Science jokes are funny, right? Right? · 9:25pm Apr 19th, 2013
I had an assignment in my Biology class a few weeks back, requiring me to write a short story.
The premise for the story is that I am host a dinner party with a group of people who contributed to the development of the theory of evolution.
I, being incapable of taking anything seriously for longer than a few days, decided to take the opportunity to make a few jokes at the expense of some dead scientists.
If you're familiar with the work of these various men, and how they contributed to the Theory's development, then you might pick up on the jokes.
Please note, I'm not intending to start a fight on Evolution vs. Creationism, so please, don't start one. This is just supposed to be funny, so let's not kill the joke by starting a fight.
That said, without further ado, the atrocity that is my Biology work.
You Maniacs! You blew it up!
I know what you’re thinking, and I promise I can explain. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the mess, destruction, and the body. Lyell is only unconscious, for the record. It all began a few hours ago.
My guests had just begun arriving. This was going to be the best evolutionary dinner ever. Carolus Linnaeus was the first to arrive. He was in perfect observance of the dress code, and was precisely on time.
“Linnaeus, my old friend!” I cried upon opening the door. “How are you? What brings you here so early?”
“I’m doing perfectly fine, thank you. I first showered for 23.5 minutes. I then put on my dress shirt, followed closely by my black tie, and lastly a suit jacket. I then walked 3 blocks East of my house to the nearest pay phone, where I paid $0.65 to call a Taxi cab. The Car arrived at my house 15.6 minutes later, whereupon I paid the driver $5.45 to take me to your house. The drive took 12.4 minutes wherein I inquired into the driver’s opinion of the recent whether, and he declined to respond.” He responded.
“But Linnaeus,” asked I, marveling at the accuracy of his observations “surely you must have some reason to be here at my home half an hour before dinner is supposed to start!”
“I see no point in speculating into god’s reasoning behind the things he makes manifest, whether in the fauna and flora, or in my early arrival.”
At this point in our discussion, I heard my doorbell ring again. Confused as to who it may be, as guests were not intended to arrive for another twenty minutes, I left Linnaeus to go to my door. To my surprise, I found Gregor Mendel behind it.
“Gregor! How are you? How was the flight from Germany?”
“It I found it displeasing.” Mendel responded. “The airplane had no food but cheese, I sat next to a dog with fleas, and the ticket required ridiculous fees.” I offered my sympathy to Mendel, but he waved me away saying “It’s no fault of yours. My father and my maternal grandfather both had misfortune through the entirety of their lives. I seem to have inherited their bad luck. I suppose I had a fifty-fifty shot of it from the beginning.”
“Well, I’ll see to it that no misfortune befalls you here tonight my friend.” I replied enthusiastically.
“Thank yo-“ Mendel began, but was soon interrupted by a third ring of the doorbell, calling me away. As I came to the door, I checked my watch. There was still fifteen minutes left before people were supposed to be arriving.
“Hello and welcome to my humble abode.” I said graciously, opening the door to none other than Charles Lyell.
“Thank. You.” He replied at a speed best described as somewhere between glacial and stationary.
“What bring you here early?” I inquired. “Do you have a reason, as nobody else seems to.”
“I. Saw. A. Trend. Occurring. And. The. Patterns. That Have. Shaped. Our. World. Are. Still. Ongoing.” Lyell offered by way of explanation.
“But Charles,” I exclaimed “ My dinner party isn’t some huge world changing event! It’s just a small cordial get together of friends and collegues!”
“But. The. Small. Changes. Add. Over. Time. To. Create. The. Environment. We. See. Today.” Lyell offered in rebuttal.
I had hardly shown Lyell to his seat at the table when the doorbell called me away from my guests once more. Beginning to fume at my courteously early guests, I forced a smile as I opened the door to James Hutton.
“James. How nice to see you here.” I tersely offered. “What brings you here so early?”
