Story: The Rabbit's Dissertation

Today I am going to tell you the story of The Rabbit's Dissertation, which was told to me tonight by political scientist Zeev Maoz.

A rabbit was busy typing up its dissertation when a fox came by to ask it about its thesis topic. The rabbit answered that it was typing a dissertation about "How Rabbits Eat Foxes". The fox---a very skeptical canine---said that surely that the rabbit was wrong and had gotten things in reverse. Surely foxes eat rabbits and not the other way around.

So the rabbit said that it would take the fox over to its cage and the fox should wait there so that the rabbit could come back that night and demonstrate that its dissertation was correct.

A wolf came by later, and the same thing occurred. Then a bear came by and the rabbit took the bear over to its home cage, and then the rabbit locked the door on all three and went away.

The rabbit worked on its dissertation some more and came back the next morning. It opened the door, and it walked through the bones of the fox and the bones of the wolf and the bones of the bear. In the back of the cage was a lion.

Moral: It doesn't matter what your dissertation topic is, but it matters a great deal who your thesis advisor is!

(I had never heard this one before, but Zeev gave me permission to steal it. I don't think the way I told the story did his telling justice. Best. Story. Ever.)