Since the profound and extremely accurate remarks made by Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt — that having women in the lab always leads to romantic entanglement and females weeping whenever criticised — scientists from around the globe have been working tirelessly to remove this hindrance on scientific progress (women). In a confined space like a laboratory, after all, how is anyone supposed to get any work done around any distractingly sexy women?
Finally, an answer has been found: compulsory blinding for all male scientists.
“It’s a wonder the field even made it this far in the first place,” says biochemist Joel Marshall, the scientist credited for solving the dilemma standing in the way of everyone being even remotely productive. “To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised any work has been done in any branch of science at all. Females are just too damn distractingly sexy. I want to get work done but I just can’t help falling in love with them, which inevitably leads to all of the crying.”
Prior to compulsory blinding, many solutions had been proposed to the sexy women phenomenon. First, several labs tried making hazmat suits part of a mandatory dress code for all female scientists, but this was deemed insufficient. It was also suggested that those same suits be constantly worn by women in everyday situations as well, but this was also seen as counterproductive: a thin layer of fabric cannot stop the male mind from thinking of those pesky females, and suits can be removed, so men remained distracted.
Luckily, in a flash of blinding insight, Marshall saw the answer that males simply need to be blind: “My son, unable to focus on homework, suggested, ‘If only I’d never seen a girl, then maybe I could finally focus.’
“It was at that moment that everything became clear.”
Going forward, Marshall’s (patent pending) technique of blinding aspiring male scientists will become part of orientation for post-secondary science-based faculties across the country. If successful, the program could expand beyond just the sciences and maybe even outside of schools.
“There may be a few minor difficulties with the procedure,” says Ben Schiller, the recently hired on-call blinding doctor for SFU’s Faculty of Science, “but these problems will surely resolve themselves quickly. Some individuals have protested, but this must be done for the progress of the nation. Once men see how much being blind helps them focus, they will be eternally grateful.
“Personally, I can’t wait for my own scheduled blinding.”
With one part of the problem finally resolved, scientists have now turned their attention to figuring out how to prevent women from crying all of the time, though trials so far have been unsuccessful.
