Angela Chen visited BAHFest, and filed this report in the Wall Street Journal:
At This Conference, Scientists Spout Bogus Theories on Bugs, Yawns and Belly Fat
That’s the goal of BAHFest, a satirical conference where researchers offer fake theories supported by real scientific evidenceCAMBRIDGE, Mass.—At a recent scientific conference here, Justin Werfel [pictured below not at BAHfest], a Harvard University researcher who has studied termites in Africa, described to the crowd his theory on why bugs are so disgusting.
It is all about evolution, Dr. Werfel said. Increased competition among humans for food drove bugs to become ever more disgusting to keep people from eating them, he said.
Dr. Werfel used standard scientific methodology to develop his theory. His goal wasn’t to break new ground in entomology. It was to take top place at the Festival of Bad Ad-Hoc Hypotheses, or BAHFest, a satirical conference on evolutionary biology held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Six presenters, each armed with reams of research, vied to win over a panel of judges with a different bogus scientific theory.…
