Monday 31 August 2009

How the professor got his tenure

From the annals of the That's Too Much Like Hard Work Department:
  • According to Johan Moan, of the Institute of Physics at the University of Oslo, white people evolved only 5500 years ago. His argument for this remarkably recent event is that farmed food is deficient in vitamin D, which darker skin produces from sunlight less efficiently than white.
  • Meanwhile, an article in Psychology Review claims that depression came about to help people concentrate.
  • And Oren Hasson at Tel Aviv University asserts that people cry because it's a sign of submission or some such.
Good Lord, this is a lazy bunch. Could someone tell me at what point evolutionary science threw out the science bit and devolved (sorry) into a collection of Just So stories that don't need anything as trivial as experimental proof?

2 comments:

Sergej said...

Good news is, I get weirder ideas than those free with my breakfast cereal, so if they're handing out tenure for this drivel I can be set with an office and a tweed jacket (with elbow patches!) whenever I want. Bad news is, I'd have to hang around with people like these at the department.

Unknown said...

Has anyone seen "Idiocracy?" Tell me if you think thats not where we're headed. They're taking over...