BAHFest London: Hard science collides with fake theories on Trump and squirrels

LONDON—Would I like to cover Barfest? Why, of course! Even though it seems like some form of alcoholic devolution, considering I was very recently in Germany at Puke-Fest… Oh, sorry, I see—you mean BAHFest, aka the Festival of Bad ad Hoc Hypotheses. I consider myself a layperson when it comes to hard science so, in the best familial tradition, I bully my little sister—a massive nerd and PhD-holding research assistant at Birkbeck Babylab—to assist me in ascertaining how any data might be mishandled. By design, there’s bound to be some bad science here.

I’ve attended my fair share of Uncaged Monkeys shows and love a good Carl Sagan quote, so I feel privileged to be attending the very first international BAHFest in late January. It’s billed as “a celebration of well-argued, and thoroughly researched, but completely incorrect scientific theory.” The festival is running over two days at Imperial College London, where my famous-not-famous particle physicist dad, Robert Orr, studied in the 1960s. I can’t help wondering if I was conceived in a lab nearby.

On the first evening, dubbed BAH! London Evolution, six brave speakers (assisted by inexplicably popular Hogwarts’ escapee and AV technician, Lloyd) present their awfully absorbing and utterly loony theories to a live audience of hollering nerds. There’s also a panel of three judges, some of whom might even have valid science credentials.

Ultimately, it’s the very unscientific clap-o-meter which determines who takes home the much-coveted mini, 3D-printed BAHFest trophy of Darwin (complete with its “I Guess So?” gesture). On the second festival day, the winner of the BAH! London Big Science night will receive a statue, which I mistake for Bill Nye The Science Guy (giving away my North American upbringing and penchant for TV show King of the Nerds) until my sister informs me that it’s in fact Edison giving some side-eye and saying “OK?”

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

BAHFest was founded by Zach Weinersmith, a fresh-faced, Texan Web cartoonist who purports his own dodgy scientific ideas under the moniker of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC). If you’re not familiar with his work, then it’s slightly more representational than XKCD but not as pretty as Penny Arcade.

I’m a big fan of the Kickstarter card game, Exploding Kittens, and—in preparation of my attendance—I watched a YouTube video of The Oatmeal cartoonist, Matthew Inman, who was at BAHFest West in 2014. He asserted his personal theory of evolution, involving his own particular deity, The Jibbers Crabst, a fire-breathing lobster living behind the ring of Saturn. Praise, Jibbers!

Down with Pluto, up with Goofy

I’m inside the Great Hall in Imperial College, and I try to smile knowingly at t-shirts with slogans such as “Pluto got demoted, GET OVER IT!” having procured—in the best possible nerd tradition—an extremely awkward selfie with Weinersmith. Before long, I’m in my seat for BAH! London Evolution.

After a no-show from keynote speaker Tracy King, Weinersmith takes to the stage with some hastily created MS Paint scribbles to illustrate an evolutionary theory about squirrels burying acorns randomly. They do so out of horror, he explains, because they look like squirrel heads, resulting in the acronym “NUTS” (Not Utilising Tree Seeds). Yes, it’s a great start.

He introduces the evening’s judges, the instantly recognisable and incredibly prolific Ed Yong, science presenter Steve Mould, and charming feminist author, Zoe Margolis, who seems more than ready to take on tonight’s evolutionary snake oil sellers. They bring validity to the proceedings by judging on four criteria: Force of Science; Artistry; Parsimony; and Strength of Defence.

It’s nice to see a woman take the stage first, even if by all accounts she’s a crazy Kat lady. Dr. Kat Arney supposes that cats have a plan to achieve global species superiority by evolutionary manipulation. She cites polydactyl cats—Hemingway’s favourite felines, no less—as an example of feline mutation. Her convincing hypothesis? Cats have an unstoppable ability to rule the Internet using a combination of genetic curiosity and cuteness.

Arney believes cats use their adorable qualities to gain access to genome manipulation through the Crispr/cas9 control switch, thereby bringing about the Sonic Hedgehog gene. A well-placed Venn diagram displaying those well-known cat traits of fighting, fishing, and fucking pops up, and I’m truly ready to submit to our meowing overlords.

Next up, Steve Hodgson presents his hypothesis that having a good memory increases animosity from people. (My sister makes the point, “Only significant as it was reported to four decimal points 0.0446, which rounded up is 0.05, so only approaching significance really.” Yeah, I’ve absolutely no idea what she’s saying.)

