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Nature and The Simpsons

The journal Nature has an interview with Al Jean, executive producer of The Simpsons, specifically on the use of science and math as sources of humor in the show. (But we know the truth: The Simpsons movie is about to come out, and Nature is selling out. They even ask at the end what they can do to get a reference to their journal in an episode.*)

You can read the whole thing — they’ve made it publicly accessible — but I have to quote their stereotype of a scientist.

But we make fun of everything, so if a scientist appears on the show we make fun of them too. Generally our depiction of scientists is that they’re insular and have bad social lives, and say things in an obscure fashion that isn’t always comprehensible to the layman. From my limited experience in the scientific world I wouldn’t say it’s completely off the mark.

That last sentence is called “understatement,” I think. Sweet jebus, the description fits me perfectly! I feel like going home and hiding in the basement with a book full of acronyms from molecular biology now.

*Everyone knows the real pressing question is how to get a Pharyngula reference on the show. Come on, it’s almost as obscure as some of their math jokes!**

**Just not as funny, which is probably the major obstacle here.

A mission for Wikipedians » « An example of advanced logic in the internet age

Comments

  1. professor frink says

    Professor Frink: You’ve got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.

    Scientist: How much time do we have professor?

    Frink: Well according to my calculations, the robots won’t go berserk for at least 24 hours.

    (The robots go berserk.)

    Frink: Oh, I forgot to er, carry the one.

  2. Reginald Selkirk says

    I feel like going home and hiding in the basement with a book full of acronyms from molecular biology now.

    You have a BFA too?

  3. says

    From the interview:

    One thing I always thought was funny was that in the 1890s, I believe, the state of Indiana declared that the value of pi was 22/7. I mean, it’s just… the idea that you could change a mathematical concept to suit a legislative whim is nutty.

    Yep, it’s nutty, but nope, that’s not what happened. I thought everybody knew the story by now. I mean, it’s a Cecil Adams classic:

    Bill #246 was initially sent to the Committee on Swamp Lands. The committee deliberated gravely on the question, decided it was not the appropriate body to consider such a measure and turned it over to the Committee on Education. The latter committee gave the bill a “pass” recommendation and sent it on to the full House, which approved it unanimously, 67 to 0.

    In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. (One begins to suspect it was silly season in the Indiana legislature at the time.) It passed first reading, but that’s as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill “was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics [at Purdue] who happened to be passing through.” Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, “A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know.”

    The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death. According to a local newspaper, however, “Although the bill was not acted on favorably no one who spoke against it intimated that there was anything wrong with the theories it advances. All of the Senators who spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of the proposition. It was simply regarded as not being a subject for legislation.”

    The ScienceBlogs spam filter won’t let me link directly to the Straight Dope essay, but Google and ye shall find.

    The bill in question did not establish a value of π, or at least not a unique value (and not at all directly). Instead, it concerned that classic topic of crankery, squaring the circle. The Wikipedia article looks like a decent place to start reading about it; it’s not very thoroughly footnoted, but it does have external links.

  4. says

    Futurama had the best science jokes– that one about observing the horse race affecting the result cracked me up.

  5. says

    Futurama was great, but it’s hard to beat the Homer3 Treehouse of Terror:

    Hibbert: Homer, this is your physician, Dr. Julius Hibbert. Can you
    tell us what it’s like in there?
    Homer: Uh…it’s like…did anyone see the movie “Tron”?
    Hibbert: No.
    Lisa: No.
    Marge: No.
    Wiggum: No.
    Bart: No.
    Patty: No.
    Wiggum: No.
    Ned: No.
    Selma: No.
    Frink: No.
    Lovejoy: No.
    Wiggum: Yes. I mean — um, I mean, no. No, heh.
    —

    Frink draws a strange diagram on the wall.

