The National Society of Obvious Studies meets twice a year to engage in enquiry that is of the utmost importance to humankind. They attempt to answer questions that people ask every day, often without hearing a response. The Journal is the collected findings of this eminent group. Published annually, it is available to anyone who is on a special list.
This year, there are many important discoveries and intriguing studies. Take Professor Sturgeon Heseltine’s exceptional paper, On the Excretory Habits of Forest-Dwelling Ursine Creatures. Five years in the making, this study shows an amazing level of dedication to stating the mundane. Prof Heseltine was relentless in his quest to discover what woodland bears do with their waste products once all nutrients have been absorbed from their food. With the aid of two dozen research assistants and keen students, the good Professor travelled the world to observe the animals in their natural habitat.
With methods such as “watching the bears” and “looking for poop”, Professor Heseltine has amassed a great wealth of evidence to support his conclusions. Now the world can sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that bears do indeed shit in the woods.
The studies in the NSOS Journal are not limited to zoology. Theology is also covered, with Denizen Balabroit’s paper, An Investigation Into the Religious Inclinations of High Ranking Papists.
This paper sheds exciting and much-needed light on the personal beliefs of the pope: his faith, his spirituality and his philosophy. With over a hundred pages of supporting documents, from personal letters to diaries and shopping lists, Balabroit builds a case for his findings with stunning levels of detail and rigor.
And what findings they are! From his opinions on birth control, the existence of an all-seeing and knowing sky-creator, and the transubstantiation of communion booze and biscuits into the actual blood and body of Christ, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Pope is Catholic. Balabroit goes into far more detail in the paper, and it is well worth a read.
I don’t have enough space to discuss the other excellent papers in the journal, but another one worth reading is Diphthong et al, On the Appearance of the Visible Atmosphere with respect to the Light Spectrum, which concludes that the sky is blue. Less successful is Spengler’s piece, entitled, Is the Atomic Weight of Cobalt 58.9? I fear Dr Spengler has failed to enter the spirit of the Society with this paper. Maybe next time.
Showing posts with label Peer Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peer Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Thursday, 30 July 2009
The Musical Economics of the Barenaked Ladies
Professor Dexter Duncan of the London School of Economics is one of the most eminent thinkers in the field of Musical Economics. His 1970 paper, A Third Staircase (Just for Show): What Could I Buy If I Were a Rich Man?, was a sensation and is credited with starting the Music Economics boom. Duncan’s most famous paper, Living in a Material World, explained the ostentation of the 1980s fiscal music scene.
Duncan’s latest work, If They had $1,000,000, is another grand project of aural economic analysis. In it, he tests the theories laid out by the Barenaked Ladies in their popular 1992 song, If I had $1000000, and tries to determine whether their claims are valid.
At more than three hundred pages long, this is a very dense and almost impenetrable work, with some formulae and passages that would be far too difficult for the casual reader. However, sticking with the text reaps some wonderful rewards.
As many music lovers know, the song begins with the assertion that if he had a million dollars, the singer of the Barenaked Ladies would “buy you a house”. Using current Canadian house prices, Professor Duncan determined that this would set back the singer $326,613. Several chapters are then devoted to the implications of buying such an abode and the differences between a building of this price in the different Canadian provinces.
Furniture is the next purchase mentioned in the song, and the singer specifies either “a Chesterfield or an Ottoman”. Using a complicated series of calculations based on musician psychology, wealth ratios and fabric costs, Duncan determines that the most likely item of furniture bought by the Barenaked Ladies’ frontman would be a $3,000 Chesterfield from one of Toronto’s premium seateries.
Here lies one of the more galling omissions from the paper. While his reasoning for coming up with this value for the Chesterfield is sound, Duncan does not assess the merits of having a large house and only one piece of furniture. This seems to me to be somewhat lacking for a gentleman of means, owning his own house and only a Chesterfield to sit/sleep on. This scenario brings to mind the frugal miser, rich yet reluctant to purchase fripperies like beds, wardrobes and tables. Is this really an image we see in the twenty-first century?
There are other oversights that do detract from this otherwise excellent piece of investigation. In estimating the cost of a llama (one of the “exotic pets” that the Barenaked Ladies would purchase), Duncan only takes into account the purchase price of the creature. There is no mention of cost of food, lodgings, training, etc. The same can be said for the monkey, a bargain at $8,000, but less so when you consider the extra money needed to house and feed the animal.
