Knock knock, no one’s there. Study finds scientists’ jokes mostly fall flat
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The speakers of some 40% of talks surveyed made no attempts at humour, not even puns. Credit: Getty
Everyone knows that a good joke can liven up a talk. Sadly, however, good jokes are in short supply — at least according to a survey of more than 500 presentations at biology meetings1.
Two-thirds of the attempts at humour during these talks fell flat, drawing either polite chuckles or no laughter at all. Almost one-quarter of attempted jokes were judged as a “moderate success”, eliciting audible laughter from around half the audience. Only 9% prompted most or all of the attendees to laugh enthusiastically. In fairness, 42% of jests were spontaneous remarks relating to glitches in presentations, such as slide malfunctions, that were not intended to bring down the house. And audiences might not have expected jokes, making it harder to get them to laugh.
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