Simon Singh and his Comedy Writing Secrets · 6:19pm Oct 18th, 2014
The Great and Polymathic Simon Singh is currently on something of a publicity drive to promote his book 'The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets' (just published in paperback). He was lecturing in my city a week or so ago, which being such a math-science-and-animation addict, I would have gone to, except I was out of town that day. But the details are on countless YouTube videos and blogs.
Got to credit this author. Writing about mathematics and cartoons is one thing. But reaching the mass audience which he does, needs more than a little magic.
I thoroughly recommend the book. It is a very readable compilation of mathematical anecdotes, interspersed by some nerdy jokes, and also gives a lot of insight into how the script for the show is written, the academic background of the writers, and how so many mathematical freeze-frame gags ended up in the show.
I was interested in his discussion of the similarities between writing comedy and doing mathematics. I can certainly relate to this. He quotes David X. Cohen on this, "The process of proving something has some similarity with the process of comedy writing, inasmuch as there's no guarantee you're going to get to your ending. When you're trying to think of a joke out of thin air (that also is on a certain subject or tells a certain story), there's no guarantee that there exists a joke that accomplishes all the things you're trying to do… and is funny. Similarly, if you're trying to prove something mathematically, it's possible that no proof exists. And it's certainly very possible that no proof exists that a person can wrap their mind around. In both cases – finding a joke or proving a theorem – intuition tells you if your time is being invested in a profitable area."
Do mathematically qualified writers do the best comedy? It depends on your sense of humour, but in many cases, they do. An important aspect of mathematical or scientific research—and indeed all creative processes—is playing with ideas, learning how things work, and searching for something which fits. Just like we play with toy ponies, either in the literal sense of a young child, or the more literary sense which we follow on FIMFiction.
Sorry about being late to this party, but I had an hectic few days.
You forgot to mention that he also fights SCAM-Based medicine (Supplemental Complementary Alternative Medicine). He printed a true well-researched article pointing out that cracking backs cannot cure cancer. The chiropractors sued him. Given that he had the truth on his side, he won.
In my country, we have a mixture of SCAM-Based Medicine, Science-Based Medicine, and Fee-Based* Medicine.
* Doctors collect fees for procedures, so push expensive unnecessary procedures.As an example, lying doctors claim that poor defenseless babies have to have their genitals sexually mutilated because reasons. This is a pure cash-grab which leaves sexually maimed babies.
I would prefer single-payer with only Science-based Medicine, with no extra pay for procedure; but instead however, pay on outcomes (the better one's patients do relative to similar patients, the more pay the doctor gets, and the inverse too). I need an example:
All doctors have to use only science-based medicine. No Doctor receives extra pay for performing procedures. The average pay is 100 Kilo-U$D/Year.
We have 2 general practitioners with 500 patients each. These patients range in age from 20 to 65. The average age is 45. The patients were assigned to the doctors randomly.
The patients of Doctor A do better than average, so Doctor A gets 200 KiloU$D/Year.
The patients of Doctor B do poorly, so Doctor B gets only 50 KiloU$D/Year.
I wish that Simon Singh would come over here and go after our SCAMers and Feers.
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Very true. He has done a lot of excellent work educating people about all sorts of bogus medical practices, as well as fighting for reform of the flawed English libel laws.
With hindsight maybe my referring to him like
was rather inappropriate, given that he is the one challenging the likes of Psychic Sally. I just tend to think of all media scientists as showmen. My mistake.