Sadly missing in the analysis is the cost of John Merrick’s remains. In the song, the singer wants to buy “them crazy elephant bones”, but according to Professor Duncan this would be easier sung than done. The remains belong to a London museum, and despite repeated requests for information, no employee would put a price on the bones.
Also, the song states that the singer would buy “some art; a Picasso or a Garfunkel”. Art Garfunkel does not make personal appearances, so Duncan had to find a reasonably priced Picasso work. In the end, he found an original sketch for $70,000.
All in all, Professor Duncan’s analysis of the Barenaked Ladies’ ability to purchase everything mentioned in the song for a million dollars is sound, although he really ought to have given more room to considerations of inflation since the song was written. There is also the question of differences in exchange rates between the song's appearance and now.
Duncan's conclusions – that the items in the song could be purchased for less than half a million dollars, leaving enough money to buy “your love” – are sound. He also adds that this much money would probably be required to buy someone's love if you bought them a house and only one chair, not to mention a fake green dress and lots of Kraft Dinner. But there are some bad omissions in the paper, and these are enough to sow the seeds of doubt about some of Duncan’s methods, and therefore, his conclusions.
I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral. Can't understand what I mean? You soon will.
Duncan’s latest work, If They had $1,000,000, is another grand project of aural economic analysis. In it, he tests the theories laid out by the Barenaked Ladies in their popular 1992 song, If I had $1000000, and tries to determine whether their claims are valid.
At more than three hundred pages long, this is a very dense and almost impenetrable work, with some formulae and passages that would be far too difficult for the casual reader. However, sticking with the text reaps some wonderful rewards.
As many music lovers know, the song begins with the assertion that if he had a million dollars, the singer of the Barenaked Ladies would “buy you a house”. Using current Canadian house prices, Professor Duncan determined that this would set back the singer $326,613. Several chapters are then devoted to the implications of buying such an abode and the differences between a building of this price in the different Canadian provinces.
Furniture is the next purchase mentioned in the song, and the singer specifies either “a Chesterfield or an Ottoman”. Using a complicated series of calculations based on musician psychology, wealth ratios and fabric costs, Duncan determines that the most likely item of furniture bought by the Barenaked Ladies’ frontman would be a $3,000 Chesterfield from one of Toronto’s premium seateries.
Here lies one of the more galling omissions from the paper. While his reasoning for coming up with this value for the Chesterfield is sound, Duncan does not assess the merits of having a large house and only one piece of furniture. This seems to me to be somewhat lacking for a gentleman of means, owning his own house and only a Chesterfield to sit/sleep on. This scenario brings to mind the frugal miser, rich yet reluctant to purchase fripperies like beds, wardrobes and tables. Is this really an image we see in the twenty-first century?
There are other oversights that do detract from this otherwise excellent piece of investigation. In estimating the cost of a llama (one of the “exotic pets” that the Barenaked Ladies would purchase), Duncan only takes into account the purchase price of the creature. There is no mention of cost of food, lodgings, training, etc. The same can be said for the monkey, a bargain at $8,000, but less so when you consider the extra money needed to house and feed the animal.
Sadly missing in the analysis is the cost of John Merrick’s remains. In the song, the singer wants to buy “them crazy elephant bones”, but according to Professor Duncan this would be easier sung than done. The remains belong to a London museum, and despite repeated requests for information, no employee would put a price on the bones.
Also, the song states that the singer would buy “some art; a Picasso or a Garfunkel”. Art Garfunkel does not make personal appearances, so Duncan had to find a reasonably priced Picasso work. In the end, he found an original sketch for $70,000.
All in all, Professor Duncan’s analysis of the Barenaked Ladies’ ability to purchase everything mentioned in the song for a million dollars is sound, although he really ought to have given more room to considerations of inflation since the song was written. There is also the question of differences in exchange rates between the song's appearance and now.
Duncan's conclusions – that the items in the song could be purchased for less than half a million dollars, leaving enough money to buy “your love” – are sound. He also adds that this much money would probably be required to buy someone's love if you bought them a house and only one chair, not to mention a fake green dress and lots of Kraft Dinner. But there are some bad omissions in the paper, and these are enough to sow the seeds of doubt about some of Duncan’s methods, and therefore, his conclusions.
I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral. Can't understand what I mean? You soon will.
