Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} You're A Scientist! by Phil Edwards Interview: A 'Fake Science' Lesson With Phil Edwards. Through his Twitter feed and Tumblr, Phil Edwards is devoted to making the world around us less understandable, and more confusing. That's because he's the world's foremost expert in "Fake Science." With a new book hitting stands this month, we chatted with the Not-Doctor about how to get into the field, what subjects are off limits for Fake Science, and more: MTV Geek: Many kids start out with a feigned interest in fake science, but what kept you going through the years? Phil Edwards: With real science, if you fail to do your homework you fall behind. With fake science, you actually get better the less you do. It took a steady schedule of procrastination, napping, and looking at the ceiling to develop my fake knowledge. Geek: Where did you study fake science? And how difficult these days is it to get funding at a Pretend Science Lab? PE: Academically, my fake science is heavily influenced by classic cartoons, a misunderstanding of ancient myths, and a lot of yawning. Subconsciously, there might be a little "Calvin and Hobbes" thrown in as well. Geek: Seriously though, folks, what led to the creation of "Fake Science?" And what has the response been like? PE: I started "Fake Science" because a friend and I would walk around and just shout "Science" at any phenomena we didn't understand. The world is more confusing than ever, so I felt there was a market to understand it without the burden of facts. The response has been generally positive, though I still have people who think even my dumbest fake science facts are real. I worry about them. Geek: Have you had any interaction with non-fake scientists? And if so, what was their reaction? PE: I have! They scowl a little, especially when they realize I'm more well-versed in ancient tapestries than physics. Usually, however, they'll supply a joke that's more accurately absurd than anything I could come up with. Geek: In a sense, you probably have to know a lot about actual science in order to create fake science, right? PE: The pleasure of doing the site has been to think about, research, and learn science at a very basic level. The book has a chapter about Physics, and if you want to make jokes about that, you have to do a little legwork. String theory is crazy enough on its own, so I had to make sure I was getting the fake facts right. Geek: Do you have a favorite bit from the book? Anything that got cut for being TOO fake? PE: I didn't put this in the book, but the instinct of any bourgeoning fake scientist is to explain everything with "tiny people." The first or second week of the website, I couldn't use that any more. For me, the first and last chapters are the best. Called "What is Science?" and "You're A Scientist!", they satirize history, academia, the media, and other institutions that I'm all-too-familiar with. Geek: What about going forward? What fields of fake science deserve more exploration? PE: I'd say theoretical physics and dinosaurs are fertile ground for fake scientific studies. After all, the only thing you need to connect the two is a working time machine. Phil Edwards. Archive for the ‘ Mad Scientist ’ Tag. Mad Scientist Monster Flesh and Living Ice Monster Kits Leave a comment. The Monster Kits were molds to make a monster and either Living Ice or Monster Flesh to put into the mold. The Monster Flesh was a lot like silly putty, and the Living Ice was a transparent rubbery substance. Posted November 28, 2012 by darthphilburt in Nostalgia. Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Leave a comment. Dissect-an-Alien was a plastic alien with a torso of clear, flexible plastic. It came with twelve plastic “organs” and “alien blood”, which was really glow-in-the-dark slime. The challenge was not in getting the parts out, it was in getting them to fit back inside the alien when you were finished. Posted November 21, 2012 by darthphilburt in Nostalgia. Mad Scientist Monster Lab Leave a comment. The Monster Lab came with a water tank, two plastic skeletons, “Monster Flesh” and “Flesh Dissolving Compound”. You would put the “flesh” onto the skeleton, fill the tank with water, dump in the dissolving compound, then put your newly-created creature into the tank and watch the flesh fall off his bones. What Fake Science Can Teach Us About Real Books. Inspired by Edwards' popular Tumblr, Fake Science, his recent book Fake Science 101 follows in the ever-growing trend of parodies and blogs- to-books. "Science is the beginning of a conversation," he writes. We talked to him to find out what the fake stuff can teach us about the real—in science, of course, but also in the broader book world. "For the last time, I am not the physicist Stephen Hawking. I'm Steve Hawking and I'm a business administrator in Ohio. I will not read your book." —Stephen Hawking, Says He's Not The Physicist, But Who Knows? It's a pretty obvious parody, but nonetheless, recently educators in Texas were expressly prohibited from purchasing the book over fears that it would poorly reflect upon their school district even if used as an "alternative textbook." (You've got to get kids into science somehow, right?) Per a memo reportedly sent by the district to its teachers, "We cannot have our district ridiculed as a non-scientific one (see many Westinghouse/Intel awardees)." On the plus side, for our fake scientist author: When people are trying to ban what you've written, you know you've made it! Inspired by Edwards' popular Tumblr, Fake Science, the book follows in the ever-growing trend of meme-ready blogs-to-books, and was published in August by Adams Media. It begins, "The world is full of questions, and science provides every answer. Once you learn these answers, you're guaranteed to half-remember them for the rest of your life." While there's plenty of fun and games and charts and tongue-in-cheekiness, the book snazzily packaged in keeping with today's viral needs, as Edwards wrote in Slate in August, it's not always so easy being a fake scientist. People don't exactly get it, for one—especially if they're real scientists you happen to be seated next to, say, on airplanes, with whom you're expected to make small talk. (And, what, exactly, is the science of small talk? We would like to know that.) But Edwards says he learned a lot about real scientists in the process of writing the book, and, as he wrote for Slate, "Science is the beginning of a conversation." We continued that conversation, speaking to Edwards to find out what the fake stuff can teach us about the real—in science, of course, but also in the broader book world. Though the blog is image based, the textbook I wrote is like any traditional textbook, chock full of footnotes, quizzes, and even scientific quotes. That process involved my learning about real science so I could figure out the best way to teach the fake stuff. How did you do that? I admit this at my own peril, but Wikipedia was a huge resource for me. Because the book is structured like a traditional textbook, I needed to still "teach" the reader about astronomy, biology, and other disciplines, even if the facts were false. So Wikipedia helped me figure out a structure for the book that was pedagogically sound (disclaimer for pedagogues: it is only sound enough to get you fired). Chapters that I half-remembered facts about already were easier: I misremember enough about astronomy that I can mock the things that we all pretend to know. Physics, however, was more difficult—so much has been appropriated by sci-fi, and so much is just plain weird, that I had to do a little more research. In some ways, it was more freeing, however. In the astronomy chapter, I could only say so much about the moon, but the weirdest of the physics chapter let me invent a lot of stuff about Newton (his obsession with apples, physical laws for houseguests, and descent into senility). What was your goal in writing the book? There's a long tradition of parody textbooks, and I tried to make a book that echoed their virtues: something intricate, alternately smart and silly, and packed full of secret jokes that reward rereading. Plus, if people don't see the cover, they might think you're actually learning when you're reading it. That's what the Texas school district was worried about, I guess! But do fake and real science ever converge? I think fake science and real science do converge a lot—just ask Jonah Lehrer. I think when real science is appropriated to end a debate, it becomes close to fake. Real science has a skeptical, data driven, and argumentative spirit that most "A Study Has Shown" articles lack. That said, all this is rather heavy pontificating for a guy who primarily Photoshops babies drinking from beakers. Fake science is definitely more reassuring, clear, and comforting than real science. It gives you easy answers without confusing equivocation or counterarguments. Plus, when would real science give you a scientist who wears their lab coat without any pants? What can we learn from fake science? I think that fake science can be a useful prompt for teachers to work their way through to real science.