statistical-flowers-for-algernon
Explanation
The Joke
A doctor tells a patient that a new medication will "double your intelligence." The patient is thrilled ("Thanks, doc!"). But the doctor continues: the same drug has also made the patient's peers smarter too. In fact, the doctor explains, the patient is now "feeling more horrified, more humiliated, more bewildered in the family of the bell curve" because while everyone got smarter, the patient's relative position hasn't improved -- or may have even worsened.
The final panels reveal a dark silver lining: "It also makes suicide rates go up" is met with "It's nice to sometimes read about something other than politics." The comic ends with both characters finding bleak comfort in the statistics.
The Humor
The title references "Flowers for Algernon," the classic sci-fi story about a man whose intelligence is artificially raised and then tragically lost. Here, Weiner gives it a statistical twist: doubling everyone's intelligence doesn't change anyone's relative standing, so the subjective experience of being "smart" or "dumb" remains unchanged. The joke satirizes how we evaluate ourselves relative to others rather than in absolute terms. The final punchline about suicide rates being a welcome change from political news adds an extra layer of dark humor, suggesting that even catastrophic statistical findings are preferable to the current news cycle.
References
"Flowers for Algernon" is a 1958 short story (later a 1966 novel) by Daniel Keyes about Charlie Gordon, a man with an intellectual disability who undergoes an experimental procedure to increase his intelligence. The story explores the emotional consequences of dramatically altered cognitive ability.