Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Science

2021-12-23 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Science
Votey panel for Science
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic is about the gap between casually "doing science" and actually doing rigorous science.

In the first panel, a child (likely a girl) tells her mother: "Mom, I'm doing science!" The mother sharply responds: "No, you're f***ing not."

The mother then launches into a tirade. She points out that turning to a children's science show doesn't count as "doing science." She argues that looking at something in nature is not science -- every human who has ever lived has "looked at creatures." If you're not repeating an experiment in a controlled setting, proposing a hypothesis, designing a methodology, or coming up with an explanatory model, "you are not doing science; you are looking at stuff."

In the final panels, the mother says: "But your interest is valid and most of what you want to know has already been studied." The child then responds: "Did you just say that on YouTube? Do it." -- implying the child wants the mother to post her rant online.

The comic satirizes two things simultaneously. First, it pokes fun at the extremely loose way people (especially in children's education) use the word "science" to describe any act of observation or curiosity. The mother's pedantic correction is technically accurate -- observation alone is not the scientific method. Second, the mother's intensity and profanity directed at a child makes her the real target of the joke: she is absurdly over-the-top in correcting a child who is just excited about learning, which is itself a common SMBC trope of adults applying rigorous academic standards to inappropriate contexts.

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