Following LIGO’s confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves, a fundamental prediction of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, scientists announced Monday that a detailed survey of the resulting conversation has provided evidence for another of Einstein’s famous predictions: that science is profoundly confusing. “The data is fairly conclusive,” said Jim Thorne, the study’s lead researcher. “From observing the vague and often inaccurate conversations people have been having about the recent gravitational wave discovery, we can definitively say that Einstein was right: science is a highly intricate field that most people are not qualified to talk about.”
The breakthrough, Thorne revealed, has been in the making for several weeks. “We’d been noticing unusually high levels of hand-wavy explanations, vast generalizations, and secondhand metaphors for gravitational waves since LIGO’s announcement came out in early February. It seemed inevitable that we would find evidence supporting Einstein’s theory that most people are not that well versed in scientific rigor and that those things are generally best left to the experts.”
According to Thorne, the research team’s big break came when their probe detected a Sophomore engineering major giving an impromptu and, as far as they could tell, unsolicited explanation of gravitational waves to some nearby acquaintances. “We were worried at first when the student correctly recalled hearing that gravitational waves ‘have something to do with relativity.’ But when the conversation strayed towards specific details of spacetime distortion, which the student compared to ‘what happens when you have, like, a bunch of kids dribbling basketballs on a trampoline,’ he clearly began to lose his footing, exactly as Einstein predicted would be the case. We were pouring ourselves champagne before he had even finished mischaracterizing the implications of LIGO’s discovery for future cosmological research.”
Thorne went on to insist that the results of Einstein’s so-called Theory of Intractability could soon be extended to mathematics, economics, postmodern literary theory, and other fields that people “mostly don’t know shit about.” “Right now we only have the data to show the average person is too confused and misinformed to discuss science in a passable manner. But in a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found that global politics, constitutional law, and a host of other subjects lie well outside of a non-expert’s grasp.” At press time, Thorne was seen nodding and eagerly jotting down notes as his colleagues began talking about quantum teleportation based solely on the information they had received from a cursory reading of the concept’s Wikipedia page.
–MA ’19