Friday, 27 March 2009
The Sad Truth about Feline Grammar
Sir Edward Gobswain, professor of Zoological Linguistics at Oxford University, has just published a damning new report in Animal Language. The paper, based on extensive studies in the past few years, outlines a dramatic drop in the quality of feline grammar, both written and spoken. Sir Edward concludes that this could lead to tragic consequences for all animal language in the future.
Gobswain’s paper, The Sad Truth about Feline Grammar, begins with a history of cat language, and the developments noted in this essential field. Carroll’s 1865 paper on the Cheshire breed of Cat showed a feline creature with a remarkable linguistic ability, while Lloyd-Webber (1981) noted the ability of various cats to sing, as well as talk, with great grammatical ability. Sadly, somewhere down the line, this ability seems to have abandoned the domestic feline.
The decline in linguistic excellence seems to have started around 2005. This is the point when, Gobswain notes, “a terrible disease began to affect cats everywhere, and their ability to vocalise internal feelings became stunted and infantile.”
Whereas the cat mentioned by Carroll in the 19th Century was able to engage in philosophical debate, nowadays cats seem to have trouble formulating simple sentences. Verb tensing, question phrasing and verb/pronoun agreement are now almost alien to the feline race. Phrases such as “…can has…” and “I is…” are now the rule rather than the exception. When asking questions, many cats will now utter a statement with a rising intonation instead of a properly-phrased question statement. And in written English, cats now seem completely unable to spell even the simplest words, like ‘is,’ ‘your’ and ‘itty bitty kitty committee’.
This is all depressing stuff, and Sir Edward warns that this linguistic failure may even be crossing over into the rest of the animal kingdom. Dogs, mice, owls and even walruses have shown signs of this grammatical disease.
As for explanations of this worrisome trend, Professor Gobswain can only theorise. His most fruitful line of inquiry shows a correlation between the deterioration of cats’ language and their diet. In the past few years many cats have moved away from the more traditional feline foods to junk food, such as cheeseburgers. The levels of nutrients in a cheeseburger are not enough for a growing kitten, and so it could be that cats’ collective brain power is falling as their diet gets worse. More studies are certainly needed, though, as the changes in both diet and linguistic capabilities could be symptoms of a greater underlying cause. It’s a long-shot but maybe, Gobswain hypothesises, Basement Cat is somehow responsible.
Whatever is to blame for this terrible blight on zoological communication, Gobswain concludes that things will get worse before they get better. Many pet owners are reluctant to correct their cats’ linguistic failures, and some even encourage them, believing them to be ‘cute’. Sir Edward warns that “giving your cat a cheeseburger when he says ‘I can haz cheezburger?’ will not wean them off this behaviour. On the contrary, it will reinforce it. Like children, we must reward good behaviour and punish the bad. I recommend pet owners withhold all burger products from their cats until the animals can ask for the food correctly. Doing otherwise would constitute what I refer to as ‘pet ownership FAIL’”.
To conclude the review, this is a worrying report of a trend that looks unlikely to improve soon. With more publicity, however, we might be able to roll back some of the damage through education and more public spending in feline literacy education. Sir Edward is to be commended for his fine work and dedicated study.
The Imaginary Reviewer is in your noun, verbing your related noun.
Gobswain’s paper, The Sad Truth about Feline Grammar, begins with a history of cat language, and the developments noted in this essential field. Carroll’s 1865 paper on the Cheshire breed of Cat showed a feline creature with a remarkable linguistic ability, while Lloyd-Webber (1981) noted the ability of various cats to sing, as well as talk, with great grammatical ability. Sadly, somewhere down the line, this ability seems to have abandoned the domestic feline.
The decline in linguistic excellence seems to have started around 2005. This is the point when, Gobswain notes, “a terrible disease began to affect cats everywhere, and their ability to vocalise internal feelings became stunted and infantile.”
Whereas the cat mentioned by Carroll in the 19th Century was able to engage in philosophical debate, nowadays cats seem to have trouble formulating simple sentences. Verb tensing, question phrasing and verb/pronoun agreement are now almost alien to the feline race. Phrases such as “…can has…” and “I is…” are now the rule rather than the exception. When asking questions, many cats will now utter a statement with a rising intonation instead of a properly-phrased question statement. And in written English, cats now seem completely unable to spell even the simplest words, like ‘is,’ ‘your’ and ‘itty bitty kitty committee’.
