Scully Syndrome

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A self-applied case of Weirdness Censor by a character, particularly one considered or who considers themselves rational or skeptical. When a sufferer of Scully Syndrome attempts to offer a "rational" explanation for a supernatural situation, they will usually end up offering an explanation that is itself so tortuous, convoluted, and/or improbable that it also ceases to be rational. This explanation may draw upon things that are seemingly more plausible and 'realistic' than the supernatural explanation, but the way it puts these things together is unlikely or full of holes. The Epileptic Trees invoked by the characters — who, ironically, are usually trying to debunk someone else's Epileptic Trees — are so ludicrous that the viewers want to bash the character's head against the wall, all while pointing out that accepting the supernatural explanation would, in fact, be simpler. The character also has a tendency to ignore any evidence of the supernatural that they might be presented with, no matter how conclusive, in favour of presenting more 'rational' explanations that are just as (if not more) lacking in supporting evidence.

As a hypothetical example, take the climax of the original Ghostbusters film, which involves an ancient evil god from another dimension, which has taken on the form of a fifty-foot advertising mascot made entirely out of marshmallow, striding through the streets of Manhattan. In this form, it attacks the roof of a Manhattan apartment building in full view of the public in an attempt to open a portal to another dimension and destroy the world, before itself being vaporized in a massive fiery explosion that covers an entire city block in liquid marshmallow. That is all, admittedly, a fairly difficult set of events to believe in, and if Agent Scully were investigating it, she might explain this as all being just a big hoax. The titular Ghostbusters merely staged the marshmallow man and used a combination of a fancy light show and hallucinogenic substances to fool the credulous people below into believing they were witnessing a supernatural event. Which actually makes sense on the surface...

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations which only poke even more holes in the logic. For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How much would that cost, and why is there no record of such a massive purchase? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move at all, for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point — how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun — how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time — which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? And for that matter, how do you control what kind of hallucinations someone has; wouldn't a massive crowd all be hallucinating wildly different things even if given the same drug? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet — such as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys running a ramshackle pest control business — how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?

In short, however incredible it may seem, isn't the explanation that this is a god taking on the form of a marshmallow man actually the simpler, more rational, more supported-with-evidence explanation at this point?

As alluded to above, a marking feature of Agent Scully. Compare Invisible to Normals, Arbitrary Skepticism, and Flat-Earth Atheist. Not to be confused with the real Weinstein Kliman Scully syndrome.

It is important to note that, the most common interpretation of Occam's Razor aside, the simplest explanation isn't always the correct one.^note Occam's Razor actually states that the explanation with the fewest unknown variables is usually the correct one, not just the simplest explanation. Sufferers of Scully Syndrome aren't always wrong. Many frauds and con jobs have relied on people being willing to believe a simple explanation without stopping to consider that someone might actually engage in some highly improbable and unbelievable course of action if they think they'll benefit from doing so. Scully Syndrome is not a problem because skepticism of the supernatural and unlikely or a belief in the rational are bad in and of themselves. It is a problem because it allows someone to use rationalism as an excuse to not consider any possibilities that challenge or disprove their current beliefs or worldview, even when those alternative possibilities are actually valid and supported with evidence. That Agent Scully doesn't automatically and unquestioningly believe aliens did it is fine, but it's when Agent Scully starts constructing equally implausible "rational" narratives rather than accepting the evidence that aliens, against all odds, actually did do it that it starts to become an issue.

In other words, while Agent Mulder might risk becoming too credulous and easily fooled thanks to his open-mindedness, thanks to this trope, Agent Scully risks becoming too closed-minded and inflexible.

See also Arkham's Razor, where the strangest answer to a problem is the correct one. Contrast this trope with Refuge in Audacity, where someone does go to extreme lengths to pull off something unlikely, banking on the fact that no one will believe they were willing to do so. Also contrast The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right, where a perceivably insane or weird individual gets to tell others the unrealistic or unlikely truth, which eventually came to their presence.

Examples: