Science Askew

Stella Daily writes "When the cool kids make fun of the geeks, the results are often lacking in wit ('Hey, Four-Eyes!') or simply inaccurate. We've all heard the joke about the computer programmer who, when given the choice of transforming a frog into a beautiful princess with a kiss, declines, saying he has no need for a beautiful woman, 'but a talking frog is REALLY cool!'" Read on for the rest of Stella's brief review of Science Askew to find out whether insiders can do a better job. Science Askew: A Light-Hearted Look at the Scientific World author Donald E. Simanek and John C. Holden pages 310 publisher Institute of Physics Publishing rating 7 reviewer Stella Daily ISBN 0750307145 summary Geeks poking fun at themselves, with mixed success.

Whoever came up with that joke definitely doesn't know geeks, or he'd know that they most certainly do appreciate the opposite sex and that that programmer would have been all over the frog in a second. But when geeks make fun of themselves? Now that's something to see -- and Science Askew is a collection of just such humor. The jokes run the gamut from one-liner to extended essay, and almost every major branch of science is represented.

The great strength of Science Askew is that, unlike so many collections of humor about a particular group of people, these aren't just blonde jokes with "chemist" or "computer programmer" or "mathematician" substituted for the word "blonde." It's subject-specific humor -- and at its best, it's good for some serious belly laughs. (An example: "Never lend a geologist money. They consider a million years ago to be recent.") Most of the time, a specialized knowledge of a particular branch of science isn't necessary to get the jokes -- merely being a generalist geek is more than enough.

You'll find many old chestnuts gathered here, such as the "Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!" essay, mixed in with original material by Donald Simanek and lesser-known pieces plucked from magazines. John Holden's illustrations, which range from the brilliantly funny to the incomprehensible, are sprinkled throughout.

Why does Science Askew rate only a 7? While it's nice to have so many science jokes gathered in one place, you're likely to have heard a good number of them before -- and even if you haven't, you can find them (and many more) for free here. While there is a significant amount of original and hard-to-find material, it tends to be of lesser quality than the stuff you can find on the Web. Thus, it's hard to justify the $30 price tag. Plus, as a chemist, I can't help but be miffed that there's no section for chemistry (though there are a few chemistry jokes scattered in other parts of the book). There's an entire 23-page chapter devoted to the life and times of a single fictitious scientist, so why not a chapter for the chemists?

When geeks lampoon each other, the results can be dangerously funny. Unfortunately, as Science Askew shows, the jokes can also fall flat -- but there's enough good material inside to make it worth a look.

You can purchase Science Askew from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:two strings

[sweatyboatman]

hehehe...

note: if you too think this joke is funny, it's probably a sign that years of CS education have screwed with your sense of humor