Confessions of a Scientific Humorist
by James V. McConnell
I can recall attending a meeting at Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England.
(the one in England)
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.
in 1964 at which I presented what seemed to me to be rather conclusive evidence that memories could be transferred chemically from one planarian to another. Afterwards, over the inevitable soggy cookies and warm, flavoured water (the British national drink just isn’t my cup of tea), I was taken to task by a noted Scientist who informed me flatly that he would refuse to consider seriously anything published in a scientific cartoonbook. When I asked him which of the British journals he had reference to, he almost dropped his cookie. I can also remember when a good friend of mine took me aside one day to tell me how much damage I was doing to my reputation by printing the Digest. He was really quite worried about the matter.
My God, he said, if you keep publishing articles in that thing, people may actually want to cite them some time, and then where will you be? You ought to change the name, throw out all that socalled funny stuff, and make it a respectable journal.
I also treasure a letter I received from a world-famous zoologist who demanded, that we remove her name from our subscription list, because we were misleading students into, thinking that Science could be fun! Now, in all these cases, the person doing the criticizing was a bona fide, expert scientist as well as Scientist. They were quite sincere in their comments, offered them up for my own betterment. I respect their scientific work, but I do feel rather sorry that so much of what is great and glorious and meaningful about science seems to have slipped through their fingers.The kind of intropunitive wit that is the hallmark of the Digest can thrive only when its author is fairly secure emotionally and intellectually. People who neither understand nor appreciate humour are probably threatened by those of us who do. We speak a language they don’t understand, we react to the world around us in ways that are foreign and disturbing to them. Most of them have based their entire approach to life on the premise that seriousness is next to godliness. Those of us who see the occasional folly and ignorance of most of our (and their) behaviour often react by cracking a joke. Humour, particularly that directed against ourselves, keeps us humble in the face of our own too-well-perceived incompetence. The totally serious person fears this kind of insightful perception into his own behaviour patterns and fears humour because he cannot afford to be humble. And now perhaps you see the Digest for what it really is: the house organ of an anti-Scientific movement. It is my firm conviction that most of what is wrong with Science these days can be traced to the fact that Scientists are willing to make objective and dispassionate studies of any. natural phenomena at all—except their own scientific behaviour. We know considerably more about flatworms than we do about people who study flatworms. The Establishment never questions its own motives; the true humorist always does. It is my strong hope that if we can get the younger generation to the point of being able to laugh at itself, then and only then can we hope to turn Science back into science.
WORM RUNNER’S DIGEST
TABLE OF CONTENT
Volume 20 Issue 1
Published Jul 1, 1978
- James V. McConnell. Worms & Things.
- Jack Demarest & George Pinckney. Discriminated Avoidance Behavior in an Aquatic Shuttle Box in Goldfish (Carassius auratus.)
- L. James Shapiro & Kerry L. Garretson. Avian Attachment Behavior: An Extension of Cairns’s Theory of Mammalian Social Attachments.
- James V. McConnell. Biorhytms: A Report & Analysis.
- Howard H. Hughes & Mark P. Goldman. An Animal Analogue for Behavior Therapy: Establishing a CS Hierarchy to a Conditioned Avoidance Response.
- William R. Miller. A Note on Turtle Motivation.
- David V. Forrest. Looking Vela X in the Eye.
- Carl Lindegren. A Comprehensive Theory of Heredity, Development, & Evolution: An Abstract.
- Armando Simon. A Theoretical Approach to the Classical Conditioning of Botanical Subjects.
- Thomas W. Bulmer. Does the Brain Function as a Glandural Organ?
- harles C. Cleland. Vertebrate Social Organization, Edwin M. Banks (Ed.)
- Joel Greenspoon. Luria’s Neuropsychological Investigation, Anne-Lise Christensen.
- M. Steiner. Current Developments in Psychopharmacology, Vol. 2, W. B. Essman & L. Valzelli (Eds.)
- William V. Rago, Jr. Human Emotions, Carroll E. Izard.
- R. J. Katz. Celullar Basis of Behavior, E. R. Kandel.
- Robert N. Rothstein. Cognitive-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach, Donald Meichenbaum.
- Charles C. Cleland. Issues in Child Mental Health: A Journal of Psychosocial Process (Vol. 5, No. 1), Donald I. Meyers (Ed.)
- Terence Hines. The Neuropsychology of Language, R. W. Rieber (Ed.)
- Al Edson. Assert Yourself: How to Be Your Own Person, Merna Dee Galassi & John P. Galassi.
- Mary T. Parker. Pupillometry: The Psychology of the Pupillary Response, Michel Pierre Janisse.
- John Walkenbach. Mind & Tissue: Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain, Ray Peat.
- Gregory S. Pokrywka. Cycles of Essential Elements, Lawrence R. Pomeroy (Ed.)
- Daniel W. Leger. The Behavior of Communicating: An Ethological Approach, W. John Smith.
- Beth Schneider. Pain: New Perspectives in Therapy & Research, Matisyohu Weisenberg & Bernard Tursky (Eds.)
- Jon D. Swartz. Handbook of Modern Personality Theory, Raymond B. Cattell & Ralph Mason Dreger (Eds.); Current Personality Theories, Raymond J. Corsini (Ed.); Theories of Personality, Third Edition, Calvin Hall & Gardner Lindzey; Theories of Personality, Richard M. Ryckman.
Volume 20 Issue 2
Published Dec 1, 1978
- James V. McConnell. Worms & Things.
- L. James Shapiro. The Avian Behavior Laboratory: A Laboratory for Waterfowl Research.
- James W. Kalat. Psychological Analyses of Brain Damage Cases.
- Sig-Linda Jacobson & J. Eric Holmes. Is Dex a Factor in Seasonal Variation in Goldfish Learning?
- Mary Lou Cheal. Stimulus-Elicited Investigation in the Mongolian Gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus.)
- J. Kirkland & J. Smith. Preferences for Infant Pictures with Modified Eye-Pupils.
- Robert N. Hughes. Effects of Blinding, Antennectomy, Food Deprivation & Simulated Natural Condintions on Alternation in Woodlice (Porcellio scaber.)
- Robert J. Kirkby, David S. Bell, & Allan S. Tollow. An Apparatus to Measure Activity in the Laboratory Rat.
- Richard E. Carney. Reaction of Planarians After Cannibalization of Planarians Exposed to Four Stimulus Combinations.
- Ahmed D. Faheem. Long-Term Care of Older People: A Practical Guide, Elaine M. Brody.
- Gary F. Meunier & Mary Beth Helwig. Psychophysics: Method & Theory, George A. Gescheider.
- Joel Kirschbaum. Thiamine, Clark J. Gubler, Montonori Fujiwara, & Pierre M. Dreyfus (Eds.)
- Arturo Biblarz. Anxieties, Phobias & Fears, Samuel Kahn.
- Richard J. Katz. Neuropeptide Influence on the Brain & Behavior: Advanced in Biochemical Psychopharmacology, Vol. 17, Lyle H. Miller, Curt A. Sandman, & Abba J. Kastin (Eds.)
- Thomas L. Dynneson. Freedom to Dee: Moral & Legal Aspects of Euthan Euthanasia (revised edition), O. Ruth Russell.
- Charles C. Cleland. The Origins & Course of Psychopathology: Methods of Longitudinal Research, John S. Strauss, Haroutun M. Babigian, & Merrill Roff (Eds.)