    Lisa: Well, where’s my Dad?
    Frink: Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted
    individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic
    topology, n’gee, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into…[the
    lights go off] the third dimension.
    Lisa: [turning the lights back on] Sorry.
    Frink: [drawing on a blackboard] Here is an ordinary square —
    Wiggum: Whoa, whoa — slow down, egghead!
    Frink: — but suppose we exte-end the square beyond the two
    dimensions of our universe (along the hypothetical Z axis,
    there).
    Everyone: [gasps]
    Frink: This forms a three-dimensional object known as a “cube”, or a
    “Frinkahedron” in honor of its discoverer, n’hey, n’hey.
    Homer: [disembodied] Help me! Are you helping me, or are you going
    on and on?
    Frink: Oh, right. And, of course, within, we find the doomed
    individual.
    —

    Wiggum: Enough of your borax, poindexter! We need action —
    [fires his gun six times through the wall]
    Take that, you lousy dimension!
    [the bullets fly toward Homer, but spiral around the widening
    hole and get sucked into it]
    Homer: Oh, there’s so much I don’t know about astrophysics. I wish I’d
    read that book by that wheelchair guy.
    —

  6. says

    The Simpsons had a great episode spoofing the Scopes Trial…

    Lisa: I’m so glad you could all come. I will be reading to you from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
    Nelson: Oh. I thought we were gonna light spiders on fire.
    Dolph: (in the next room) We’re over here!
    ———————————
    Miss Hoover: Class, the town has spoken. From now on we’re only teaching one theory: creationism. Now please hand in your evolution books to Groundskeeper Willie while I beat this ominous drum.
    ———————
    Flanders: We want you to teach alternative theories to Darwinian Evolution.
    Skinner: You mean Lamarckian Evolution?
    —————-
    Todd: Daddy, was Mommy a monkey? I can’t remember.
    Ned: No one was ever a monkey! Everything is what it was and always will be! God put us here and that’s that!
    Todd: But you said a stork brought me.
    Ned: Umm…that was God disguised as a stork.
    Rod: Then who brings baby storks?
    Ned: There’s no such thing as storks! It’s all God!
    Todd: (Kneeling beside a statue of a stork) Please bless Daddy and Roddy…
    Ned: Stop praying to that stork!

  7. says

    I feel like going home and hiding in the basement with a book full of acronyms from molecular biology now.

    And I thought you did blog from your basement with a book of acronyms. I’m so disillusioned.

  8. Sastra says

    I’d like to say I liked everything PZ just wrote on this topic, but after the part where he mentions The Simpsons I’m afraid he just goes on and on in an obscure fashion which is above my comprehension.

  9. stogoe says

    Hawking: You tried to turn Springfield into a Utopia. But you ended up with a Fruitopia.

  11. Robert says

    I just saw the episode where Homer is taking Bart to a camp to set him straight and Bart is pleading for “happy Homer” to overcome “serious Homer” and take them to vegas instead.

    Bart: Come on Happy Homer! You can overpower Serious Homer!
    Homer: I have Happy Homer locked up tight

    In Homer’s Head:
    Serious Homer: You pipe down happy homer or I’ll kill you like I did intellectual Homer!

    Pan over to Intellectual Homer’s body, where written in blood below is “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny”

  12. gg says

    My favorite Simpsons science quote (Since we seem to have turned this into a quote thread):

    The school teachers have gone on strike and Lisa has gone a bit nuts without intellectual stimulation. Marge expresses here worries about the kids…

    Homer: “And how about this perpetual motion machine Lisa built? It doesn’t do anything except keep going faster and faster! Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”

  13. Sarcastro says

    Frink’s paraphrase of Vannevar Bush is my fave:

    “I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.”

  14. Eric Paulsen says

    As for getting Pharyngula on to a Simpsons episode, I should think it would be a slam dunk. Lisa is both a religious skeptic and advocate of knowledge, especially science. I would think this site could possibly warrant more than a mere mention… how about a cameo role?

