A biologist walks into a comedy club. Actually,the story begins earlier. A biologist who had abandoned academia and was working in San Francisco as a computer programmer for Charles Schwab walked into a Laundromat. The former biologist was Tim Lee. After completing his undergraduate biology degree at the University of California,San Diego,he worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for a while before he realised he needed a doctorate to do the interesting work. But by the time he finished his Ph.D. at the University of California,Davis,he had realised he hated academia. I just didnt want to read any more papers, Lee said. I didnt want to write any more papers. Lee then worked as a computer programmer,and he moved to San Francisco. During a vacation,he read memoirs of comedians like Bill Cosby,Bob Newhart and Jerry Seinfeld,and he wrote some jokes. Then he walked into a Laundromat,which was holding an open microphone night for anyone who wanted to take a shot at being a comic. Lee told about a dozen jokes. Only four or five of them got laughs,but that was good enough for the host to offer some encouraging words. Lee wrote more jokes. He eventually got a paying gig$35 from a comedy club in Santa Cruz,California. Along the way,he started telling science jokes,and he discovered that PowerPoint made a good comedy prop. In the San Francisco Bay Area,Brian Malow,who calls himself earths premier science comedian, and Norm Goldblatt,a physicist who performs standup as a side gig,have been telling science jokes for years. Its not as limiting as it sounds, Mr. Malow said. Science is in everything. Still,linear regression and ocean acidification are rarely fodder for standup,as they were for Lee in his New York City debut at a small venue called the Monkey in Gramercy last week,seven years after walking into the Laundromat. My act is a parody of a seminar, he said. I think my audience is everyone from age 14 who is kind of nerdy to age 65 who is kind of nerdy. He joked about linear regression (a rumination about what kind of people post cat videos on YouTube),period doubling in chaos (which he likens to the splitting of behaviours of people as they become more and more drunk) and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. He explained this fundamental concept of quantum physicsthat the more precisely the position of a particle is measured,the less is known about the particles momentum,and vice versawith a photograph of a mens room with television screens above the urinals. The designer clearly didnt understand the uncertainty principle, Lee said. The problem is the more I know whats on TV, he went on,the less I know about where Im aiming. Lee said his first priority was being funny,not teaching science,but hopefully people get the kernel of something. If humour,as some say,is truth plus absurdity,and if science is about uncovering truth,he said,all I have to do is add absurdity to that. Not all science,however,is equally absurd. I was trying to do matrix algebra jokes, Lee said. Its never worked. A biologist walks into a comedy club. How does the story end? That stumped Lee,and he said he would think about it. A couple of days later,he sent an e-mail message with this response: A biologist walks into a comedy club. The owner asks,Whyd you select this club? Biologist says,Well,it was the natural selection.