“Simple selection my dear guest!” He exclaimed. “Already the fastest guests have begun to arrive. The slower guests will arrive too late, and find the available food depleted by those faster, or in my case, smarter than them. So I naturally came early so as to ensure the safety of my portion of the food!”
“Ingenious,” I deadpanned, “especially given my invitation, where it very clearly states that I’m not serving dinner until 7 ‘o clock. It will probably be later now, as I keep getting called to the door, and have been unable to even begin getting diner into the oven.”
“No need to snap at me,” Hutton pouted “No need to artificially select me as the target of your wrath.”
“You’re right,” I apologized, “It isn’t your fault that .571 of my guests have arrived early.”
“It would appear then, that our population is evolving!” A voice exclaimed.
“You had better make that make that .857 of your guests!” called another.
I turned to my driveway and saw none other than my good friends Godfrey Hardy and Wilhelm Weinberg walking towards me. “Wilhelm! Godfrey! How are you today?” I called in greeting.
“Very well, thank you” Replied Hardy, at the exact moment that Weinberg claimed that he “Could be better, thank you for asking.”
“Well, which is it” I asked, confused.
“It’s both simultaneously.” Weinberg replied.
“You see my dear boy, in our population, we find that we have a .5 chance of being well. This means that we must also have a .5 chance of being unwell, assuming that nothing has occurred to significantly change our population or environment. Therefore, given the two of us, one of us will be well, and the other unwell.” Hardy explained.
“We’ve therefor found that it simply saves time worrying about which of us is well and which is unwell, and in all situations, I will respond that I’m unwell, and Godfrey will respond that he is well. That way the math works out, and we avoid confusion.” Weinberg happily elaborated.
“I… See?” I responded, not entirely sure I understood the concept.
“It’ll all make sense in time my dear boy. Just don’t change what you’re doing, or everything stops working.”
“But ha absolutely can’t! That’s the point of it all!” a final voice called out. I looked around and found myself face to face with my guest of honor, Charles Darwin.
“Charles! How good to see you! I’m glad you could make it!” I exclaimed.
“What’s this you said about not possible?” Hardy asked, dangerously quiet.
“It’s the laws of nature boy! Every population is constantly changing! If our population has to be stagnant for your theory to be useful, then it’s of no use to begin with! Nature selects those who are unable to adapt for extinction!” Darwin laughed.
“Take that back!” Weinberg exclaimed.
“Or what? You’ll calculate my allelic frequencies? Most alleles don’t exist in either or relationships!” Darwin taunted.
With a cry, Hardy and Weinberg leapt at Darwin, tackling him to the ground, ad Hutton and I looked on in horror. Hardy had Darwin in a headlock, as Darwin pinned Weinberg to the ground, struggling uselessly against the British naturalist’s superior strength.
The others ran outside, hearing the commotion. “It’s no use trying to fight him!” Mendel cried “All his ancestors were born extremely strong! They’ve passed that onto him!
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Linnaeus scribbling detailed notes on his napkin, likely to give exact recounts later on.
“Survival of the fittest! I’m a whole different species from you! ” Darwin taunted the pair of Mathematicians.
“Whole different species? You’ve nothing but a Beagle!” Retorted Weinberg, as Lyell slowly but surely pulled Darwin off of Weinberg. Things almost looked in hand until a flying elbow from Darwin hit Lyell in the face. Lyell blinked for a moment, then with geologic slowness, crumpled to the ground. Everybody present froze. We could all hear sirens in the distance. Everybody looked at each other, and then bolted, leaving me among a mess of trampled flowers in my garden, broken lawn gnomes, and an unconscious geologist.
Hearing the commotion, my neighbor John Scopes came over to see if everything was alright.
“Goodness, what happened ‽” He exclaimed as he saw me among the mess.
“I just wanted to get people together to talk about evolution! It was going to be a lovely dinner Party!” I cried by way of explanation.
“There’s you’re problem right there!” He replied. “Learn from my mistakes, you can’t talk about evolution without everybody acting like the monkey’s they deny being descended from!”
Laughing so hard right now.
Interrobang. I love you.