YOU MUST DECIDE!
Following on from my post below concerning an academic take-down, I suppose I ought, for the sake of balance, to describe my own. From my point of view at the time, it was brutal and humiliating - but, seen from others' positions, and my own 10 years later, I have to admit that it was rather beautiful.

I was about six months in to my PhD, and was giving my first paper on my research so far. The format of the seminar was that I'd talk for about half an hour, and then there'd be an hour or two of questions and debate.

Now, I knew that my paper wasn't very good (and, looking back, it was - frankly - embarrassingly bad: garbled, under-argued, unclear in its aims and all the rest of it), so I was expecting a roasting. What I hadn't expected at the end of the paper was silence.

The silence was broken by one of the other PhD students. He finished rolling his cigarette - this was in the days when smoking was allowed in research seminars - and began to speak. His words are scorched on my memory.
"Enzyme," he began, "From what I understand of your paper - and, believe me, it's not much - but from what I understand of it, it's either trivial or false. Which of those is it?"
"...," I replied.

I wish I could have appreciated the aesthetics of the moment at the time.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 11:22, 11 replies)

PHILOSOPHY BITCH SLAP

(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 11:52, closed)

Damn straight.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:04, closed)

There is only one possible answer.
'Fuck off you red nosed cunt'.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 11:58, closed)

Ha!

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:03, closed)

There speaks a man...
..who attended the Californian School of Quick Wit & Repartee
(flimflam_machine, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 13:11, closed)

my PhD
I thought about undertaking one a while back till I read that 'There is no room in a thesis for humour'

No humour?

Sod that!
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:05, closed)

That's bullshit.
There's always room for humour.

The highest mark I've ever given to an MA dissertation went to one that made me laugh: the deftness of the humour there was evidence that the writer knew exactly what he was talking about.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:24, closed)

yay!
Humour makes learning fun, if it is fun then it goes into their heads :)

Boredom means things dont go into their heads :(
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Sat 7 Aug 2010, 21:33, closed)

Pow!
Right in the kisser!

Not worthy of its own story, and related to this one, I had the reverse.

My first presentation during my undergrad philosophy degree. I'd shoehorned a load of physics into some existential framework and had nervously chattered my way through the paper, being proud of my (in retrospect embarrassingly naive) paper.

Questions followed, and the class smartarse tried for a full derail by piping up with 'so, if I've got this right, what you've actually managed to do is provide a solution to the mind-body problem, yes?'

My mind raced – I had no idea if he was right.

Luckily - my mouth bluffed for me.

'Would that be such a bad thing?

Silence, followed by a smattering of applause from my classmates, and a wry smile from my tutor.
(SimianKid internet faffer, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:22, closed)

Lovely!

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 12:25, closed)

As always, there's only one real response to these hypotheticals and that is:

"A little from column A and a little from column B"

Quoting from the Simpsons there, mind.
(jimwon, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 13:52, closed)

I've used that response many times
though admittedly only in lab meeting type presentations
(xanthine, Sat 7 Aug 2010, 12:37, closed)