This is all depressing stuff, and Sir Edward warns that this linguistic failure may even be crossing over into the rest of the animal kingdom. Dogs, mice, owls and even walruses have shown signs of this grammatical disease.
As for explanations of this worrisome trend, Professor Gobswain can only theorise. His most fruitful line of inquiry shows a correlation between the deterioration of cats’ language and their diet. In the past few years many cats have moved away from the more traditional feline foods to junk food, such as cheeseburgers. The levels of nutrients in a cheeseburger are not enough for a growing kitten, and so it could be that cats’ collective brain power is falling as their diet gets worse. More studies are certainly needed, though, as the changes in both diet and linguistic capabilities could be symptoms of a greater underlying cause. It’s a long-shot but maybe, Gobswain hypothesises, Basement Cat is somehow responsible.
Whatever is to blame for this terrible blight on zoological communication, Gobswain concludes that things will get worse before they get better. Many pet owners are reluctant to correct their cats’ linguistic failures, and some even encourage them, believing them to be ‘cute’. Sir Edward warns that “giving your cat a cheeseburger when he says ‘I can haz cheezburger?’ will not wean them off this behaviour. On the contrary, it will reinforce it. Like children, we must reward good behaviour and punish the bad. I recommend pet owners withhold all burger products from their cats until the animals can ask for the food correctly. Doing otherwise would constitute what I refer to as ‘pet ownership FAIL’”.
To conclude the review, this is a worrying report of a trend that looks unlikely to improve soon. With more publicity, however, we might be able to roll back some of the damage through education and more public spending in feline literacy education. Sir Edward is to be commended for his fine work and dedicated study.
The Imaginary Reviewer is in your noun, verbing your related noun.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
The Imaginary Peer Review
Dance Activity and Perceived Risk Taking by Dr William Routledge
The National Journal of Musical Psychiatry, Vol. 22, pp 205-241
A year ago, Doctor William Routledge wrote his groundbreaking study on the increase in disinterest permeating through the hip-hop industry. Entitled Rapathy, the paper (reviewed in these pages last February) told of the worrying tendency of rap fans to wave their hands in the air out of boredom, as if they just did not care. Now, the eminent musical psychologist has published his latest work after twelve months of intense study.
Doctor Routledge investigated various people in nightclubs and social events where music was playing. He was interested in the behaviour of the attendees at these functions, and he made various observations, noting them down in what he describes in the methodology section of the paper as “a jotter with a picture of Hannah Montana on the cover”.
Routledge noticed a strange trend in the behaviour of the subjects. Immediately prior to, and during, the act of dancing, most of the people displayed classic signs of nervousness and fear. They appeared to be enjoying the dancing, but levels of perspiration and body language seemed to indicate that the people were fearful of something. As Routledge notes:
This chance-taking has been noted before by many researchers, but not with such a detailed level of study. Ciccone & Timberlake (2008) found that people would “Take a chance tonight” before they “groove [themselves] to the world.” A 1984 study by Estefan and Sound Machine says that to dance is to “take a chance today”; this appears to be just as relevant a sentiment in 2009 as it was then.
Routledge notes these prior studies in his introduction, and also mentions other research which shows that this phenomenon is not limited to any specific genre of music. Kee (2004) proves its existence in gospel (“By faith take this chance/as an act of faith get on up and dance”), and Cheetah Girls et al (2006) have found it to be present in tango (“Take a chance/feel the tango/when you dance”).
But why should people be feeling like they are taking a chance when they dance? What possible reason could there be for this perception of risk?
One reason, Routledge believes, could be insecurity in one’s dancing skills. But while this is understandable for many amateur groovers, even when a dancer gains experience and confidence in their abilities they seem to be feeling like they are taking a chance with the boogie.
Routledge considers the addition of an evolutionary explanation. He believes that dancing is one way to try and attract a mate. As the author puts it himself:
But by putting themselves out in the open, they may also be increasing the opportunities for competing suitors to confront them, leading to what Jackson (1997) described in his paper, Blood on the Dance Floor. By heightening their own awareness of risk, this evolutionary adaptation on the part of the dancers means that if they sense danger, they are more ready to take flight to the bar or bathrooms, for example.
Routledge’s conclusions are both intuitive and elegant, and show that he is once again the master of the field of musical psychiatry. His prose, diagrams and font choice are all of the highest order, and this reviewer is once again humbled by an excellent paper. I for one can’t wait until he completes his next essay, On the Veracity of Atmospheric/Ocular Comparison, or Why Don’t Your Eyes look anything Like the Skies?
