You’ve got an ‘ology’!? You’re a scientist

The silly season is a great time for pseudo scientists and those towards the fringe of respected academia. It’s a perfect opportunity to gain some publicity.

Don’t believe me? Keep track of the number of times you see the words “according to scientists” (in the quality press) and “according to boffins” (in the tabs) over the coming weeks.

And much of it can be filed under “science of the bleeding obvious”.

For example, have you heard the one about the cats who purr and meow when they’re expecting to be fed…?

“Dr Karen McComb, a specialist in mammal vocal communication at the University of Sussex, said that by employing an embedded cry, cats appear to be exploiting innate tendencies that humans have for nurturing offspring.

“McComb began the research into domestic cats after noticing the "manipulative" purring of her own cat, Pepo. "I wondered why this purring sounded so annoying and was so difficult to ignore," she said. "Talking with other cat owners, I found that some of them also had cats which showed similar behaviour."

That’s research for you! Picture the scene if you will...

Scientist: “My cat sort of purrs and meows when it’s expecting to be fed.”
Cat owner: “Get out of town! Mine does as well!’

Job done.

And then there was the slightly fortuitous juxtaposition of two stories on page 2 of today's Telegraph. Below a story about the 'Woeful' level of science being taught in our schools was an article claiming:

Researchers have found that using the travelator at airports, especially at busy times, can actually slow you down because people reduce their walking pace on the human conveyor belts and cause blockages.

You don't say? It may well be true, but is there really anybody who didn't already know that, having experienced first hand the frustration of a roadblock on the travelator, as corpulent fellow travelers let the machine take the strain. The article continues:

Dr Seth Young, of Ohio State University [said]: "Moving walkways are the only form of transportation that actually slow people down."

Dr Young has clearly never been on a narrowboat holiday. Or in a hot air balloon on a particularly still day. Or sat in traffic in central London, being overtaken on all sides by cyclists and pedestrians. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a trite story.

As the silly season deepens this kind of pseudo science-for-science's sake and the science of the bleeding obvious will gain greater publicity. Why, when we learn nothing from reading such articles do they get included? Because it fills a quarter of a page.

Good news for PR people of course.