Science is an infamously dry endeavour. The noble practice seeks to answer humanity’s most inscrutable questions. How did life begin? What is consciousness? Why does naming cows increase their milk yield? Within this austere framework, there is little room for levity. I think most scientists would agree there is nothing funny about bottom quarks, nor the five-membered organoarsenic compound known as arsole.
So I wasn’t surprised by the findings of a recent peer-reviewed paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
that surveyed the use of humour across 531 scientific talks at 14 academic conferences. Stefano Mammola, from the Italian National Research Council, and colleagues found that on average scientists delivered only 1.6 jokes per presentation, of which 66% generated “only polite chuckles”. Science and comedy, it seems, don’t mix.
The findings confirm research that I conducted more than 20 years ago. Under the guise of the Comedy Research Project, Timandra Harkness and I performed a randomised clinical trial to assess whether or not science can be funny.
In identical rooms in front of audiences, two researchers were given a microphone. One of them, the “experimental” scientist, gave a talk with jokes, while the “control” scientist gave a talk without jokes. To ensure academic rigour, the study was double-blinded. This meant that no one, not even the scientists, knew if they were cracking gags or not. We found that, in both conditions, laughter levels failed to reach statistical significance.
At the time, our unpublished, peerless-reviewed data was a blow, because it followed arguably the finest period for pairing science and comedy. In the 1980s and 90s, emerging technology paved the way for the discovery of many new genes. Scientists were given free rein to name them and, for a short while at least, some dropped their guard.
There was “cheapdate”, the gene that affects alcohol tolerance in fruit flies, or “indy” (short for “I’m not dead yet”), which affects life span. My personal favourite was the “ken and barbie” gene, which prevents the development of external genitalia. Good times rolled, until the fun police came calling.
In the early 2000s, the Human Genome Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee recommended scientists stop using names of this ilk. Kids didn’t want to hear that “sonic hedgehog”
had mutated. Nor did adults want to know that their “I’m not dead yet”
gene was faulty. Scientific whimsy was extinguished like a flame.
I think it’s a shame that there’s not more humour in science. From the food we eat and the cities we build to the vehicles we make and the medicines we take, science affects us all. Non-scientists should be able to engage with research without being bamboozled or bored. It is the job of scientists not only to perform their studies, but to communicate them clearly to their peers and beyond. Comedy can help with this.
Academics have studied what happens when scientists do manage to successfully incorporate wit. A 2025 study called Wit Meets Wisdom found humour can boost credibility and likability. Researchers are also seen as more trustworthy and their findings are less likely to be disputed. In an era in which political hubris and greed vie to undermine the scientific consensus on key issues such as the climate crisis and vaccination, every morsel of evidence-based science communication counts. If a well-timed one-liner helps this information to be received, so much the better.
Comedy brings people together. It can build cohesion and foster a sense of shared perspective. Things that are amusing are also more likely to be remembered. So researchers can choose to beat people around the head with a copy of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and hope the information enters by osmosis, or they can have a little fun.
I’m not saying all research should be converted into standup comedy. Instead, I’m suggesting that sometimes scientists should ditch the stiff upper lip and adopt a more playful tone. Most people don’t want to be lectured. They prefer to be entertained.
In my job as a science communicator and trainer, I do this whenever I can. I once devised a sausage-related scale to measure the size of the hedgehog-like tenrec, and conducted a thought experiment to see if Elvis could be cloned with a lock of his hair bought from eBay.
So, to the researchers at Mammola’s conferences who tried and failed to land their jokes, I say: don’t give up the day job, but do keep cracking gags. And to the scientists who published a paper in the premier journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, titled Unusual Substitution in an Arsole Ring, I say: there’s absolutely nothing funny about that.
