Seat of learning - studying Pippa Middleton's bottom
June 17, 2014 9:57 AM   Subscribe

Royally connected rear warranted a three-page academic paper, while the discovery of DNA's structure only got a page

A three-page study called And Bringing Up the Rear: Pippa Middleton, Her Derrière and Celebrity (PDF), written by a Birkbeck, University of London scholar, Janet McCabe, marks Britain's instant new status as top dog and intellectual driver of an entire academic field. It is, in that respect, as mentally electrifying as was a one-page study called A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (PDF), published in 1953 by a pair of then-obscure University of Cambridge scholars named James Watson and Francis Crick.
posted by KokuRyu (6 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This seems like a thin bit of satire without much to really discuss about it -- restless_nomad



 
It seems to me like the answer is "font size." Watson and Crick's paper has 14 paragraphs, while Birbeck's only has 8.
posted by muddgirl at 10:10 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


So what is the purpose of this editorial?
posted by ChuraChura at 10:10 AM on June 17, 2014


What exactly is the point of this comparison? If the length of the Watson & Crick paper is held to discredit anything longer than one page then well done, there goes pretty much all science, social science and humanities output of the last 61 years. Is it all invalid? No. Is the point that it should be? Probably not. So what is the point being made? If the author wants to say that the larger study is a load of arse, then come out and say it, but the comparison with W&C adds nothing.
posted by biffa at 10:11 AM on June 17, 2014


I'm not sure what the point is regarding the length of the articles. Yes, one of them is kinda silly. But they are in different publications. Not to mention different font sizes and layouts and economy of words.

So what is the purpose of this editorial?

"Marc Abrahams is editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prizes". He's mocking the paper.
posted by Hoopo at 10:11 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Marc Abrahams is editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prizes
I'd imagine that the entire piece was written with his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek.

I saw this today and rolled my eyes so hard I nearly lost them.
posted by billiebee at 10:14 AM on June 17, 2014


What an ass.
posted by jonmc at 10:14 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


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