The National Journal of Musical Psychiatry, Vol. 22, pp 205-241
A year ago, Doctor William Routledge wrote his groundbreaking study on the increase in disinterest permeating through the hip-hop industry. Entitled Rapathy, the paper (reviewed in these pages last February) told of the worrying tendency of rap fans to wave their hands in the air out of boredom, as if they just did not care. Now, the eminent musical psychologist has published his latest work after twelve months of intense study.
Doctor Routledge investigated various people in nightclubs and social events where music was playing. He was interested in the behaviour of the attendees at these functions, and he made various observations, noting them down in what he describes in the methodology section of the paper as “a jotter with a picture of Hannah Montana on the cover”.
Routledge noticed a strange trend in the behaviour of the subjects. Immediately prior to, and during, the act of dancing, most of the people displayed classic signs of nervousness and fear. They appeared to be enjoying the dancing, but levels of perspiration and body language seemed to indicate that the people were fearful of something. As Routledge notes:
“The subjects, whether at a disco or a party, all seemed to want to dance. They
seemed to be enjoying the dancing. But yet, at the same time, it was as if some
kind of risk was involved. They felt like they were taking a chance.”
This chance-taking has been noted before by many researchers, but not with such a detailed level of study. Ciccone & Timberlake (2008) found that people would “Take a chance tonight” before they “groove [themselves] to the world.” A 1984 study by Estefan and Sound Machine says that to dance is to “take a chance today”; this appears to be just as relevant a sentiment in 2009 as it was then.
Routledge notes these prior studies in his introduction, and also mentions other research which shows that this phenomenon is not limited to any specific genre of music. Kee (2004) proves its existence in gospel (“By faith take this chance/as an act of faith get on up and dance”), and Cheetah Girls et al (2006) have found it to be present in tango (“Take a chance/feel the tango/when you dance”).
But why should people be feeling like they are taking a chance when they dance? What possible reason could there be for this perception of risk?
One reason, Routledge believes, could be insecurity in one’s dancing skills. But while this is understandable for many amateur groovers, even when a dancer gains experience and confidence in their abilities they seem to be feeling like they are taking a chance with the boogie.
Routledge considers the addition of an evolutionary explanation. He believes that dancing is one way to try and attract a mate. As the author puts it himself:
“Many people feel that by having a dance they could find some romance. For
example, if, when they dance, they make an obvious glance they may enhance their
chance of a romantic advance. As long as they don’t prance. In France.”
But by putting themselves out in the open, they may also be increasing the opportunities for competing suitors to confront them, leading to what Jackson (1997) described in his paper, Blood on the Dance Floor. By heightening their own awareness of risk, this evolutionary adaptation on the part of the dancers means that if they sense danger, they are more ready to take flight to the bar or bathrooms, for example.
Routledge’s conclusions are both intuitive and elegant, and show that he is once again the master of the field of musical psychiatry. His prose, diagrams and font choice are all of the highest order, and this reviewer is once again humbled by an excellent paper. I for one can’t wait until he completes his next essay, On the Veracity of Atmospheric/Ocular Comparison, or Why Don’t Your Eyes look anything Like the Skies?
Friday, 11 July 2008
The Imaginary Peer Review: An Empirical Enquiry into Sleeping with Your Mum by Professor Gerald P. Higginbotham
An Empirical Enquiry into Sleeping with Your Mum by Professor Gerald P. Higginbotham
Six years ago, Professor Gerald P. Higginbotham published the now famous paper, The Effect of Lepton Dispersal on T-Wave Synthesis Cromulation. Hailed for its erudite thought, commonsense ideas and brevity, the paper won the highly coveted A. M. Kenyon Award for Excellence in Scientific Writing. Professor Higginbotham’s subsequent paper, Quantum Mists Versus Neumann Clouds: A Neurophysiological Approach to the Discussion, was less well received, and the eminent scholar’s arguments were roundly dismissed by the Physical Science establishment. Disappearing from the scientific stage for several years, Professor Higginbotham has sensationally returned with a new paper and a new direction for his studies. An Empirical Enquiry into Sleeping with Your Mum shows Higginbotham at his most inventive, yet, conversely, his most infuriatingly obtuse.
