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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« A Christmas Carol | Main | DId you all catch Comer on Science Friday? »
Category: Humor
Posted on: December 7, 2007 12:13 PM, by PZ Myers
Those cats are just everywhere — now lolcats can has science. Even worse, it's dominated by geology LOLcats. Geologists are too abrasive and intrusive to have a sense of humor, and it takes ages for them to tell a joke.
I do have something to say to physics cat, though.
Here, kitty kitty. I have a box, a geiger counter, and some cyanide for you.
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Comments
Now that one made me chuckle.
Posted by: Mondo | December 7, 2007 12:18 PM
All in the name of science, right PZ?
Posted by: Jamie | December 7, 2007 12:23 PM
"Lolcats can has science"? Old news.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 7, 2007 12:28 PM
I also like this one, from a purely Popperian perspective.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 7, 2007 12:31 PM
Campbell & Reese...heh!
Posted by: Coturnix | December 7, 2007 12:38 PM
Oh, those physicists, always thinking they're better than biologists because they use math for everything.
Posted by: Chad Estep | December 7, 2007 12:45 PM
Im in ur bocks pruvin schrodinger rong
Posted by: andy | December 7, 2007 12:49 PM
I'm sorry but I just don't get all this lolcats stuff. Where did it come from? Do I have to be high to get it?
Posted by: Steve | December 7, 2007 12:56 PM
"I'm in ur box.... maybe."
Posted by: halcy | December 7, 2007 12:58 PM
All bright cats know that math isn't a science, it's a tool of science, and that sitting on a biology book is warm and comforting compared to the cold mechanical workings of a physics text. Cats only hang around physicists because they're dull,quiet, and have no friends. Cats like to sleep after all.
Posted by: MarcusA | December 7, 2007 12:58 PM
http://www.wesh.com/news/14796270/detail.html
Check it out: image of Frank Zappa appears in Florida man's X-ray.
[hat tip to Stunt Woman]
Posted by: Great White Wonder | December 7, 2007 12:59 PM
Steve #8,
It helps.
Posted by: Mike P | December 7, 2007 1:00 PM
I don't know, PZ, some of these are actually funny.
Posted by: G | December 7, 2007 1:00 PM
Easy, there, cowboy. It's just that our humor is, well, timeless. In a relative sense, anyway.
So, here's one: In one of our intro labs, the students have to identify a few fossils, including some nice casts of Isotelus (too rare to hand out complete ones). I end up pointing out that Isotelus is the official state fossil of Ohio.
After the incredulity passes ("They have a state fossil?"), I am invariably asked what is the state fossil of North Carolina. And I tell them.
Jesse Helms.
Posted by: NJ | December 7, 2007 1:16 PM
http://archaeoporn.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/lolcompass/
Posted by: thadd | December 7, 2007 1:19 PM
Future Snowball Jr.!
Posted by: Stevie_C | December 7, 2007 1:19 PM
My cat sits on my history books. But she did try to turn a paleaontology book into brail. Gee. A modern cat chewing up a book about Triassic Gorgons. Why didn't I get a photo of it?
Posted by: Billy (A Liberal Disabled Vet) | December 7, 2007 1:20 PM
Yeah, I got something to say to Physics Cat too:
"Bite me."
(not ...literally)
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 7, 2007 1:21 PM
"Geologists are too abrasive and intrusive to have a sense of humor, and it takes ages for them to tell a joke."
Wow, geology humor at Pharyngula. Will wonders never cease?
Posted by: Dave M | December 7, 2007 1:26 PM
IM IN UR BOX, PROVIN SHRODINGER WRONG.
HAHAHAHA! My dad (a geologist) saw this before me and we had a chuckle. I am addicted to LOLcats...this makes my little future abrasive and intrusive (heh heh, you are a funny man) geologist heart swell two sizes too large.
Posted by: Megan | December 7, 2007 1:39 PM
Erwin Schrodinger's wife: What have you done to the cat? It looks half dead!
Heisenberg wuz here... probably.
Posted by: Blondin | December 7, 2007 1:40 PM
Do all biologists have a math inferiority complex or is it just PZ?
Posted by: mxracer652 | December 7, 2007 1:43 PM
Now I can join the proud ranks of Pharyngula readers who have sprayed their computer monitors with their beverage of choice.
Except since I'm home sick, my beverage of choice was theraflu.
Posted by: Dee | December 7, 2007 1:47 PM
Another fun Schrodinger one...
Posted by: Jack R | December 7, 2007 1:51 PM
Don't biologists get to claim Schrodinger as one of their own? He wrote a book entitled, WHAT IS LIFE? after all.
Posted by: fardels bear | December 7, 2007 1:53 PM
I used to be friends with a physicist. He was pretty quiet, but not dull. I really have to recommend sharing certain leisure activities with people who have truly advanced knowledge of angles, trajectories, force, mass, and acceleration. :)
I love my cat, but he's no scientist. He hasn't quite got the concept of "inertia" down, yet. My evidence for that claim is the number of times he has come barrelling through the kitchen at high speed, forgetting to notice that it takes a long time to stop on a vinyl-tile floor, and has thereby run headlong into the fridge, skidding all the way. (Ooh, that's gotta hurt!)
