Why are there no Wizard scientists in Harry Potter?

An evolutionary explanation for the divergence of Muggles and Wizard-folk.

I’ve always felt jealous of the characters in fantasy stories. How certain they must feel in the purpose of their existence. Surely, they can’t feel as lost as I do, wandering in the dark looking for something, some sign that there’s a point to it all, that it isn’t just some grand accident. The existence of magical spells, beings with supernatural abilities and mechanisms through which the protagonists come to grow and gain great power all seem to me to give their existence a sort of credibility, a direction, a purpose. Surely nihilism doesn’t creep at the edges of their consciousness as it does us?

I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided this view has it all wrong. Our world is as magical as any fantasy universe, and here’s why.

Wizard scientists

I’ll focus on Harry Potter, though this applies to many fantasy universes. Amazing story, great films. However, one thing that always niggled at me was a gaping hole in the collective mind of the wizarding community. Where were all the Wizard scientists? Why did nobody seem to care how magic worked? With Professors, academics, ministries of every kind and form, surely somebody actually wants to know not just how to use magic but why it works the way it does? What is actually happening when a wizard yells “Avada Kedavra!” and a venomous green blast issues from the end of a “magical” piece of wood, killing whomever it touches, sure as a nuclear blast? Is nobody interested in the mechanism behind this?

At the very least, I am. I am a scientist and find it bizarre that anyone could exist around such wonderful phenomena and not only fail to ask why, but to skip along ignoring the probability that to understand the mechanisms behind magic would yield unimaginable discoveries. “Nope” they say, “I say words, light comes out and something cool happens. That’ll do for me!”

In these magical worlds of willful ignorance I find it hard to imagine someone struggling to believe in an afterlife. Their everyday experiences are dripping with unexplained phenomena that drive home the message that at least something bigger than the characters exists. There is for sure a mystical force that is woven through all aspects of their existence. Indeed, in this case, I often wonder why the characters fear death at all. This is especially evident in the case of Harry Potter who is given irrefutable evidence of life after death in the apparitions of his parents.

Indeed, the overt existence of life after death seems to cheapen the whole “life” thing. I mean, how can someone nobly sacrifice themselves to protect another when, in fact, they are still alive, just somewhere else. Dying isn’t much of a sacrifice if you continue to exist afterwards. Perhaps, on reflection, our situation is preferable. We have no idea whether there is life after death, and so our sacrifices, our valiant struggles against oppression, against tyranny and murder continue to have weight. For us, death is still the ultimate payment, the final sacrifice.

What the hell even is magic?

Various definitions of magic exist. I’ll avoid the overused cliché of attaching the Oxford English Dictionary’s take on it, or one of those sketchy online dictionaries that will pretty much verify any word you’d like to sneak onto a Scrabble board. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the common understanding of magic is of some supernatural force with the capability to enact change in the world. Importantly, there is also a strong sense that magic is both a name and an explanation of how it works. That is, there is no further explanation required in reference to any query about the mechanism of some magical phenomenon.

Indeed, I can imagine the following conversation:

Curious Future Wizard Scientist: “Professor, how does the Incendio charm work?”

Sketchy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: “Well, you see, you say the words, flick the wrist and…fire." He looks smug, a mic-drop moment if ever there was one.

Curious Future Wizard Scientist: “Yes, but Professor, how does it work?”

There, in that moment, the way a ChatBot fails to answer questions outside of its pre-programming, the Sketchy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would shudder, convulse, eyes rolling back as he struggles to compute the question. Eventually, his knowing grin would return, and with the air of a teacher correcting some laughable schoolboy error he’d return to the conversation as though his very consciousness hadn’t nearly melted into a puddle of goo.

Sketchy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: “Oh, ho ho, magic of course.” He chuckles, ruffling the little scamp’s hair.

Key to this definition is the distinction between preternatural and supernatural. The former being some aberration that exceeds the regular or expected but, crucially, does not break the underlying laws of the universe. Supernatural, on the other hand, is by definition a phenomenon that exists beyond understanding, outside of the natural laws. It seems therefore that magic has been secured tightly in a definitional lockbox and dropped into the sea of “Aaaah, I’m not listening! I’m not listening!”. Magic can’t be explained, so don’t even try. Except, this is just slippery linguistics to uphold the common understanding that magic is just magic, end of.

But we’re not going to leave it there, are we? Neither would our Curious Future Wizard Scientist. We know his torrent of questions will likely end in detention but we love him for it. He’s fighting the good fight.

So far, in all our exploration and experimentation we have found nothing that defies explanation. There are things we don’t have a full understanding of yet, even some unexplained things for which we quickly develop hypotheses, but there is nothing that we simply cannot explain.

Perhaps, after a decade or two trying and failing to investigate the mechanisms behind magic use, the scientists of the Wizarding World concluded that it just is not possible. To steel-man their position, there could be a sort-of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle issue here; you can’t use magic and observe magic at the same time. It just isn’t possible. So they don’t do it. Perhaps, like Young’s famous Double Slit experiment, observation itself interferes with the magic, causing the magical wave function to collapse into mundane natural stuff.

In this case, our hero, the Curious Future Wizard Scientist, faces far more serious consequences than detention. In fact, he may already be well on the way to becoming a…Muggle.

A species diverges

This leads us to an interesting evolutionary explanation of the apparent lack of curiosity in Wizards, and the lack of magical ability in Muggles. Further, it might explain why, technologically, the Wizarding World seems somehow stuck in the 19^th century. This observation-based failure of magic would quickly apply a significant selection pressure to the genetically diverse proto-population of the Wizarding-Muggle World.

