Cephalopodcast

Back in February I cheekily proposed a new Internet adage called Gorton’s Law. It was an allusion to the more well-known Godwin’s Law and is the notion that in any discussion of sea life, no matter how rare, strange or repulsive, some knucklehead will quickly sour the conversation by asking how well it goes with lemon or butter. An addendum to this is that it will usually happen within the first 10 comments and that they might also propose some other condiment.

My intent was to highlight how prevalent the attitude is that sea life is there merely for us to “harverst.” That the primary purpose is for our consumption and not for any intrinsic value or ecological roles those flora and fauna may contain.

Deep-Sea News has now officially formulated this notion into an actual equation.

Gorton’s Measure states that the time for someone to ask “Can you eat?” when discussing a marine species is directly proportional to the rareness, strangeness, and repulsiveness of the species.

where theta=time for someone to ask “Can you eat?”
t=total people in room
alpha=species’ rareness
sigma=species’ strangeness
delta=species’ repulsiveness

This is related to Gorton’s Constant (Gamma) that states that the question “How well does it go with lemon and butter?” will occur at a very high percentage approaching infinity despite relative changes in audience size (n).

My thanks to Craig for working out the maths. Of course, now that it is officially formulated, I regret a little going for the more amusing Gorton’s Law and not the more eponymous Robertshaw’s Law. At least that way I would have been know for something. Oh well.

See also:

• Another most excellent World’s Fair meme. Give us your personal scientific eponym.
• HOW TO GET YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC EPONYM, AND, INTRODUCING THE ARBESMAN LIMIT