Leylines are real - does Star Trek have a responsibility to be scientific?

 So I watched the final episode of Season 3 of Strange New Worlds yesterday, and I had a lot of thoughts, but I honestly don’t quite feel up to tackling that whole thing today, so instead I’m going to tackle a smaller question: does Star Trek have any responsibility to be scientific, and if so, how so or in what way? In this episode of Strange New Worlds, Sam Kirk says that leylines are real. They also basically insinuate that science has proven evil to be real and perhaps the existence of demons.

 Leylines is honestly what I want to focus on, because its a specific term and Kirk said it straight out, they are real, whereas the evil thing you could argue was just Doctor Korby ranting about some nonsense. Leylines are real, in the sense that they are a pseudoscientific belief that some people believe in in the real world with no basis in empirical observation, but they are not real, in the sense that they exist or have any function or effect on reality. I kinda think it is a problem that Star Trek said they are real.

Now, let me point out the elephant in the room. Warp Drive. The Transporter. Replicators. Vulcans. Star Trek is full of fictional things. But all of those things are science fiction, things that could exist in the future when science advances or when we explore the stars. Leylines are a real world pseudoscientific belief. Star Trek saying they are real could be construed as validating their existence in real life in a way that Star Trek having warp drive does not similarly cause a misperception. Thus Star Trek saying leylines are real is anti-science in a way that Star Trek typically is not, even if one does not think “Warp Drive” counts as real science, justifiably so.

Now, is this the only time Star Trek has done something like this? I doubt it. I am pretty sure there are several episodes of the original series that posit the existence of various real world gods, too. So I can hardly say this isn’t Star Trek to be like this. Its just my personal opinion that Star Trek shouldn’t be like this, encouraging pseudoscience and conspiracy theories and the like. But maybe I’m just a party pooper and its just some silly fun.