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Natural

2021-10-24 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Natural
Votey panel for Natural
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 features a woman who says she wants to talk about how "babies are natural scientists." A man responds enthusiastically: "Because babies are so curious?"

She says "Yeah..." but then hesitates ("Uh...") and reveals a list of the actual parallels between babies and scientists: "sleep poorly, make no choices for self, crying, frequently break glassware."

The joke subverts the popular notion that babies are "natural scientists" because of their curiosity and experimental approach to the world. While the man assumes the flattering interpretation (babies explore, hypothesize, test), the woman's list focuses on the less glamorous realities of both babyhood and scientific careers: chronic sleep deprivation, lack of autonomy, emotional breakdowns, and destroying lab equipment. It is a self-deprecating joke aimed at the academic science lifestyle, suggesting that the comparison between babies and scientists is accurate -- just not in the inspirational way people usually mean.

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