9 August 2011

ANU studying the link between alcohol and romance.

| johnboy
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The ANU is letting us know that lucky PhD student Sonia Ip has managed to get funding to research the effects of alcohol on dating.

“The idea behind the study is that alcohol will play a role in either enhancing or decreasing intimacy during a date,” says the PhD student. “In general, alcohol relaxes a person and gives them courage and this can be pretty beneficial on a date.

“For any person, dating can provoke a level of anxiety and nervousness, no matter how experienced they are. And if you wanted something to come out of the experience, this would naturally create some anxiety as well.

“So what alcohol does in this situation is that it acts like a social lubricant which relaxes the person. You can talk more easily with each other and that way the date will go more smoothly.

“But it also really depends on the amount of alcohol that you drink, because there is a point at which a date goes downhill the more alcohol you consume. So overall the study aims to determine whether alcohol, and what amount of it, will enhance or decrease intimacy on a date.”

One assumes that by “intimacy” they mean sex?

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Don’t try to sugar coat a turd. It is a PhD thesis on ‘Beer Goggle Theory’.

creative_canberran said :

“Enlightenment was the choice: Doctor Who and the Democratisation of Science”
– examines representations of science in the long-running science fiction television series, ‘Doctor Who’.

Actually this one sounds vaguely interesting. Whether it’s worth a Ph.D is another question…

creative_canberran7:43 pm 10 Aug 11

If anyone wants to see both the legit and the nutty thesis and PHDs, you can check them out online at https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/3/browse?type=subject&submit_browse=Subject

Highlights include:

“An Investigation of the Ethnography of Knowledge through an Organisational Ethnography of ActewAGL” – a fascinating study of ACTEWAGL’s logicstics branch

“Learning and change in rural regions: understanding influences on sense of place.”
– a look at our attachments to places through the example of the Atherton Tableland… ironic given someone once described it as an inbred hell hole

“Enlightenment was the choice: Doctor Who and the Democratisation of Science”
– examines representations of science in the long-running science fiction television series, ‘Doctor Who’.

creative_canberran said :

Frankly, there’s too many of these post-grad and PHD leaches at ANU.

I think it has something to do with fast-tracking Permanent Residency applications

creative_canberran7:16 pm 10 Aug 11

“So what alcohol does in this situation is that it acts like a social lubricant which relaxes the person.”

Her level of literacy is questionable if the quotes in the story were written by her. This sentence in particular is High School english.

Frankly, there’s too many of these post-grad and PHD leaches at ANU. A few are doing genuine studies on novel subjects, but many more are just bludging on scholarships, funding and Austudy so they don’t have to get a real job. Heck there’s one PHD who sleeps on the floor of his office between tute groups and admits he’s not sober in class.

As someone who spent some of the best years of my life (in the 1970s) in the Union Bar, I am eagerly awaiting the results of this research. Since I don’t remember much about it, it may well be that the environment actually made everyone more inhibited, and less likely to engage in casual sex. If so, the positive benefits are incalculable – but, you get that with social research.

Alternatively (but this would require further research, for which I unselfishly volunteer if an appropriate grant is provided – and when I say Business Class, watch my lips!), the alternative … whatsat? Whose shout is it?

As PP said, the School of Inconsequential Studies rolls on. And I am bitter, bitter I tell you … about those backstabbing academics with tenure in the Arts Faculty that I used to drink under the table …sob.

Alternatively, you could look at Woroni in 1974, which was outsourced from the Union Bar and produced, according to its editors, with the help of ‘hash, beer and speed.’ Not (ahem) that I could comment directly on that.

SRC President Richard Refshauge defied the law to allow a (shock! horror!) condom vending machine in the Union building. I trust that the effect on chastity will be noted by our gormless PhD student above. Not to mention the importance of the rule of law.

Gotta go, I’m working up a PhD proposal …

Beserk Keyboard Warrior5:17 pm 09 Aug 11

Talk about re-inventing the wheel.

Reminds me of that genius doco-maker who wasted 2 hours of my life demonstrating that Maccas is bad for your health.

Groundbreaking stuff! 😛

John Moulis said :

More rubbish from the University of East Bumcrack. It’s a crime to even call that silly, slipshod establishment a university.

Absolutely. And yet this place is still held up as some sort of ideal…

troll-sniffer3:39 pm 09 Aug 11

Ian Warden’s ANU School of Inconsequential Studies hasn’t yet shut its doors I see.

Reminds me of an old acquaintance who specifically studied oceanographic subjects in order to design a PhD submission related to aspects of North Queensland beach environments, had a very satisfying three or more years virtually living on beaches and small islands.

Holden Caulfield3:39 pm 09 Aug 11

JennD said :

Of course it’s not talking about sex, it’s talking about the development of a non-physical connection (which is helped by physicality) to allow two individual human beings to share their inner self, their ideas, their philosophy, their faith, basically how they are.
We use alcohol a lot in our society to allow some boundaries to come down and allow this kind of connection to occur, i think, simply out of habit and a sense that you can’t connect openly to other people while sober. This is an obvious fallacy as after 2 or 3 drinks you’re not your usual self anyway but a more loud and proud version.

Right, if you can pad that out to about 30,000 words we can just about call it a wrap and let Dick Tracy get back to investigating the less obvious.

More rubbish from the University of East Bumcrack. It’s a crime to even call that silly, slipshod establishment a university.

Of course it’s not talking about sex, it’s talking about the development of a non-physical connection (which is helped by physicality) to allow two individual human beings to share their inner self, their ideas, their philosophy, their faith, basically how they are.
We use alcohol a lot in our society to allow some boundaries to come down and allow this kind of connection to occur, i think, simply out of habit and a sense that you can’t connect openly to other people while sober. This is an obvious fallacy as after 2 or 3 drinks you’re not your usual self anyway but a more loud and proud version.

And the “original contribution” to mankind’s knowledge of this Ph.D is…?

Mister Evil Breakfast1:46 pm 09 Aug 11

I will happily accept a position as a research candidate. I don’t mind being plied with alcohol and then trying to get laid. I usually call that Friday.

I nearly dies of alcohol poisoning once, trying to make a date seem attractive.

Romance? Oh that’s just what we call pillow talk, baby, that’s all.

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