It just so happens that today is the day I have an appointment to talk with my division chair about my future plans, after 26 years at my university. Today is also April First. I have an opportunity for a cruel joke.
Nah, that’s too mean. I’m still planning to retire.
They’re planning armageddon.
The floating text for this cartoon reads, “Anyone who thinks the humanities makes people more expansive should spend four minutes in an English department meeting.” It’s too true. I would never go over to the other side of my campus for one of their meetings, but here in the sciences building we have a statistician as chair who bangs through the meeting agenda on a tight schedule and doesn’t permit too much digression. We’re scared of the anarchy in the English department.
I don’t want to try to imagine what’s happening in the Art or Music departments. I’m pretty sure it involves other-worldly horrors and ritualistic chanting.
Also, we’re going to nit-pick all your jokes and tell you why this one is stupid.
So you might as well stop trying. In a study, some critics found that biologists are duds at getting a laugh.
Everyone knows that a good joke can liven up a talk. Sadly, however, good jokes are in
short supply — at least according to a survey of more than 500 presentations at biology meetings.Two-thirds of the attempts at humour during these talks fell flat, drawing either polite chuckles or no laughter at all. Almost one-quarter of attempted jokes were judged as a “moderate success”, eliciting audible laughter from around half the audience. Only 9% prompted most or all of the attendees to laugh enthusiastically. In fairness, 42% of jests were spontaneous remarks relating to glitches in presentations, such as slide malfunctions, that were not intended to bring down the house. And audiences might not have expected jokes, making it harder to get them to laugh.
Roughly 40% of the talks monitored were humourless, eliminating the risk of failed jokes, but probably raising the risk of bored listeners. The work is published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Just biologists? OK, now I want to see some comparative studies. Who’s funnier, biologists, chemists, or physicists? What about mathematicians? Or, dare I say it, philosophers? I want to see some competition here, because my experience has been that biologists are much funnier than all those other disciplines…possibly because I don’t understand what they’re talking about. Possibly because we all know that bodily functions and sex are a much richer playground for jokes.
If you want a real snooze, listen to business people trying to make a speech. There’s usually some kind of tired old joke from a tired old joke book to break the ice, and then a lot of dreary numbers and ‘inspirational’ anecdotes.
They do provide some suggestions for adding humor.
Top tips for making jokes during a conference presentation, according to Victoria Stout, who
works in student support at Sacramento City College and is also a comedy performer.
• Authenticity is key. But if you’re super-sarcastic and mean, that’s not going to be appropriate.
• Use humour to connect with the audience, not to isolate them.
• Scientists respond well to puns. They also like analogies.
• People relax with a joke attempt. That primes the way for successful jokes later.
• Scientists have had incredibly interesting lives, and humour comes from the reality of our lived experience. Therefore, you are funny.
All that is mostly fair. “Scientists respond well to puns” sounds a little bit like an insult. “Scientists have had incredibly interesting lives” sounds like she doesn’t know very many scientists. I spend way too much time peering into dark corners looking for arthropods to be called “interesting,” and all you have to do is ask my wife or kids to learn that I am one of the most boring people on the planet.
That’s my place. I raise wingless females for my clientele, and any insect who walked into the hangout is going to get a final surprise — I only serve spiders, and insects are on the menu.
That cartoon is going to be posted on my incubators.
Whoa, don’t diss schools.
I use algebra all the time! Not just in the lab, but in cooking — how do you do unit conversions or scaling of simple quantities without it?
I don’t think King Lear is a manual in how to divide inheritances, and if you think it is, maybe you need to read it again, for comprehension.
Evolution doesn’t suggest that modern fish will turn into modern mammals in real time. Somebody wasn’t paying attention in class.
Dodgeball…I will give her that. We learned nothing from dodgeball, it was the favorite game of the class bullies. Why were we playing dodgeball in school anyway?
They’re like little snacks, you see.
What can I say? All that matters in the long run is the population — vaporizing a few individuals now and then is irrelevant, as long as the numbers don’t rise to statistical significance.
I was looking forward to a mellow, relaxed Fall term, when the office of human resources sent me this memo:
Dear Faculty and Staff,
As you may have read in the news, Governor Walz recently signed a bill into law legalizing the use of marijuana for recreational purposes by adults age 21 and over as well as the right to grow up to eight plants for personal use. The new law will also decriminalize its possession and expunge misdemeanor marijuana offenses from criminal records.
While the new law may begin to shift societal norms outside the workplace, University employees will still be expected to follow the University’s Drug-Free policy, Smoke-and Tobacco-Free policy, and Code of Conduct, which outlines the responsibilities of employees to “act according to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct” and “be personally accountable for individual actions.”
As has been the standard procedure in the past, employees who violate these policies and perform work while impaired due to the use of controlled substances are subject to disciplinary action, including termination. Additionally, while the new law allows for the growing of cannabis plants at home, no such plants grown for personal use are allowed on any University property nor should such plants be visible on camera during remote work. Please also note that the legalization of marijuana at the state level does not change the federal DOT Drug policy for drivers, of which the University has about 100 employees. All members of our University community are responsible for encouraging compliance with these policies.
If you, or someone you are concerned about, need help with substance misuse, the University has resources available to you, including confidential counseling and chemical health consultation through the Employee Assistance Program and mental health resources for University employees and their dependents enrolled in the medical plan.
We appreciate your awareness and compliance with this issue in support of protecting the health of our entire community.
Darn. I guess the backup plan is MDMA.
(No, actually, I don’t partake of anything anymore, not even alcohol. I have no idea what the students will be doing to make my classes tolerable.)
It’s true. It’s never the administration’s fault, always the faculty.
That last line is too true. I suspect many mathematics professors feel that their discipline has been relegated to working as a service that gives basic training to the “sexier”, more popular majors, like chemistry, biology, and computer science. I hope this satire doesn’t give any administration the idea of merging math with accounting to save money. Quick, let them know that the mathematicians are all playing around with Greek letters and don’t know anything about arithmetic!
Oh, wait, let’s not forget, McSweeney’s is poking fun at the dismissal of history.
That is all correct. The Tulsa Massacre is depressing, and the English Civil Wars? Go ahead, ask any American who won it, and they won’t have a clue. They won’t even be able to name which side was which.
I have suddenly realized that the PowerPoint slides I use for genetics are also incredibly bland. Am I going to have to worry about my job? Please don’t merge biology with health services!