Higginbotham begins with a brief discussion of the few papers already existing in this burgeoning field. J. H. Simcoe’s 1996 essay, The Chronic Ill Health of Schrödinger’s Cat: How it Could Improve by Sleeping with Sandra Watkins, is covered, as is the little known The Effects of Polonium on the Simultaneous Orgasm by Marie and Pierre Curie. This section is insubstantial, yet works well as a prelude to the experiment to come. The author also uses the introduction to detail some of the existing information and assumptions relating to Your Mum, namely that she is ‘well easy’, ‘a bit rough’ and ‘gagging for it’. Here, Higginbotham shows his infuriating lack of respect for his audience by neglecting to inform us of his sources. I have searched and searched, but I have been unable to find any evidence to confirm his assertions.
In the methodology section of the paper, Higginbotham lets himself down with some poorly-outlined procedures for the experiment. I will quote a pertinent section:
What drinks did Higginbotham intend to buy Your Mum? Where was her apartment? Alas, these details are lost to the ages, all due to Higginbotham’s lack of presence of mind to tell us.
But it is in Higginbotham’s analysis where he lets himself down the most. They don’t follow on from his experimental results, and they are written in a style that does not befit a scientific investigation of this sort. Is Your Mum really as “loose” and “crap in bed” as the good Professor asserts? How do these facts follow on from the details offered in his results section? He makes no mention of “looseness” in the results. “Dryness,” “Number of bags over the head to make her palatable” and “stench” all appear in different tables and graphs in the results section, but are not referred to again. How they related to the overall conclusions is not elucidated.
Six years ago, Professor Gerald P. Higginbotham published the now famous paper, The Effect of Lepton Dispersal on T-Wave Synthesis Cromulation. Hailed for its erudite thought, commonsense ideas and brevity, the paper won the highly coveted A. M. Kenyon Award for Excellence in Scientific Writing. Professor Higginbotham’s subsequent paper, Quantum Mists Versus Neumann Clouds: A Neurophysiological Approach to the Discussion, was less well received, and the eminent scholar’s arguments were roundly dismissed by the Physical Science establishment. Disappearing from the scientific stage for several years, Professor Higginbotham has sensationally returned with a new paper and a new direction for his studies. An Empirical Enquiry into Sleeping with Your Mum shows Higginbotham at his most inventive, yet, conversely, his most infuriatingly obtuse.
Higginbotham begins with a brief discussion of the few papers already existing in this burgeoning field. J. H. Simcoe’s 1996 essay, The Chronic Ill Health of Schrödinger’s Cat: How it Could Improve by Sleeping with Sandra Watkins, is covered, as is the little known The Effects of Polonium on the Simultaneous Orgasm by Marie and Pierre Curie. This section is insubstantial, yet works well as a prelude to the experiment to come. The author also uses the introduction to detail some of the existing information and assumptions relating to Your Mum, namely that she is ‘well easy’, ‘a bit rough’ and ‘gagging for it’. Here, Higginbotham shows his infuriating lack of respect for his audience by neglecting to inform us of his sources. I have searched and searched, but I have been unable to find any evidence to confirm his assertions.
In the methodology section of the paper, Higginbotham lets himself down with some poorly-outlined procedures for the experiment. I will quote a pertinent section:
“Persuading Your Mum to sleep with me was particularly easy, easier than I
expected. I intended to buy her some drinks but she didn’t even need them. She
was incredibly eager to take me back to her apartment, where I boffed her, and I
boffed her good. Oh yeah.”
What drinks did Higginbotham intend to buy Your Mum? Where was her apartment? Alas, these details are lost to the ages, all due to Higginbotham’s lack of presence of mind to tell us.
But it is in Higginbotham’s analysis where he lets himself down the most. They don’t follow on from his experimental results, and they are written in a style that does not befit a scientific investigation of this sort. Is Your Mum really as “loose” and “crap in bed” as the good Professor asserts? How do these facts follow on from the details offered in his results section? He makes no mention of “looseness” in the results. “Dryness,” “Number of bags over the head to make her palatable” and “stench” all appear in different tables and graphs in the results section, but are not referred to again. How they related to the overall conclusions is not elucidated.
One of Higginbotham's many graphs. From this he concludes that Your Mum is both maximally stinky and promiscuous. His methods for arriving at this information are not given.
I can’t see An Empirical Enquiry into Sleeping with Your Mum setting the scientific world on fire, mostly because Professor Higginbotham seems to have forgotten everything he learned in university. It is the kind of paper one might expect from an ill-educated schoolchild, certainly not from an award-winning scientific genius. Certainly, more sleeping with Your Mum is required before we are going to be able to say anything concrete on this subject.
