Nature and The Simpsons

Professor Frink: You've got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.
Scientist: How much time do we have professor?
Frink: Well according to my calculations, the robots won't go berserk for at least 24 hours.
(The robots go berserk.)
Frink: Oh, I forgot to er, carry the one.

I feel like going home and hiding in the basement with a book full of acronyms from molecular biology now.

You have a BFA too?

From the interview:

One thing I always thought was funny was that in the 1890s, I believe, the state of Indiana declared that the value of pi was 22/7. I mean, it's just... the idea that you could change a mathematical concept to suit a legislative whim is nutty.

Yep, it's nutty, but nope, that's not what happened. I thought everybody knew the story by now. I mean, it's a Cecil Adams classic:

Bill #246 was initially sent to the Committee on Swamp Lands. The committee deliberated gravely on the question, decided it was not the appropriate body to consider such a measure and turned it over to the Committee on Education. The latter committee gave the bill a "pass" recommendation and sent it on to the full House, which approved it unanimously, 67 to 0.

In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. (One begins to suspect it was silly season in the Indiana legislature at the time.) It passed first reading, but that's as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill "was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics [at Purdue] who happened to be passing through." Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, "A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death. According to a local newspaper, however, "Although the bill was not acted on favorably no one who spoke against it intimated that there was anything wrong with the theories it advances. All of the Senators who spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of the proposition. It was simply regarded as not being a subject for legislation."

The ScienceBlogs spam filter won't let me link directly to the Straight Dope essay, but Google and ye shall find.

The bill in question did not establish a value of π, or at least not a unique value (and not at all directly). Instead, it concerned that classic topic of crankery, squaring the circle. The Wikipedia article looks like a decent place to start reading about it; it's not very thoroughly footnoted, but it does have external links.

Futurama had the best science jokes-- that one about observing the horse race affecting the result cracked me up.

Futurama was great, but it's hard to beat the Homer3 Treehouse of Terror:

Hibbert: Homer, this is your physician, Dr. Julius Hibbert. Can you
tell us what it's like in there?
Homer: Uh...it's like...did anyone see the movie "Tron"?
Hibbert: No.
Lisa: No.
Marge: No.
Wiggum: No.
Bart: No.
Patty: No.
Wiggum: No.
Ned: No.
Selma: No.
Frink: No.
Lovejoy: No.
Wiggum: Yes. I mean -- um, I mean, no. No, heh.
--

Frink draws a strange diagram on the wall.

Lisa: Well, where's my Dad?
Frink: Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted
individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic
topology, n'gee, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into...[the
lights go off] the third dimension.
Lisa: [turning the lights back on] Sorry.
Frink: [drawing on a blackboard] Here is an ordinary square --
Wiggum: Whoa, whoa -- slow down, egghead!
Frink: -- but suppose we exte-end the square beyond the two
dimensions of our universe (along the hypothetical Z axis,
there).
Everyone: [gasps]
Frink: This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube", or a
"Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer, n'hey, n'hey.
Homer: [disembodied] Help me! Are you helping me, or are you going
on and on?
Frink: Oh, right. And, of course, within, we find the doomed
individual.
--

Wiggum: Enough of your borax, poindexter! We need action --
[fires his gun six times through the wall]
Take that, you lousy dimension!
[the bullets fly toward Homer, but spiral around the widening
hole and get sucked into it]
Homer: Oh, there's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I'd
read that book by that wheelchair guy.
--

The Simpsons had a great episode spoofing the Scopes Trial...

Lisa: I'm so glad you could all come. I will be reading to you from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Nelson: Oh. I thought we were gonna light spiders on fire.
Dolph: (in the next room) We're over here!
---------------------------------
Miss Hoover: Class, the town has spoken. From now on we're only teaching one theory: creationism. Now please hand in your evolution books to Groundskeeper Willie while I beat this ominous drum.
---------------------
Flanders: We want you to teach alternative theories to Darwinian Evolution.
Skinner: You mean Lamarckian Evolution?
----------------
Todd: Daddy, was Mommy a monkey? I can't remember.
Ned: No one was ever a monkey! Everything is what it was and always will be! God put us here and that's that!
Todd: But you said a stork brought me.
Ned: Umm...that was God disguised as a stork.
Rod: Then who brings baby storks?
Ned: There's no such thing as storks! It's all God!
Todd: (Kneeling beside a statue of a stork) Please bless Daddy and Roddy...
Ned: Stop praying to that stork!

I feel like going home and hiding in the basement with a book full of acronyms from molecular biology now.

And I thought you did blog from your basement with a book of acronyms. I'm so disillusioned.

I'd like to say I liked everything PZ just wrote on this topic, but after the part where he mentions The Simpsons I'm afraid he just goes on and on in an obscure fashion which is above my comprehension.

Hawking: You tried to turn Springfield into a Utopia. But you ended up with a Fruitopia.

Larry Flynt is right!

I just saw the episode where Homer is taking Bart to a camp to set him straight and Bart is pleading for "happy Homer" to overcome "serious Homer" and take them to vegas instead.

