Road Apples
Dec. 7, 2009


 Unlocking the mysteries of science

By Tim Sanders

Julia Moore, one of the very worst poets on record, once said, “Literary is a work very difficult to do.” To that I would add, “Scientific is a work very difficult to do ... likewise.”

I’ve always been a big fan of science. Even bad science.

The early Evolutionary Scientists, for example, all wanted their theory to be “fact,” and they also wanted funding, so they invented imaginary missing link bone particles that belonged to imaginary ancient missing link persons with names like “Piltdown Man” and “Nebraska Man,” who turned out to be not men at all, only an orangutan and a very old hog. But the fix was in, and it led, inexorably, to millions and millions of dollars and lots of work for textbook manufacturers and high school science teachers. The science may have been purely speculative, but at least evolution sounded good, and seemed to explain why Frenchmen were so fond of snails and grubs.

In the 1970s a lot of scientists went around frightening people about global cooling. There was another ice age coming, they said, and the only animals that would survive would be the polar bears. As it turned out, there was no ice age lurking around the corner, and the citrus farmers in Florida did not have to start building igloos after all.

A decade or so later came the hole in the ozone layer panic. The depletion of the ozone over the polar ice caps was all due, scientists told us, to families in places like Utah having way too many children, all of whom went around using aerosol hair spray. Fortunately for Western Civilization, the ozone holes mysteriously repaired themselves, and the Osmond family was off the hook.

Lately we’ve been faced with the global warming crisis, which scientists assure us is based on really good science this time. After all, it did get both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for Al Gore, who may not be a scientist, but did, once, take a science class in junior high.

Then the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England, admitted last month that important scientific data from that university’s Climatic Research Unit had been fudged. The fudging was due to the fact that the planet hadn’t been warming the way everyone in the scientific community had advised it to do. So scientists agreed to do the right thing and make the data fit their theory, which would naturally lead to more funding, and maybe even some more swell prizes down the road.

That’s the kind of science I enjoy–the kind that makes us all realize that scientists are, by and large, not a bit smarter than the rest of us. Sometimes, when scientists are all sitting around in their scientific laboratories, trying to come up with new, scientific funding proposals, they get bored and just make stuff up. Here’s an example:

A December 1, 2009 U.S. News and World Report article by Michelle Lodge said that James H. Fowler, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, authored a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which showed that “Loneliness May Be Catching.” The study was co-authored by a University of Chicago professor and a Harvard professor. The article didn’t say what the other two were professors of, but since the study was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, we can rest assured that their craniums contained some heavy duty scientific minds, and lots of heavy duty financing was involved. All to produce this alarming conclusion: IF YOU’RE LONELY, STAY AWAY FROM OTHER PEOPLE, OR YOU JUST MIGHT START AN EPIDEMIC!

That article confirmed what I’d already suspected for some time: given those kinds of standards, anyone could do science. Hey, we can invent statistics and make stuff up, too. We could even do a study which would show, conclusively, that if your parents didn’t have any children, you probably won’t, either. We could get federal funding for it.

So I’ve decided to offer a new Science Q and A column. Here are some Questions and Answers, all of which have a Scientific Accuracy Rating of at least 98.2 percent:


Q: Let’s say you climb to the top of your oak tree to rescue your neighbor’s cat, which has been up there squalling all night. When you drop it, will it always land on its feet?

A: After 325 strictly supervised cat drops, our research team agrees that the scientifically correct answer is: “Not if you attach the brick correctly.”


Q: Speaking of cat droppings, who is Ed Begley, Jr. ?

A: We aren’t sure, but our staff tells us that his name is a household word in the Ed Begley, Jr. household.


Q: My family and I, as a concerned group of committed “green” individuals, wish to directly affect global warming. We recycle, grow our own organic vegetables, steer clear of meat and poultry, and use wind turbines to supplement power to our home. Each and every one of us, except for Grandma, pedals a bicycle everywhere we go. Grandma can’t pedal due to her phlebitis, so she rides in a little red wagon behind my wife’s Schwinn. Does your research have any other suggestions which could make our efforts even more effective?

A: If you have a window air conditioning unit, you might try turning it around next summer and generously cooling the globe instead of selfishly cooling your home. Our research indicates that if just 40% of North American homeowners took this simple step each summer, by the year 2050 the globe’s mean temperature would have Increased by nearly one-tenth of a degree less than if nobody had done anything at all. Ask the neighbors if they’d like to join in, and then tell us about their response. Maybe we can make up some really low average temperatures for your neighborhood next summer and publish the results in a serious scientific journal.


There, that wasn’t so difficult. If you have any more scientific questions, please feel free to ask, and we’ll feel free to make up some very scientific sounding answers, just like the other scientists do.