Vol. 18 - I don't like funny papers
The only fun scientific paper was written in 1981 by Isidore Nabi. It's been all downhill from here.
I do not like ”funny” scientific papers.
What is a funny scientific paper, you might ask? To generalize, it is something that looks like a scientific paper, is maybe published in a journal, but whose sole point is to make your buddies laugh.
And I do not like that. At all.
There are three simple reasons for this.
First, I am pretty curmudgeonly. We’ll get back to this later.
Second, these are usually not funny (to me). I don’t want to point to specific examples because it is the least constructive thing to do — so do not expect to find any link to papers like this, it is by design not included.
At best, when I read these papers, I think “right…”, close the PDF, and move on. At worst, I pause mid-sentence and wonder how much important work should have been achieved instead of writing this paper.
The overwhelming majority of these papers feel contrived. They were designed to be funny in a way that evokes the darkest days of the 2000s “random” online humor. As a result, a lot of these papers are often a very specific type of funny: they are wacky.
And maybe it’s just me, but I find wacky insufferable. We’ll get back to this later.
Third, these are usually not papers. There is rarely any scholarship in a funny paper. They are funny first, and papers last. Publishing is the criteria according to which we are all evaluated. That some authors can feel comfortable enough to turn this process into a joke, while a vast majority of our colleagues experience constant discrimination when publishing, is not a good look for anyone.
And yet, Can scientific papers be funny? Absolutely. Take Isidore Nabi’s 1981 letter to Nature, for example. I have always found it to be hilarious because it also has a purpose. The purpose of this paper was to refuse to cede a single inch of ground to noted eugenicists and racists, and to do so using their tools (leveraging their scientific status to publish in the opinion section of reputable journals).
This paper is brilliant because it achieves what so many “funny” papers fail to do: it deals uncompromisingly with a serious situation, but without being self-serious.
And this is where I want to wrap up a few points. Having fun as part of the scientific process is important. Depending on the research we do, it’s a coping mechanism. But the work we do matters, and we need to navigate taking the work seriously v. not taking ourselves seriously. Most wacky papers do the opposite. This cheapens the value of papers, and risks hurting our credibility.
Part of my curmudgeonly attitude about publishing unserious papers is that I want our collective work to matter. The way we put this work out into the world is through publishing, and we must be irreproachable when we do so. There are many other channels of communication to be unserious, and there is value in approaching our scholarly work with some respect.
And with all that said, stay tuned for Vol. 19 next week, for some musings about teaching students (and undergraduates in particular) how to read papers.