Improv and Smart Lunches

Anyone who has seen good improv must immediately wonder how it is that the actors are able to pull of their trade of theater without preset form. One of the key tenets of improv is the notion of “acceptance.” The basic idea is that when carrying out dialogue one should accept what the other person says and not contradict it. Contradiction will quickly lead one down to a dead-end. You should take what the other actors are saying and make something of it.
When I first read about this doctrine of acceptance in improv I was immediately sure that I’d witnessed this before. Where? While having lunch with groups of scientists. When you get the right combination of smart people together, one of their favority pasttimes is constructing dialogues where someone says something like “wouldn’t it be interesting if….?” and then the rest of the group takes up this “if” and simply goes with it. And if you get a really smart group of people together these rides can be among the funniest and most interesting conversations you will ever have. I noticed this effect quite a lot as an undergraduate at Caltech: students would simply sit around and B.S., but they would B.S. in this very strange manner of accepting something and then taking it further and further with each person accepting the previous idea and pushing it even further.
So, while the stereotype says scientists are barely capable of dialogue (and this is certainly not far from the truth for many in everyday conversation), I would claim that scientists are also among the most versatile improv actors in the world.