Tag questions that want science to pick up the pieces

Question

A lot of people seem to be asking questions about what would happen if the laws of science suddenly reasserted themselves after some absurd thing happens. Three recent questions I found right off the bat are:

• A Box That Scrambles Particles
• If rain magically started falling over the Sahara, what would happen?
• What would happen if the black hole at the center of a galaxy was removed?

The absurd thing could be the result of some hitherto-undiscovered science, technology indistinguishable from magic, handwavium, or just magic itself. It doesn't matter.

There seems to be a bit of a hole in the topics covered by the various science-based, reality-check, hard-science, and magic tags. There's always been ground not covered by the false science-magic dichotomy here.

We could tag questions like this with science-based but with another tag along the lines of post-absurdity , science-as-janitor, or some other name you may like better. (God forbid I should ask for a tag split!)

One might argue that science-based already covers it. But the problem I've seen with science-based alone is that people want to work the cause of the absurdity into their answers, explaining the absurdity with science or proposing some alternate condition that continues afterwards.

This sometimes results in terrific answers (like the one to A Box That Scrambles Particles) but it actually misses the point.

OP started that question with "I have a box". I interpreted that as a cue to let the ("black") box do what it does and let science do what it does. To accomplish this, one should use a mental guillotine to chop the the absurdity away from its aftermath, and concentrate on the aftermath.

I recall a what-if tag (possibly only proposed; couldn't find it in the list), but that's too general, and encourages people to ask for writing advice. Other tags like alternate-reality or simulation were really about something completely different.

Answer 1

These questions are structured properly

In my opinion, the science-based is entirely appropriate here. Every question should come in the format $$\text{assumptions} \rightarrow\text{question}\rightarrow\text{conditions}.$$ The assumptions part makes a question not 'too broad'. The question itself must not be 'off topic'. The conditions make the question not 'primarily opinion based.'

The assumptions are, in my mind, somewhat separate from the question. The assumptions don't have to be scientific for science-based to be appropriate. This tag acts more like a condition for what sort of answers you want.

If these questions were more scientific, they would be too broad

Imagine someone asked, "How could the Sahara recieve 300 mm of rain a year and what would happen to the flora and fauna?" with the science-based tag. That is two questions, and it is too broad. But what if you split it into two questions? First you ask, "What would happen in the Sahara if it started raining?" and then "How could it start raining in the Sahara?". These questions could be both science-based and both sufficiently scoped. So it might seem that you need to assume 'magic' to answer the first question, but the desire might be to simply get both answers.

This is actually particularly relevant in the case of the particle scrambling box question. This might be phrased as a two part question, where the first says, "Assume a box." Now, once the science based effects are determined in this question, a follow-up question can delve into how to achieve these effects in a science based manner, "How do I build a strong force damping field?" (Not that that is a super science-based question itself, but it's just an example). So you see in this case, you need to ask the question about the box's effects to determine the 'conditions' of your second question, "How do I build a box that achieves this effect?".

Conclusion

In my mind, science-based is a condition on possible answers to the question, not a description of the assumptions, or even of the question. For example, if you didn't add the science-based tag to "What sort of substance could a humanoid release to befuddle those around them?", then the answer could be 'pixie dust.' The science-based serves as a condition that prevents the question from being 'primarily opinion-based.'