HowTo:Be a scientist

Blagging your way through life as a scientist can be difficult, let me tell you. I've been rumbled many a time, right when I'm about to conduct a world changing experiment. Your attempt to get a Nobel Prize needn't be in vain (unless you're a woman)....follow these easy steps....

A typical scientist

Step One

Buy A Lab Coat.

No self-respecting scientist works without one. Dependant on the type of scientist you want to be, select your lab coat wisely. Large, ill-fitting labcoats are for Mad Scientists only. If you want to be taken seriously, make sure it fits properly. There's nothing more scary than a crazed idiot in an overly-large lab coat telling you, "Trust me, this will work" as they start to pour chemicals into a jar.

Lab coats should be white, or at least indicate they once were white, and maybe with a one or two chemical stains or acid-burns. Any coloured lab coats invoke an impression of a twat. Dazzling white lab coats that look either it's brand new or your mother got at it with bleach are even worse.

Step Two

Pick Your Faculty.

You can't be a scientist of everything - that's just stupid and greedy, and no one will ever believe you. The most popular faculties are Biology, Physics and Chemistry (as these are the only ones learnt in school). If you know any other faculty it's likely you went into further education and may in fact be an actual Scientist. If so, stop reading this - you don't need any of this information.

You are suggested to become a stupidologist, a Stupidology eggspert.

Step Three

Learn The Lingo.

There are a few key phrases to master, depending on the type of scientist you've decided to be, which will ensure people believe you really know what you're talking about.

Physics - "It doesn't mean anything. It's all relative."

Biology - "I'm currently mapping the g-nome sequence of a rare species of butterfly I recently found whilst doing research in Patagonia"

Organic Chemistry - "Carbon, carbon, carbon....that's all I know"

Quantum Mechanics - "Really? I think Einstein and Newton were fools"

Astronomy - "Quasars are really black holes. They are so far away that the light is red shifted so much it's become visible."

Zoology - "Apes and man.....don't get me started !"

Cosmology - "When the universe starts to contract it'll hurt, I tell you!"

Geology - "In an emergency, your rock hammer can be used to open a bottle of beer."

Step Four

Grow Your Hair, And Buy Some Spectacles

It goes without saying.

Step Five

Complete An Experiment

This should be relevant to your chosen faculty. It is recommended that you chose something simple to begin with, just in case you hurt yourself, or create a hybrid creature that turns against you, kills you, your family and friends, but falls in love with your girlfriend/boyfriend, only to be hunted by the government and slaughtered in a tragic melee.

With this in mind, it might be best to go to the local toy shop and buy a Chemistry Kit. These useful little blighters come with all sorts of coloured liquids and things, and can give you hours of pleasure. Make sure you make copious notes on any experiment you do....why? Read on.....

Step Six

Publish A Scientific Paper

Nowadays scientific journals will publish any old tripe. It doesn't even need to be based on any scientific proof - theory is good!

If you've completed an experiment (either your own, or one from a Chemistry Kit), write about it. Make sure you comment on all variables - weather, what you had for dinner, what you mum said on the very day two years ago, and of course - the actual results. Write as much as you want, using a thesaurus for every single word so that no one can understand it, and also making it forty times as long as it needs to be. If you can't think of what to write, include Shakespeare as no one will read you journal so it doesn't really matter. And, the best thing about being a scientist - you can even make words up!

Step Seven

Name Something After Yourself

Easy. Create something and name it after yourself.

It can be absolutely anything you want. A theory, a creature, a compound, an element - the choice is endless!! It's even cooler if you discover a star - cos you OWN that.....

Biomedical scientists have an advantage, because all they need to do is find someone with a weird group of otherwise well-known diseases, and name that collection of diseases "the {insert your name here} syndrome".

If you can't create anything to name after yourself, then just steal another scientist's discovery.

Step Eight

Steal Someone Else's Research

You'll never be a real scientist until you've stolen another scientist's years' of hard work, or pretending the joint work you did was all your own.

(An alternative for advanced scientists is to avoid plagiarism by making all your results up, and then criticize anyone who can't repeat your work for being possibly reasonable theorists, but too inattentive to detail to be good experimentalists. Embellish your paper by making up squiggles that look like that are highly advanced combinations of predicate calculus and Feynman diagrams. Everyone will be too embarrassed to say they are unfamiliar with basic mathematical tools-of-trade and will just give appreciative glances are you point to the squiggles saying "it's a tractable but lengthy exercise to go into some of the approximations used here, so I won't waste your time with it")

Although this might tug a little on your conscience, unless you do this, you'll never get the Nobel Prize for Ultimate Guy Scientist. And that prize, my friends, is the ultimate goal.

Step Nine

Die

Your baby brother Angus asserting himself. If only you could be more like him...

All the best scientists die before the greatness of the work is appreciated. So, if you want to be appreciated, then you have to die.

It's also quite handy, especially if you made up things in your publications, stole stuff from other scientists who knew more than you and the hybrid killed loads of innocent people (you can get out in jail for that).

Dying also improves your chances of getting the Nobel Prize. The fact that you're not around for it sucks - but your family get the prestige - and let's face it, they deserve that at least, after you blew up the house with your colourful experiment.

The best way to die is suicide. When people find out, they will assume one conclusion: the apocalypse is near. When they do, many will follow in your wake by committing suicide themselves, with possibly the same methods and location. If this happens God will be really angry at you and will most probably send you to Hell.

Congratulations! You're A Scientist !

Or a mentalist....