carry out an "intelligent" action (i.e. nothing that they did could not also be done by a computer.)

Does this modify your belief that humans are the epitome of intelligence?

____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

One final point. In theory, a 'person' could live their entire life, without anyone noticing anything unusual about them, and yet lack the ability to carry out an "intelligent" action (i.e. nothing that they did could not also be done by a computer.)

Utter nonsense, and you further confirm your stupidity with each post you make. Someone who "lacks the ability to carry out an intelligent action" couldn't go unnoticed; they would never even make it through school, and they would have a very low level of self-sufficiency, comparable to that of a toddler. Unlike critters, humans rely almost entirely on intelligence to take care of ourselves, because we have very little instinct.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] Simon-140 8 years ago

Read about artificial neural networks (ANNs) and imagine training one with one (or more) human sensoriums and reactions recorded over their entire lives. That is, you record every sensory input a person experiences at time t and call these inputs(t) and you record every response and call these outputs(t).

Then you train the ANN with ( inputs(t), outputs(t) ) pairs for all values of t in their lifetime. The ANN convergence theorem guarantees that the trained ANN's response would be within the person's response within any prescribed tolerance you care to name, and in any norm. So I am not speaking "utter nonsense": you just don't know what you're talking about.

While I couldn't care less about your childish snarking, I gather that, for you, the snarking is the main point, and that you don't have a sincere interest in this subject.

While it's tempting to "dismiss" you, that would be too easy and vacuous. Instead I suggest you read a book about this topic before wasting any other person's time with your uninformed, plain-language, Trump-like style of argument.
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*

[–] persen1 8 years ago

2. Uhura detects whale song from orbit. Not only do sound waves not travel in space, but even if there were some magical way to detect them without dropping a microphone down into the atmosphere, there's no way you're going to pick out whale song among the unfathomable level of noise present in a major city, without knowing exactly where to look for it.

Every sound also emits a specific frequency, which is receivable and measurable by their Hz. You don't need air to pick up those frequencies.

A good example of that is the Plasma Wave receiver which NASA slammed inside various of their space crafts, where i guess that Voyager 1 & 2 and Cassini are three of the most famous ones, because they unlocked tons of secrets about the planets in our own solar system, incl. their radio emissions, which sounds like something from a science fiction movie.

[–] Dirty-Barry 8 years ago

What happened to the bed Chekov was in after they escaped from the hospital?

[–] MAGolding (1228) 7 years ago

Part 1.

1. Perhaps the creators of the probe send it to every planet where they stop detecting communications from cetacean-like beings. Perhaps the creators believe that the cetacean-like beings will already be extinct by the time they send the probe. The creators of the probe may have a lot of experience with the extinction of cetacean-like beings by land dwelling intelligent beings living on their planets. Thus they have calculated the average interval between such land dwelling intelligent beings gaining the power to exterminate the cetacean-like being and those land dwelling intelligent beings developing warp drive and then discovering how to use a star ship to travel in time.

So the creators of the probe assume that the cetacean-like beings are already extinct when they lose contact with them. They then wait until the hypothetical land dwelling intelligent beings should have discovered how to travel in time and send the probe to devastate their planet while sending signals of the sounds of the extinct cetacean-like beings down to the planet. Thus they give the land-dwelling natives the chance to recognize the "whale sound" equivalents and send a mission back in time to retrieve cetacean-like beings to repopulate the oceans and answer the probe. If the land dwelling intelligent beings realize the situation and successfully bring back cetacean-like beings from the past the probe will go away since the land dwelling intelligent beings will have done what the creators of the probe want. And if not the probe will sterilize the planet since the creators of the probe don't care about any land dwelling intelligent beings or non intelligent beings in the sea or on the land.

2. As TNG makes clear, subspace radio uses subspace radiation that travels much faster than light and is unknown to 21st century science. It is possible that the ordinary sonic vibrations in the ocean that are whale sounds also produce subspace radio waves that the alien probe can detect. Such subspace radio waves could travel many thousands of light years in a few centuries which might be the explanation why the creators of the probe sent it to Earth just a few centuries after the humpback whales went extinct.

3. The dialog goes like this:

SCOTT: Admiral, we have a serious problem. Would you please come down? It's these Klingon crystals, Admiral. The time-travel drained them. They're giving out. De-crystallising.
KIRK: Give me a round figure, Mister Scott.
SCOTT: Oh, twenty-four hours, give or take, staying cloaked. After that, Admiral, we're visible, ...and dead in the water. In any case, we won't have enough to break out of Earth's gravity, to say nothing of getting back home.
KIRK: I can't believe we've come this far only to be stopped by this! Is there no way to re-crystallise dilithium?
SCOTT: Sorry, sir. We can't even do that in the twenty-third century.
SPOCK: Admiral, there may be a twentieth century possibility.
KIRK: Explain.
SPOCK: If memory serves, there was a dubious flirtation with nuclear fission reactors resulting in toxic side effects. By the beginning of the fusion era, these reactors had been replaced, but at this time, we may be able to find some.
KIRK: I thought you said they were toxic.
SPOCK: We could construct a device to collect their high-energy photons safely. These photons could then be injected into the dilithium chamber, causing crystalline restructure. ...Theoretically.

