Author name: Ian Robinson

Thesis: happiness is carried by a fundamental particle, hereby known as the hapiton. When there are lots in your vicinity you are happy. When they are scarce you are sad.

Hapitons can be made to cluster around you by consuming alcohol, talking with friends, eating good food, listening to music etc. Listening to Intelligent designer creationists, other creationists, fundies and other religious bigots can release anti-hapitons. Hapitons and anti-hapitons annihilate when they come into contact releasing a photon of pure rage.

Must be a research grant in there somewhere. So how would we test this?

Experiment: Set-up some social situation in a room where people will interact and be happy. Maybe a small party. Introduce music, food, Guinness, Tiger Beer and other favourite drinks.

Let party develop.

Open two previously covered thin slits in one wall of party room. If hapitons are being generated by party they should flow out through slits [1]. Directly opposite the slits, on the outside of the party room, line up approximately 20 people parallel with the wall containing the slits and at right angles to a line joining the wall with the line of people. The distance between the line of people and the wall with the slits is unspecified and should be varied during the course of the experiment.

Question the 20 people in the line as to their state of happiness [2] on a scale of 1 (very sad) and 100 (ecstatically happy, maybe even giddy) during the course of the party. Vary the distance from the wall and repeat questioning for duration of party [3]. Perform questioning with no slits open and then with one slit open and then the other.

Analyse results from questioning, after party, to see if there is any pattern that would suggest quantum mechanical interference as the hapitons pass through the slits. Was there a happy, sad, happy, sad, happy sad… pattern? Did the pattern disappear when only one slit was open? What about when both slits where closed? How did the distance from the wall effect the happiness of the subjects. Did any of the subjects get annoyed when you asked them the same bloody question over and over when they could have been at a party?

Enquiring minds want to know the answer! Sensible people want to be at the party and not in the line outside!

[1] Ensure that walls of room are not transparent to hapitons.
[2] Question subjects before the start of the experiment so as to get a baseline happiness reading.
[3] Ensure that sounds of merriment coming from party does not influence those in line. Perhaps earmuffs should be used.

The Kansas board of education voted 6-4 today to adopt rewritten science proposals that mandate kids in Kansas are taught lies about how life on Earth evolves. Evolution is a fact. If that pisses off some fundamentalist christians whose faith is so weak that they can’t accept reality then tough. More details at pharyngula.org.

In better news all 8 of the board members who introduced a statement about “intelligent design” into the curriculum in Dover, Pa. have lost their seats in the recent elections. That case went to court and the Judge will rule in January whether it violated the US constitution separation of church and state clause. On the evidence presented it should be a major defeat for the ID movement. Once that happens then those kooks in Kansas should get sued big time.

Update: More info at New Scientist.