Posted by: Interrobang | December 7, 2007 1:54 PM
I am truly going to kill that cat.
Or maybe not. Creationists might then say 'Ooooh, those evil atheist Darwinists kill cats!!1one!!1!'
Posted by: Shalini | December 7, 2007 1:54 PM
Taking pictures like this one is a favorite passtime of the geologists I've met. They like to have "before" photos to send to CNN.
Posted by: Dustin | December 7, 2007 2:07 PM
Heh. Mine sure aren't either. I have a dopey little calico cat that's having trouble understanding the bath tub isn't always empty.
Posted by: SeanH | December 7, 2007 2:13 PM
It's discrimination I tell you!
Posted by: DouglasG | December 7, 2007 2:25 PM
Hey, I'm kinda addicted to http://icanhascheezburger.com/
My nieces and I spent hours looking at them and cracking each other up.
Posted by: craig | December 7, 2007 2:35 PM
by the way, what the hell is this thing?
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/funny-monkies-helmet-hair.jpg
Posted by: craig | December 7, 2007 2:44 PM
Uh, that should be "kitteh, kitteh."
Posted by: Milo Johnson | December 7, 2007 2:44 PM
craig: looks like a juvenile tamarin of some sort.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 7, 2007 3:07 PM
If no one sees you kill the cat, is it still dead?
I can understand biologists fear of math......Squid are impossible to deal with in sphereical coordinates.
Posted by: Tony Popple | December 7, 2007 3:21 PM
She's my cat.
I captioned the picture.
I'm not a physicist, I'm currently waffling between bio and chem.
She's thrilled to be famous. :)
Posted by: Eric | December 7, 2007 3:39 PM
Dave@19: Was that really humor...? Just because all of our faults are normal...
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2007 3:54 PM
Being married to a physicist *rocks.* Thrust, momentum, capacitance, frequency response, rise time . . . oh yeah!
Posted by: nunyer | December 7, 2007 4:34 PM
Hey, PZ, I have a question. Why is it that Geology is such a great target for puns, as you pointed out in the comment? We found it easy to go on for weeks on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dryodora/1573674873/
Posted by: Jonathan | December 7, 2007 4:55 PM
diz mai squidz
Posted by: Kevin | December 7, 2007 5:04 PM
On a related note, I used this as a forum signature image for a while. ^.^
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 7, 2007 5:09 PM
Re Akyroth's sig:
Perhaps it was child abuse, but our kids used to be fond of repeating what we told them about our new kitchen counters: "Some people take them for granite, but they are really gneiss." (Though we later decided that they were actually pegmatite.)
Posted by: Theo Bromine | December 7, 2007 5:39 PM
I personally think that geology makes for really schist jokes.
Posted by: andy | December 7, 2007 6:04 PM
Yeah, at least a biologist can tell you whether the cat's dead or not.
Posted by: Epistaxis | December 7, 2007 6:22 PM
Craig (#32):
It looks like a pygmy marmoset, perhaps a baby.
One of the side effects of a double major is that you can appreciate both the geology humor and the biology humor. You can also have a variety of science stuff on your web page. Yes, some of it has to be redone because it hasn't aged gracefully, some of that stuff has been up for almost twelve years now. No comments, please.
For the record though, I really liked the mafic/intermediate/felsic cats.
Posted by: Mena | December 7, 2007 7:14 PM
Posted by: SEF | December 7, 2007 8:02 PM
Biology pwned by Physics Cat
Posted by: Richard, FCD | December 7, 2007 8:02 PM
I sent the lolcats page to my dad, a geology professor -- too many good geology ones not to! I don't know if he'll get it, but I hope he passes them on to his students, who are sure to be conversant in LOL.
Posted by: jan andrea | December 7, 2007 8:24 PM
I think someone got inspired by PZ:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/12/07/diz-mai-squidz-dun-worry-hez-cool/
Posted by: Ben | December 7, 2007 8:46 PM
A geologist friend told me that rocks were smarter than cats because when you kick a rock it has the sense to go away.
Posted by: Rick T. | December 7, 2007 8:48 PM
Hard, eh? This metaphor is dead, guys. Give it up. The double entendre (once defined by the Lampoon as 'talking dirty') just doesn't work anymore-- biology is just as difficult, and (given the number of possible string theories) maybe a lot firmer too.
Posted by: Bryson Brown | December 8, 2007 1:07 AM
one I'd like to see:
"I haz calibrate your instrument"
And, of course cdesign proponentsists always have:
"Science iz hard... goddidit ."
Posted by: DLC | December 8, 2007 5:16 AM
I had a friend who lent me his first year physics text on the explicit instructions not to alter its mint condition state.
I was doing homework and my orange cat was curled up beside the open book and snoozing while I did my exercises.
I went to the can and I came back in about two minutes. The cat was still curled up in the same position.
I sat down again and went to read from the text. The pages had been shredded about ten deep on one side.
That cat didn't like physics books, in any event. Sure was sneaky, though.
My friend laughed. He is a good shit, a physicist no less.
Posted by: mikmik | December 8, 2007 6:15 AM
Physiks cat sez...
"Biologgie iz benith me."
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | December 8, 2007 8:10 AM
It's cute when biologists pretend to understand quantum mechanics.
Posted by: Phil Plait | December 8, 2007 4:11 PM