  15. says

    I’ve always enjoyed THIS quote, from the episode where Homer decides to emulate Thomas Edison: (favorite bit bolded)

    Frink: …and these (handing books to Homer) should give you the grounding you’ll need in thermodynamics, hypermathematics and of course microcalifragalistics.
    Homer: Er, look, I just want to know how to invent things.
    Frink: All you have to do is think of things which people need but which don’t exist yet.
    Homer: You mean like an electric blanket-mobile?
    Frink: Www oh well, possibly. Or you could take something that already exists and find a new use for it, like…
    Homer: Hamburger earmuffs.
    Frink: Mmm well, I suppose that would qualify.
    Homer: Thanks sucker. (Homer throws the books and runs off)
    Frink: Weh, uh, alright just stay calm Frinky. (reveals his own hamburger earmuffs) These babies will be in the stores while he’s still grappling with the pickle matrix bhay-gn-flay-vn.

    (via the estimable SNPP)

  16. bernarda says

    One of my favorites is when the family is at the dinner table. There is a question about god, and Homer says, “He is omnivorous”.

  17. flutey says

    I’m so pleased to see that Nature is publishing an insightful article on a cartoon show instead of that paper I submitted to them… (Sorry, not a Simpsons fan…)

  18. says

    Not exactly a science quote, but it has the word, scientist:

    Marge: Homer, there’s a man here who thinks he can help you!
    Homer: Batman?
    Marge: No, he’s a scientist.
    Homer: Batman’s a scientist.
    Marge: It’s not Batman!

  19. J says

    Homer: Hey, Flanders! Heading for church? Well I thought I could save you a little time.
    Ned: Ooh, found a new shortcut?
    Homer: Better. I was working on a flat tax proposal and I accidentally proved there’s no god. (hands Flanders a sheet of equations and formulae)
    Ned: We’ll just see about tha… uh-oh. Well… maybe he made a mistake… nope, it’s airtight. Can’t let this little doozy get out! (sets fire to equations)

  20. Angie says

    What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people’s stereotyping!

    Now, just off to put my hair in a bun…where did I put my horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes? Shhhh…

  21. mndarwinist says

    Very few scientists have Asperger’s Syndrome. This is just stereotyping.

  22. MAJeff says

    Christ, try being a sociologist, surrounded by people who study social life because they can’t participate in it! (and we’re not, as a group, very pretty people.)

  23. K. Engels says

    What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people’s stereotyping!

    Try being a MALE librarian… That is even worse. To top it off I’m a Russian Studies/Middle East Studies Specialist so I’m also supposedly a Communist and a Islamist… I think I’m about this || close to taking over Bin Laden’s spot on the most wanted list.

  24. Angie says

    But…but…how can you be a cranky spinster AND a male?? Gee, K. Engels, you really do mess with minds.

    My favourite reaction to people finding out I’m a librarian is: “You must love reading.” Um, yes, but…never mind.

    Do scientists get particularly ignorant questions/comments when they tell people what they do?

  26. says

    Do scientists get particularly ignorant questions/comments when they tell people what they do?

    Well, I tell them I’m a statistician. Then they automatically think I’m lying.

    Bob

  28. Ian H Spedding FCD says

    Angie wrote:

    What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people’s stereotyping!

    Now, just off to put my hair in a bun…where did I put my horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes? Shhhh…

    I never wore my hair in a bun but the horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes were standard issue, I thought, but so what…?

    Evelyn: Look, I–I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O’Connell! But I am proud of what I am!

    Rick O’Connell: And what is that?

    Evelyn: I am . . . a LIBRARIAN!

    –The Mummy

  29. says

    Lisa is both a religious skeptic and advocate of knowledge, especially science.

    Isn’t she a Buddhist? Or is she one of those “Buddhism as the first step on the path to atheism” types?

    Either way, Lisa rules.

  30. Sarcastro says

    Well, I tell them I’m a statistician. Then they automatically think I’m lying.

    Another Simpsons quote (referencing the Space Shuttle):

    Tom: Now let’s look at the crew a little.

    Man 2: They’re a colorful bunch. They’ve been dubbed “the Three Musketeers”. Heh heh heh —

    Tom: And we laugh legitimately. There’s a mathematician, a different kind of mathematician, and a statistician.

  31. katie says

    Yeah…I totally didn’t get the death of intellectual Homer and his message in blood until I took biology in university. You have no idea what kind of moment that was for me: Eureka!

    Then I went and read up on Haeckel and got all depressed :(.