Individuals with questions and curiosity, with minds that just won’t stop at “just because. Now get out your quill and write an essay on the various historical uses of the Alohomora charm,”, would experience magic and think “Yes, but how?”. So, they’d do what they do, using those same skills of observation and exploration that led to the invention of knapped stone, bronze daggers and the all-important wheel. They’d take their wands and flicking wrists, and they would design experiments.

In doing so, the first Squibs would be formed, those of magical blood without the ability to use magic. By a primitive magic-using community, this lack of magic would likely have been seen as a curse, some indication of disfavour from the ancient Wizarding gods. They’d have been ostracized, exiled, and together, would have formed their own Squib colonies; a bunch of cool-ass nerds so driven by the need for answers they’d willingly give up their magic.

Over time, magical ability may have reared its head again to be quickly Heisenberged away by all the questions and pesky observations. These Squib colonies would become the ancient ancestors of the Muggles, Proto-Muggles.

Proto-muggles, with their keen observational and creative skills would pull away from the Wizards, both in technology and culture, racing down the technology tree at a rate that, had it not been for the slow bleeding of technology to the primitive Wizards, would have left them as mere hunter-gatherers while giant complex civilisations were being constructed, each a more wonderful edifice to the scientific method.

At the same time, natural selection would have had its way with the proto-Wizards. A harsh selection pressure would have been set up, effectively removing individuals from the breeding pool the moment they displayed curiosity into the workings of their prized magic. Even before the magic itself was neutered by mere investigation, social enforcement of societal norms via Francis Fukuyama’s “Tyranny of Cousins” would have seen individuals shunned or exiled, perhaps even killed. In the darkness of a technology-void wilderness, perhaps by a roaring fire that spat dancing images of giant elk, cave bears and woolly mammoth, all carved in red-orange flame, a sort of anti-Salem Witch Trial occurred. The Proto-Wizards would have brutally enforced the rule: No questions about magic. None!

It makes sense. They’d be absolutely terrified that these individuals would not only sterilise themselves of magical ability but perhaps the whole clan. Can an individual Heisenberg your magic as well as their own? They wouldn’t have wanted to risk finding out, and they certainly weren’t curious enough to check.

Both naturally and societally the selection pressure would have been significant. Nerds, Geeks, people with obsessive personalities who just have to know “why?” would be swiftly and brutally removed from the gene pool the moment they began to wonder about the strange technology at the core of their society. Indeed, even beginning to view magic as a technology would likely have been a little too close to the bone.

So, generations and generations pass, and traits that would lead to attempts to observe and understand magic would fade from the gene pool. Eventually, a genetic combination arises that almost completely removes the need for social enforcement. A trait that causes individuals to not only lack curiosity in the mechanisms of things, but also a sort of Blue-Screen-Of-Death moment whenever an individual experiences something that might take their thoughts toward those oh-so dangerous questions.

As in the above conversation between the Sketchy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and our hero the Curious Future Wizard Scientist, the teacher’s brain literally cannot compute his question, cannot comprehend the series of words that, if properly understood, would lead to him questioning not how to use magic, but how magic itself works. This seems to me a form of extreme cognitive dissonance.

Just as we so often see ideologues stutter and strain under thorough examination of their ideas, the Wizards’ brains simply rebuff, ignore or repurpose information that is contrary to their simple, all-encompassing worldview. When really pushed, we might simply see their eyes glaze over as they fall into a sort of robotic repetition of some core belief, a chant meant to dispel the bad words, the forbidden ideas.

Somewhere under the harsh regime of natural selection their programming was altered, turning Wizards into a creature of delusion, each possessing a huge and glaring blind spot in their cognitive capabilities. Us Muggles are not without this kind of cognitive dissonance. Indeed, our endless curiosity might be a plague unto itself, but that’s a topic for another day.

As time passes, infrequent interbreeding events bring a whisp of curiosity and scientific thinking to the Wizarding gene pool. These traits are just dilute enough to permit some technological advancement, albeit a slow trudge through the mud, heels dragging behind them as the fight against thought itself. With such a strict moratorium on wonder, it’s a miracle they retain consciousness at all. Maybe they don’t? Or maybe it’s just magic?

Our world is magical too.

So, perhaps this is why there are no Wizard scientists. Attempting to understand everything takes the magic out of it. Literally.

For us proud descendants of the Proto-Muggle, “magic” just isn’t a satisfactory explanation. We are those who question, who seek, who explore. We cannot live in the stagnant worlds of fantasy novels, refusing to examine the world around us. We refuse to become an automaton, a robot with a broken programme that crashes and seizes when overloaded with cognitive dissonance. Maybe if we could live in the blissful state of not caring why then we could live in the comfortable certainty of our favourite fantasy characters.

For us pioneers of the unknown, our fight continues. But let us not forget the magic in our world. Let us not allow understanding to sully the world’s wonder and explanation to banish awe. Let us not forget that in the Wizarding World it is the Muggles that are the dominant species. More dangerous, more capable, more magical. The many technologies of our time are nothing but magic that has been explained and, like our ancestors who gave up magic to pursue thought and reason, we have given up the foolish desire for the existence of some unknowable thing. We revel in explanation and investigation. Magic cannot exist in our world, because we don’t let it.

Our world is just as fantastical as any other, and we just as magical. If we find ourselves jealous of the certainty of purpose that characters in fantasy stories enjoy, we should comfort ourselves in knowing that our world is even more magical, and we aren’t done. There’s still more magic to find.

Thanks for reading! As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts, be they in agreement or abject disagreement.

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Have a great day.