Share funny/amusing academic papers!

[Mr.Excellent]

As the thread title says - post citations (preferably with legal fulltext links) to some of the most amusing papers in your particular field of academia! We’ll all learn things, have a good laugh - it’ll be fun!

I’ll go first:

1.) “Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law”. Ira P. Robbins. U.C. Davis Law Review, April 2008. 41 UCDLR 1403. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=982405

From the abstract:

The middle finger is one of the most commonly used insulting gestures in the United
States. The finger, which is used to convey a wide range of emotions, is visible on streets and
highways, in schools, shopping malls, and sporting events, in courts and execution chambers, in
advertisements and on magazine covers, and even on the hallowed floor of the United States
Senate. Despite its ubiquity, however, as a number of recent cases demonstrate, those who use
the middle finger in public run the risk of being stopped, arrested, prosecuted, fined, and even
incarcerated under disorderly conduct or breach of peace statutes and ordinances.

This Article argues that, although most convictions are ultimately overturned on appeal,
the pursuit of criminal sanctions for use of the middle finger infringes on First Amendment
rights, violates fundamental principles of criminal justice, wastes valuable judicial resources, and
defies good sense. Indeed, the Supreme Court has consistently held that speech may not be
prohibited simply because some may find it offensive. Criminal law generally aims to protect
persons, property, or the state from serious harm, but use of the middle finger simply does not
raise these concerns.

2.) “The Perfect Crime”. Brian C. Kalt. MSU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 02-14. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=691642 ; also The Perfect Crime, 93 GEO. L.J. 675 (2005).

From the abstract:

This article argues that there is a 50-square-mile swath of Idaho in which one can commit felonies with impunity. This is because of the intersection of a poorly drafted statute with a clear but neglected constitutional provision: the Sixth Amendment’s Vicinage Clause. Although lesser criminal charges and civil liability still loom, the remaining possibility of criminals going free over a needless technical failure by Congress is difficult to stomach. No criminal defendant has ever broached the subject, let alone faced the numerous (though unconvincing) counterarguments. This shows that vicinage is not taken seriously by lawyers or judges. Still, Congress should close the Idaho loophole, not pretend it does not exist.

3.) The entire purpose of George Mason University’s Green Bag journal is to publish entertaining works of legal scholarship. I love these guys - they even write about pirates! http://www.greenbag.org/index.php

[T_SQUARE]

@Mr.Excellent

2.) “The Perfect Crime”. Brian C. Kalt. MSU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 02-14. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=691642 ; also The Perfect Crime, 93 GEO. L.J. 675 (2005).

Awsome! Monkey knife fights all around!

[Mr.Excellent]

@T_SQUARE

Awsome! Monkey knife fights all around!

Sadly, no - the article points out that your hypothetical murderer would have to take care to violate no laws before entering the area in question, because they could easily be charged for those crimes. Training monkeys to knife-fight is probably illegal almost everywhere.

[Enginerd]

from the American Water Resources Association.

Basically, the authors modeled human bodies out of different geometric components and simulated the effects of varying velocities, currents and drag forces. I’m looking forward to the second part of the project, when they validate the results of their simulations.

[AllWalker]

Just check out annals of improbable research… in particular, the Ig Noble Proze winners.

My favourite? The study that found that giving viagra to hamsters helps their recovery of jet lag.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11895
Try to find a more deserving Ig Noble!

Edit: Okay, didn’t read OP - this is NOT my field of research.

Maybe it should be, though.

[Jackmannii]

This one wasn’t intended to be funny, but achieves that goal anyway.

“Towards a New Model of the Homeopathic Process Based on Quantum Field Theory”

If you’re desperately scratching for something to support homeopathy, it makes sense to pick a theory that few understand and where you can use really, really big words to cover the fact that you’re full of it.

“Disease manifestation by the Vital Force (Vf) could be an event similar to spontaneous symmetry breaking in QFT: the curative remedy acting to restore the broken symmetry of the Vf field. Entanglement between patient, practitioner, and remedy might be representable as Feynman-like diagrams. Conclusion: QFT demonstrates that quantum properties can be physical without being observable.”

I fear that Dr. Milgrom has been thoroughly ridiculed for his bold attempt.

[CalMeacham]

Not the paper itself, but the title is wonderful — P.J. Brancazio’s American Journal of Physics paper on the physics of judging Fly Balls (53 (9) 849-855 (1985)) is entitled

Looking into Chapman’s Homer.

The Chapman in this case was a previous AJP author:

How does a baseball player learn to judge a fly ball? An experienced outfielder, observing the initial stages of flight, can predict the landing point rapidly and accurately. In 1968, S. Chapman [Am. J. Phys. 36, 868 (1968)] proposed that an outfielder unconsciously uses trigonometry to determine the landing point. However, Chapman assumed incorrectly that the effects of aerodynamic drag could be ignored. The trajectory of a baseball is shown to be affected significantly by air resistance, so that the specific trigonometric factor cited by Chapman cannot provide useful cues to the fielder. In evaluating potentially useful cues, we take note not only of aerodynamic drag, but also of the specific neurophysiological processes used for the detection of distance and motion. This study shows that the angular acceleration of the fielder’s line of sight to the ball provides the strongest initial cue to the location of the eventual landing point. This suggests that the fielder’s vestibular system, responding to the acceleration of the fielder’s head as he observes the initial stages of flight, may play a key role in the judgment process.

[ultrafilter]

J. Kruger and D. Dunning. “Unskilled and Unaware”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, Vol. 77, No. 6. ] 121-1134. Available at http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf.

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

Not only a fairly entertaining paper, but it should be required reading for every adult in our society.

[LilyoftheValley]

@ultrafilter

…tests of humor…

OK, now I’m intrigued. How do you test humor?

[ultrafilter]

@LilyoftheValley

OK, now I’m intrigued. How do you test humor?

Read the paper.

[drastic_quench]

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[Mr.Excellent]

Bump

Come on - on a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, this thread should be on its second page by now!

[Hello_Again]

“Lawsuit Schmawsuit”

Discusses the prevalence of Yiddish in legal opinions, originally published in the Yale Law Journal.

[PharmBoy]

@drastic_quench

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Well, those were…interesting. What grades did he get on them?

[zamboniracer]

Aside, The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule, 123 U. PA. L. REV. 1474 (1975)

[Kismet68]

@drastic_quench

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That last paper makes SO much more sense!

[drastic_quench]

@PharmBoy

Well, those were…interesting. What grades did he get on them?

I’m not the teacher or student. They’ve been floating around the webs for a long time.