To better understand Oram's curiosity

SuperAlien

They say the corpse flower smells like rotting flesh but that does not stop some people to take a sniff at it. 

Now imagine David growing his own corpse flowers in the hydroponic garden and hiding the facehuggers inside for the colonists to enjoy more than the stink.

Then the critics will say "what a poor script", smart people make dumb decisions. In fact this is true, smart people make dumb decisions every day in real life. Some of them out of morbid curiosity.

"That is a strange kind of flower. It smells so awful, can you feel it? Come closer. Look, something is moving inside... Where, where? Sh..."

I.Raptus

I'm a pretty brightly coloured frog, lick me......I dare you ;-)

Nature has a way of alluring prey to do stupid things....

Dark Nebula

I thought he did it for scientific purposes, like Kane.

Like were they supposed to know what's inside the ovomorph?

Lawrence of Arabia

Exactly. That's what the Ovomorph was to Oram, a mesmerizing new organism he has never seen before. You could tell on his face that he was quite curious about it, to which I don't blame because if I never saw one before I would sit there and stare in it too. People in general are prone to curiosity more often than not even if the outcome might be bad, no matter how smart.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2099388-the-pandora-effect-why-curiosity-usually-beats-common-sense/

SuperAlien

I can almost hear David thinking: "The trick, Oram, is not minding that it hurts."

dk

It was easy to criticize Oram for being stupid but as someone pointed out on a different thread, he was a man of faith and maybe that he thought he had protection because of it somehow. Also, it was new to him and he had no reason to mistrust David (except for shooting that neomorph a couple minutes earlier that David lost his sh%t over).

Lawrence of Arabia

dk

Deliver me from my enemies, O God; be my fortress against those who are attacking me. Psalm 59:1

Oram was very dogmatic in his views so it definitely played a part as it did for all of his decisions throughout the film. His faith was broken when his wife died but, before he confronted David, Daniels renewed his faith both religiously and as a leader.

Ati

An awesome flower, a beautiful blue frog, and a great Kane poster. :) 

dk

On second thought, good riddance that Oram died. It was a good demonstration that faith is not fact. Placing trust in faith over facts proved fatal. Good. "That flower smells like a rotting carcass- something the primitive part of my brain tells me to stay away from. No, I have to examine this rotting smell. Oh yes, this is sti-" 

I liked Oram on a level because he seemed to really care, but he became careless and should have listened to Daniels.

drucea

I don't think his faith played any part in him checking out the Ovomorph.  When you think about it, if you're already in a room with another person and the eggs, whose first thought would be that something is going to jump out super fast and latch onto your face?  These characters haven't seen the other Alien movies, and I doubt anyone would think about David not being attacked because he's machine.  No creatures we encounter on earth would differentiate between a real person and a machine that looks, moves, and sounds exactly like a real person.

hox

If memory serves, he was Head of Life Sciences on the Covenant. He would naturally be extremely fascinated by the egg. Having not seen the 1979 movie, as drucea says, curiosity just got the better of him. Imagine if Neil Armstrong had stepped off the ladder and said "That's one small step for a man, one giant... WHAT THE **** IS THAT THING BITING MY ANKLE!"

SuperAlien

Here comes the chicken facehugger, an early Giger concept.

Ingeniero

Stellar excellent point daliens. We all have done stupid things and why would we stop in the future on another planet. I still wouldn't look in the egg though.

I would have a representative do it for me or at least use one of those small mirrors to see.