Looking Out To Sea

Spoof science stories are a bit of a tradition in the BMJ for their Christmas edition. I only read the journal when I’m at Helen’s parents’ house but even I’ve managed to spot the light-hearted articles amongst the serious science.

Alas, I seem to be in the minority. The BBC, for example are reporting one man’s adventures on a unicycle as the gospel truth. This is obviously pretty sad. I wonder how soon they’ll pick up another article in this year’s Christmas edition, looking at how magical ability in the world of Harry Potter relates to genetics.

Two things strike me. First, there’s what the original article says in the BMJ. Essentially, the author took up unicycling and recorded the reactions of strangers in the street. Young males reacted aggressively towards him: either physically or verbally. Older men, women and children did not have this reaction.

The BBC reported this as “testosterone causes humour”, something which isn’t even supported by the original article. What it actually says is that testosterone causes aggression, which evolves from violence into mocking humour as people grow up. Admittedly this wasn’t the clearest part of the article, but anyone who took the slightest time to read the content rather than the conclusion would understand completely.

This is a rare insight into the process of mainstream science reporting. The science wasn’t real science, in any way. It was meant explicitly as humour. The study was made up. It seems the only person who didn’t understand this was the reporter. The author points out all the areas in which his method was deficient — but these caveats are not reported by the BBC.

Second to the BBC’s response to the original article, are other responses to the BBC. The bloggers at Feministing have taken the gist even further: “Unicycle-enthusiast professor claims men are funnier than women”. It would seem in the interests of a feminist blog to correct, rather than spread, such silly rumours. Last I read there was a small comment war going on there over whether or not it was real, and whether or not Feministing, being “only a blog” should have to examine such stories further before reporting on them.

My opinion, of course, is yes, for pity’s sake, yes. But giving the benefit of the doubt, how easy is that to do? The only source cited by the BBC is “he told the British Medical Journal”, a fleeting reference with no mention of what his submission was called, which edition you might find it in, or anything else.

• If you Google for sam shuster (no quotes) you find several things he’s written and reactions to the BBC’s story. The fourth one on the list has done a bit of research and suggests that Prof Shuster is a “wind-up merchant”. This is not the first time his writings have been outlandish and absurd, yet reported with a straight face by people who should know better.

• Searching for sam shuster bmj reveals a list of useful publications. The first result is the BMJ’s home page, which contains a link to the original article by Prof Shuster. Oh, how difficult that was.

• Looking further down the page, what do we find? The next one relevant to this story is the all-knowing Language Log, doing what it does best: pointing out that the BBC are a bunch of idiots. To quote: “The practice of running spoof stories in the BMJ Christmas issue is not exactly a secret. … Apparently, it’s an equally old tradition for the reporters and editors at BBC News to swallow such jokes hook, line and sinker.” Look to the bottom of the page for a terrifyingly comprehensive list of other people who can’t tell humour from real science.

It doesn’t take long to find the original article, which you can read in all its gently silly glory.

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