Hodgson says forgetfulness can be useful by citing experiments on friends exposed to information, who are then tasked with having to remember it after watching Total Recall. I think he makes a really good case, as I will always prefer people who forget that time I was sick on the bus.

Alex Adler has nothing good to say about the French. But his theory is actually about how friendship is sickening due to exposure to parasites. Apparently, we only cooperate with people because we have been infected and brainwashed by coming into contact with their bodily fluids (yeah, fecal matter gets a look in here).

Ed Elcock’s presentation brings us Lovecraftian horrors, and his anatomically correct drawings of tentacled monsters have me hooked. Elcock thinks we have evolved to stand upright for packing efficiency, and this is proven when you compare human evolution to Cthulhu evolution—you just can’t pack visitors from the void efficiently, so damn them back to hell.

I recently caught one of the last showings of M.C. Escher at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and he is quoted here as a forward-thinking evolutionist, packing creatures together without the slightest gap. Yong, in his role as a judge, makes a good point that snakes and cats are also highly evolved in the packing stakes, as they can fit just about anywhere. Ahh, those cats again. Now I’m scared.

As much as I love Cthulhu, I think I love possums more. And that’s why the fifth speaker, Michael Anderson, instantly has my attention. He tells the audience that we have evolved to act like idiots to save our species from inevitable alien invasion. Turns out that—by pretending we are irrational and unintelligent—we pose no threat to the galaxy (a perfect interplanetary counter-intelligence strategy).

Donald Trump proves this. So does the whole creationist agenda, apparently. But hey, if it saves me from alien assimilation or subjugation, I’m happy to be a possum.

Having spent (wasted) the last quarter of my life working as an educator, Steve Hull’s hypothesis is a revelation to me. He too has been searching for the best way to educate people, and Hull has come up with the hypothesis that learning is impossible. He presumes we are born with complete knowledge but lack the cognitive skills and motor skills to apply it.

This complete knowledge decreases as we age (again, Donald Trump proves this), reaching a peak in our teenage years when we, of course, know everything.

Our first word is often “ma,” an obvious attempt to impart to our parents that F = ma, Newton’s second law of motion that describes the relationship between an object’s mass and the amount of force needed to accelerate it. So Hull confirms to me that I have wasted a quarter of my life. (I’m OK with that, pass the cider.)

After much hand-clapping and bogus consideration on the panel’s part, Cthulhu—oops, sorry—Elcock wins with his theory of human evolution for packing efficiency. Coincidentally, everyone soon packs up to leave.

Selling space wool to Shoreditch hipsters

Saturdays in South Kensington are no fun, mainly due to the sheer amount of humanity, large and small, to be traversed in order to get to the entrance of Imperial College. Weinersmith now greets me personally like an old friend, suspecting that anyone sitting through two days of Bad Ad hoc Hypotheses must be some kind of scientific zealot.

Helen Arney (sister of the crazy cat lady) takes to the stage to reminisce about her time as a physics undergrad at Imperial in a class that was 90 percent male. Although the odds were good, the goods were odd, we’re told. It’s not long before this geek songstress has her electric ukulele out to perform and sing an ode to solar flares.

Proving that BAHFest can ruin technology just as well as it managed to trample over biology yesterday, keynote speaker and awesome chick Dr. Jen Gupta delivers her own Bad ad Hoc Hypothesis on how big science can save the world by addressing the two major afflictions of this century that are causing sleepless nights among Guardian readers everywhere: climate change and the energy crisis.

Gupta posits that the simplest solution to climate change, which we’ve stoopidly been ignoring so far, is to just move the Earth farther away from the Sun to cool it down. This can be achieved by harnessing the momentum of passing asteroids, obviously.

The energy crisis will, naturally enough, take slightly more effort to solve. But that effort won’t come from you and me! Oh no, it will be puppies and children who will act as the new power source of the planet, harnessed to turbines and hamster wheels. This burgeoning baby bondage is also bound to solve the obesity crisis as well.

The judges have changed on day two: Simon Singh, purveyor of Simpsons science; Imperial College bigwig and fusion reactor overlord, Steve Cowley; and astrophysicist, and cosmic quiz mistress, Dr. Jillian Scudder are now evaluating the puppies and ukuleles.

Presenter number one, Luke Prince, suggests that Glastonbury festival goers can be used to solve complex computational problems—even something as intricate as protein-folding—by forcing them to take drugs and find tent pitches on muddy ground. Judge Singh rightly notes that religious festival attendees should be put to similar scientific use.