No, I'm reasonably sure it's an actual thing that happens; it's just that the setting is one in which sympathetic magic - things that are intuitive, but scientifically nonsensical - really work. (See the previous remarks about astrology not entirely being bunk there.)

>>(As an aside, bending really annoys physicists, firebending most of
>>all, (etc.))
>
>Aren't there already pyrokinetics out in the UF cosmos?

Yes, but I should've been clearer: I'm not talking about "big universe" scientists above, I'm talking about the local species that have appeared in Dìqiú over the past century or so. Quantitative, analytical science had an uphill climb getting established in Dìqiú because of the long-established and empirically indisputable existence of phenomena which defy conventional scientific explanation. In the "big universe", the metasciences (Spengler and Stantz's equations, that sort of thing) had to come after the "hard" sciences and explain the very infrequent gaps in them.

In Dìqiú those gaps are a lot wider, and the metascience disciplines came first, which led for a while to a period in which people who insisted on the reality of things like the laws of thermodynamics were widely regarded with much the same sort of "dude be buggin', yo" attitude that pyramid power gurus and homeopaths get in real life.

By the time we visit Dìqiú in UF, the hard scientists and metascientists have largely achieved an uneasy peace, but there are still a few holdouts on each side. Amusingly, they are equally wrong to take the stances they do, because anyone can see that a) thermodynamics does work b) except for bending. The fact that internal combustion engines work there is proof enough of a), and, well, anyone can see b) for him- or herself. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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