Bully for Science!

Gentle readers, I confess that as I write to you today, my breast is swollen with pride at the ingenuity of Man. Not one hour ago, I arrived home on my velocipede after a brief sojourn at the local dram shop. Imagine my choler when I discovered my niece Eugenie, now on spring holiday from Miss Phyllida X. Catchpole’s Academy for Shallow Breathing, achortle like a madwoman in an attic at the web-window on her foldable traveling Babbage engine device! Naturally I sent the girlchild to her room so that her delicate organ of thought could recover in that environment, whose anodyne yellow wall coverings were selected especially to soothe the womb-fevered faculties. No sooner had I pocketed the room-key than my eyes grew wide as whiskey barrels at this sockdologer of an e-newsey, penned by one Ed Yong.

Now, I have long held natural philosophy scriveners to be jackanapeses and charlatans of the first water. But surely no more so than the natural philosophers themselves, who purport to instruct me in the betterment of Man. I find that taking the waters at Banff with my faithful yeoman Bruce and the occasional dose of a good arsenic tonic are all I need to maintain the manly vigor of my constitution and the punctiliousness of my daily bowel habit.

It is one thing to observe, for example, the salutary effects of sassafras on Carbunculoles of Weymouth. However, too much of natural philosophy consists in pointless exercises such as those of that long-tressed Dutchman, counting the animalcules in a drop of water. Or the endeavors of that honey-fuggler Isaac Newton, cosseted in a dark room in a plague-ridden city for weeks, poking himself in the eye with a wooden stick!

So you may ken, dear readers, that I count myself no friend of natural philosophers and their scriveners and scribblers. But this Ed Yong gentleman has knocked me into a cocked hat! Here, at long last, is some information of use to the common Man in his daily activities. And, not surprisingly, it confirms what we Thinking Gentlemen have suspected all along: the organ of cogitation contains a soft spot that renders some more vulnerable to shecoonery!

Scientists have discovered the part of the brain that makes people gullible, it was claimed today. The findings could have massive implications for treating the growing number of people who fall wide-eyed for sensationalist media reports.

And naturally, the fair sex—the Angels of the House—are softer still:

The fMRI scans also revealed that the supra-credulus was more active in the brains of women than in men. Evolutionary psychologist Stephan Koogin, who also worked on the study, thinks he knows why.

“Picture, if you will, a group of Pleistocene-Americans. The men are out hunting for mammoths and bears, and they can’t afford to be fooled by fake tracks. The women stayed at home picking berries or something, and they needed to tell each other far-fetched stories to keep each other entertained, because berries are really boring. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Assuming all of this is true, and who’s to say it isn’t, I’m right.”

Right you are indeed, sir—who's to say it isn't? These Men of Science are finally beginning to see common reason! If I had spent the entirety of my pre-history seated by some bucolic trace, gorging myself on saskatoons, I too would no doubt have lost the burliness of my critical faculties. It is no wonder that poor Eugenie laughed.

And so it is that I, a proud Skeptic, inscribe this encomium to natural philosophy and to its scrivener Ed Yong. Bully for you, Sir, and Bully for Science!

[Previous Grumblings: Benjamin H. Grumbles, Progress: Dagnabbit!, A Day in the Life of Benjamin H. Grumbles, What in the Sam Hill Are You Rascals Thinking?, Friday Cat Blogging, Damnable Milkshakery, Grumbles' Gashouse, Dash It All, McCain Is Off His Trolley, I Say, Somebody Bet on the Bob-Tailed Nag, Grumbles Writes Letters, Hosiery Is No Laughing Matter, Fear Not, Shakesvillians!, Bunsen's Balderdash!, Taint a Good Man, A Hearty Yawp of Well Wishes, The Grandest Male Organ.]