As I see it there are two possibilities:
1) despite the obvious benefits of being able to recrystallise dilithium, Spock was the first person to think of a method of doing so.
a) Spock thought of it on the spur of the moment right then.
b) Spock thought of it earlier and had started a program to built a nuclear reactor to see if could be done. Mr. Scott had not yet heard of that program because there were no tests yet.
2) Other persons had thought of that method and had started a program to build a rector to test it. Spock had heard of that program but Mr. Scott had not yet heard of that program because there were no tests yet.

In any of those cases there would be a very short time between the first realization such a process was theoretically possible and the time that they needed to use such a process. A frighteningly short time.

Note that the colony planet Janus VI had used an antique PXK Pergium reactor for its power less than 20 years earlier. I presume that was a nuclear fission reactor. So there may have been some still in use in the time of The Voyage Home, though the one on Janus VI was the first that Mr. Scott had seen in 20 years.

To be continued:

[–] MAGolding (1228) 7 years ago

Part 2.

4. If the handheld collection device transported individual neutrons from inside the reactor into a storage unit inside the collector, it could reduce the flux of neutrons inside the reactor and thus slow down the rate of the reaction and the amount of heat it generated and the amount of steam it produced to turn the generators and the amount of electrical energy produced. Thus collecting neutrons from the reactors could cause a "power drain" or more correctly a drop in the production of power which could be detected by the aircraft carrier crew and investigated.

Unfortunately Spock said "photons", not neutrons, so presumably was talking about X-rays and Gamma rays. As far as I know they don't play any role in fission reactions and so transporting them from the reactor into the collector wouldn't slow down the reactions or reduce the amount of power generated.

Possibly the creators actually changed Spock's words for some reasons of temporal security that I can't think of. But # 4 does seem like a good objection.

5. This is the dialog.

UHURA (OC): Admiral, ...are you there?
KIRK: Yes, Uhura, ...what's wrong?
[Bird-of-Prey bridge]

UHURA: I've found Chekov, sir. They're taking him to emergency surgery right now.
[Bird-of-Prey cargo bay]

KIRK: Uhura! ...Where!
UHURA (OC): Mercy Hospital.
KIRK: Mercy Hospital?
GILLIAN: That's in the Mission District.
UHURA (OC): They report his condition as critical.
[Bird-of-Prey bridge]

UHURA: He is not expected to survive.

This indicates that Uhura located Checkov by listening to official messages, not by using the Klingon ship's scanners.

Later Chekov is located:

KIRK: Here, I've got it. ...Let's go. ...He's being held in the security corridor one flight up. His condition is critical.

Maybe Uhuru used the scanners to locate Checkov and than called Kirk.

They certainly should have been able to beam out with Checkov once they got to the room. That is a very sound objection.

Continued:

[–] MAGolding (1228) 7 years ago

Part 3.

6. MaximRecoil certainly seems correct that McCoy is very much overdoing his scorn for the 1986 doctors and their proposed procedure. The best explanation for that is McCoy has a character flaw, a form of "presentism", a belief that 23rd century medicine is infinitely superior to 20th century medicine which is always totally ineffective - which many of us know is false from personal experience with 20th century medicine.

7. As I wrote under # 2, it is possible that the alien society that sent the probe and the probe itself receive whale songs via subspace frequencies generated by the sonic vibrations in the water. Thus the signals travel to the distant origin location of the probe many times fast than sound and even many times faster than light. And thus the probe receives those secondary subspace vibrations created by George and Gracie's whale songs.

Have you ever wondered how the probe calls to the whales in the oceans from orbit? If the probe makes sounds in orbit they can't reach the surface of the sea.

The probe probably uses on and off tractor beams to vibrate the air and the ocean to produce the whale song sounds it send to the ocean. In "A Taste of Armageddon" the Eminians attack the Enterprise with sonic disruptors.

DEPAUL: Screens firm, sir. Extremely powerful sonic vibrations. Decibels eighteen to the twelfth power. If those screens weren't up, we'd be totally disrupted by now.

Since the Enterprise isn't inside the atmosphere of Eminiar 7, the Eminian weapons should use extremely rapid on and off tractor beams to vibrate their targets, creating deadly sound inside them and tearing them apart. And the probe in orbit must use similar methods to create whale sounds in the atmosphere and oceans of Earth.

Continued:

[–] MAGolding (1228) 7 years ago

Part 4.

8.

The idea that whales, apes, and proboscideans might possibly have intelligence levels similar to humans and - like members of the species Homo sapiens - might possibly be considered by objective observers to be semi intelligent or even fully intelligent and deserving of some or all of the rights of persons, is a fairly reasonable idea.

The claim that whales and dolphins are not intelligent because they have not always avoided being killed by humans is not a very strong argument. During the 20th century a hundred million or more humans were not intelligent enough to avoid being killed by other humans in various conflicts. And during that same 20th century billions of humans were not intelligent enough to escape being killed by bacteria and viruses. Some humans were even killed by lions and tigers and bears, oh my!, and by other predators and were eaten.