Bart: Come on Happy Homer! You can overpower Serious Homer!
Homer: I have Happy Homer locked up tight

In Homer's Head:
Serious Homer: You pipe down happy homer or I'll kill you like I did intellectual Homer!

Pan over to Intellectual Homer's body, where written in blood below is "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny"

My favorite Simpsons science quote (Since we seem to have turned this into a quote thread):

The school teachers have gone on strike and Lisa has gone a bit nuts without intellectual stimulation. Marge expresses here worries about the kids...

Homer: "And how about this perpetual motion machine Lisa built? It doesn't do anything except keep going faster and faster! Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

Frink's paraphrase of Vannevar Bush is my fave:

"I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them."

As for getting Pharyngula on to a Simpsons episode, I should think it would be a slam dunk. Lisa is both a religious skeptic and advocate of knowledge, especially science. I would think this site could possibly warrant more than a mere mention... how about a cameo role?

I've always enjoyed THIS quote, from the episode where Homer decides to emulate Thomas Edison: (favorite bit bolded)

Frink: ...and these (handing books to Homer) should give you the grounding you'll need in thermodynamics, hypermathematics and of course microcalifragalistics.
Homer: Er, look, I just want to know how to invent things.
Frink: All you have to do is think of things which people need but which don't exist yet.
Homer: You mean like an electric blanket-mobile?
Frink: Www oh well, possibly. Or you could take something that already exists and find a new use for it, like...
Homer: Hamburger earmuffs.
Frink: Mmm well, I suppose that would qualify.
Homer: Thanks sucker. (Homer throws the books and runs off)
Frink: Weh, uh, alright just stay calm Frinky. (reveals his own hamburger earmuffs) These babies will be in the stores while he's still grappling with the pickle matrix bhay-gn-flay-vn.

(via the estimable SNPP)

One of my favorites is when the family is at the dinner table. There is a question about god, and Homer says, "He is omnivorous".

I'm so pleased to see that Nature is publishing an insightful article on a cartoon show instead of that paper I submitted to them... (Sorry, not a Simpsons fan...)

Not exactly a science quote, but it has the word, scientist:

Marge: Homer, there's a man here who thinks he can help you!
Homer: Batman?
Marge: No, he's a scientist.
Homer: Batman's a scientist.
Marge: It's not Batman!

Homer: Hey, Flanders! Heading for church? Well I thought I could save you a little time.
Ned: Ooh, found a new shortcut?
Homer: Better. I was working on a flat tax proposal and I accidentally proved there's no god. (hands Flanders a sheet of equations and formulae)
Ned: We'll just see about tha... uh-oh. Well... maybe he made a mistake... nope, it's airtight. Can't let this little doozy get out! (sets fire to equations)

What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people's stereotyping!

Now, just off to put my hair in a bun...where did I put my horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes? Shhhh...

Very few scientists have Asperger's Syndrome. This is just stereotyping.

Christ, try being a sociologist, surrounded by people who study social life because they can't participate in it! (and we're not, as a group, very pretty people.)

What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people's stereotyping!

Try being a MALE librarian... That is even worse. To top it off I'm a Russian Studies/Middle East Studies Specialist so I'm also supposedly a Communist and a Islamist... I think I'm about this || close to taking over Bin Laden's spot on the most wanted list.

But...but...how can you be a cranky spinster AND a male?? Gee, K. Engels, you really do mess with minds.

My favourite reaction to people finding out I'm a librarian is: "You must love reading." Um, yes, but...never mind.

Do scientists get particularly ignorant questions/comments when they tell people what they do?

Interesting story. Just wanted to let you know about my new book:

What's Science Ever Done For Us? What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life and the Universe..

Do scientists get particularly ignorant questions/comments when they tell people what they do?

Well, I tell them I'm a statistician. Then they automatically think I'm lying.

Bob

Wow! A footnote to a footnote. You made my day, PZ.

Angie wrote:

What are you scientists complaining about? Try being a librarian and enduring people's stereotyping!

Now, just off to put my hair in a bun...where did I put my horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes? Shhhh...

I never wore my hair in a bun but the horn-rimmed glasses and sensible shoes were standard issue, I thought, but so what...?

Evelyn: Look, I--I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell! But I am proud of what I am!

Rick O'Connell: And what is that?

Evelyn: I am . . . a LIBRARIAN!

-The Mummy

Lisa is both a religious skeptic and advocate of knowledge, especially science.

Isn't she a Buddhist? Or is she one of those "Buddhism as the first step on the path to atheism" types?

Either way, Lisa rules.

Well, I tell them I'm a statistician. Then they automatically think I'm lying.

Another Simpsons quote (referencing the Space Shuttle):

Tom: Now let's look at the crew a little.

Man 2: They're a colorful bunch. They've been dubbed "the Three Musketeers". Heh heh heh --

Tom: And we laugh legitimately. There's a mathematician, a different kind of mathematician, and a statistician.

Yeah...I totally didn't get the death of intellectual Homer and his message in blood until I took biology in university. You have no idea what kind of moment that was for me: Eureka!

Then I went and read up on Haeckel and got all depressed :(.

Well, Richard Dawkins has been on South Park.

The Simpsons has done a calculus joke, which must take some courage ...