Festival of Fake Hypotheses Generates Real Laughs
17:16 minutes
What puts a thousand scientists in stitches? A festival of “Bad Ad hoc Hypotheses” (BAHs), convincingly argued. Ira talks with Zach Weinersmith, creator of the science-savvy webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, about creating BAHFest: a satirical festival that challenges science fans to construct real arguments for completely bogus hypotheses. Ira also hears from BAHFest participant Sarah Hird, who argues, using graphs and equations, that sleep evolved as an evolutionary mechanism for animals so they could escape their feelings of self-loathing. Plus, how good is your B(ad) S(cience) detector? Take our quiz and find out.
Segment Guests
Zach Weinersmith
Zach Weinersmith is creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, founder of BAHFest, and author of Augie and the Green Knight (Breadpig, 2015) based in Houston, Texas.
Sarah Hird
Sarah Hird is the winner of BAHFest West 2014 and a postdoctoral fellow at the UC Davis Genome Center in Davis, California.
Related Links
Meet the Producer
About Annie Minoff
@annieminoffAnnie Minoff is a producer for The Journal from Gimlet Media and the Wall Street Journal, and a former co-host and producer of Undiscovered. She also plays the banjo.