Monday, March 09, 2009
Hypothesis: Science can be funny
Busy times, as the Comedy Research Project prepares for Friday 13th’s show in Oxford. Doing for science what Morecambe and Wise did for ballet, we’re always rewriting to use whatever new science we can find that might be funny.
For example – and this isn’t in the show – this week “science tells us” that teenagers need a lie in. In fact, according to Professor Russell Foster of Oxford University, they can actually achieve better exam results if classes start two hours later.
Don’t get me wrong, as a teenager I needed no Oxford Professor to tell me I should sleep in. I still prefer a later start, which is one of the reasons I’m a feckless freelancer. Call me bitter and envious, but I’m not sure that the timetable should be reorganised around the erratic adolescent body clock. Surely it’s better to learn to drag yourself out of bed, drink coffee, and maybe even get the odd early night, when you’re at school, rather than waiting till you have a proper job and some responsibility?
At least there's some research behind it, I suppose, unlike too many of the "research shows..." stories.
It's sometimes hard to satirise what's passed off as science. Tipped off by a fantastic brain science talk by Sergio della Sala, I've finally watched the Newsnight report on "Brain Gym", something that local authorities are paying thousands of pounds to introduce in primary schools. You need Part 1 to get the full glorious car-crash absurdity of part 2, in which Paxman interviews the inventor of the Brain Gym about his claim that processed food contains no water.
Right, enough browsing. I'm off to make up a clearly bogus formula for something like the perfect joke or ideal sitcom, just to annoy the people who can't tell satire from pseudoscience.
For example – and this isn’t in the show – this week “science tells us” that teenagers need a lie in. In fact, according to Professor Russell Foster of Oxford University, they can actually achieve better exam results if classes start two hours later.
Don’t get me wrong, as a teenager I needed no Oxford Professor to tell me I should sleep in. I still prefer a later start, which is one of the reasons I’m a feckless freelancer. Call me bitter and envious, but I’m not sure that the timetable should be reorganised around the erratic adolescent body clock. Surely it’s better to learn to drag yourself out of bed, drink coffee, and maybe even get the odd early night, when you’re at school, rather than waiting till you have a proper job and some responsibility?
At least there's some research behind it, I suppose, unlike too many of the "research shows..." stories.
It's sometimes hard to satirise what's passed off as science. Tipped off by a fantastic brain science talk by Sergio della Sala, I've finally watched the Newsnight report on "Brain Gym", something that local authorities are paying thousands of pounds to introduce in primary schools. You need Part 1 to get the full glorious car-crash absurdity of part 2, in which Paxman interviews the inventor of the Brain Gym about his claim that processed food contains no water.
Right, enough browsing. I'm off to make up a clearly bogus formula for something like the perfect joke or ideal sitcom, just to annoy the people who can't tell satire from pseudoscience.
Labels: comedy science
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