In closing, however, I can say with certainty that Higginbotham’s Mum is a very crap lay, as I have had her several times. I even had her last night. She loved it.
Monday, 18 February 2008
The Imaginary Peer Review
Rapathy by Dr William Routledge
The National Journal of Musical Psychiatry, Vol. 21, pp138-179
Doctor William Routledge rose to prominence in the world of musical psychiatry with the publication of his paper on Serendipitous Intra-Subjective Rhyming Triplets. In this paper, he concentrated on the words ‘fly’, ‘high’ and ‘sky’, and the effect that their usage has on the overall mental well-being of middle-aged men in luxury cars. This effect became known as “Kravitz Satisfaction” and spawned an entirely new approach to musical mental studies. Now, several years in the making, Routledge has published the results into his study of Hip-Hop Disinterest Syndrome, or, as he calls it, ‘Rapathy’.
Dr. Routledge spent many years investigating the hip-hop scene, and found a disturbingly high amount of apathy spreading throughout the genre like a plague. As he says in the paper:
The National Journal of Musical Psychiatry, Vol. 21, pp138-179
Doctor William Routledge rose to prominence in the world of musical psychiatry with the publication of his paper on Serendipitous Intra-Subjective Rhyming Triplets. In this paper, he concentrated on the words ‘fly’, ‘high’ and ‘sky’, and the effect that their usage has on the overall mental well-being of middle-aged men in luxury cars. This effect became known as “Kravitz Satisfaction” and spawned an entirely new approach to musical mental studies. Now, several years in the making, Routledge has published the results into his study of Hip-Hop Disinterest Syndrome, or, as he calls it, ‘Rapathy’.
Dr. Routledge spent many years investigating the hip-hop scene, and found a disturbingly high amount of apathy spreading throughout the genre like a plague. As he says in the paper:
At first glance, the people I saw seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their hands
were in the air, and the people were waving them to the music. But something
wasn’t right. When I inspected this hand-waving more closely, it struck me:
These people were waving their hands like they just didn’t care.
This lack of concern on the part of the dancers prompted Routledge to study it further. He traced this disinterest back to 1979, when a little-known paper on the things that delighted rappers mentioned this worrying new trend in passing: “…Throw your hands high in the air…rockin’ to the beat without a care” (Mike, Hank & Gee: Rappers Delight, 1979). This first instance of rapathy received little coverage in the press, and even when it began to spread throughout the hip-hop world in the next twenty years, the public was not informed.
Routledge believes that rapathy could, if not adequately contained, spread throughout the music world. Pop music has already seen isolated cases (Carter, Dorough, Littrell, McLean and Richardson: Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), 1997 and Stevens et al: S Club Party, 1999), and it might not be long before country, gospel and even classical music are seeing people waving their hands in the air without giving a monkey’s.
The paper is both well-written and terrifying, with Routledge backing up all of his claims with evidence, both from his own research and from the studies of others. With all of this proof, it is certainly hard to argue that Rapathy exists in the hip-hop world. But while the experimental side of Routledge’s work is sound, the conclusions regarding the apathetic hand-waving are less so.
Worrying though it may be, rapathy does not seem to have any long-lasting effects. It is yet to be proven, for example, that the condition survives beyond the dance floor. In many cases, the dispassionate hand-waving has shown signs of extinction before the end of the current song. Routledge argues that waving one’s hands in the air without caring could lead to injuries both to oneself and others, and notes cases of accidental slapping that have lead on rare occasions to disco violence (see Jackson: Blood on the Dance Floor, 1997). It should be noted, however, that these are very rare, isolated cases, and are not indicative of listless limb shaking as a whole. Furthermore, Routledge’s most extreme claim, that rapathy could theoretically lead to accidental limb removal, is pure nonsense.
Rapathy is a valid study into the startling world of passive hip-hop arm movements, but Dr. Routledge needs to concentrate more on concrete, evidenced results, rather than outlandish conjectures. Will this mirror the success of his prior papers? Possibly not. But I await the release of his forthcoming work on the certainty of possession of a loved one (entitled She’s Your Baby, But Do You Mean ‘Maybe’?). Doctor Routledge’s body of work remains strong enough to weather the inclusion of several poorly thought-out claims.
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