About

"Who are You, Who are so Wise in the Ways of Science?" is a memorable quote uttered by Sir Bedivere (played by Terry Jones) to King Arthur (played by Graham Chapman) in the 1975 British comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The quote is used alongside a still from the scene as a reaction image to an above caption or image to express sarcasm about their intellect and knowledge. Sometimes it can be genuine, but it's most often sarcastic in nature.

Origin

The original clip that the meme is pulled from is seen in the 1975 British comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, specifically the scene directly after “We Found a Witch, May We Burn Her?” During this scene, the villagers underneath Sir Bedivere present a woman they believe is a witch and ask that Sir Bedivere allow them to burn her. Before he allows this, he conducts a trial to determine whether or not she is truly a witch. The villagers then point out things about her appearance, but being a man of science himself, Sir Bedivere proceeds to ask them more technical questions about her perceived “witchyness.”

Shown in the scene below (the line from the meme occurs right at the end), Sir Bedivere asks, “What do you do with witches?” to which the villagers reply, “Burn them!” Upon establishing this basis, the mob concludes that if she’s indeed a witch, she must be made of wood. To determine this, Sir Bedivere asks, “So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?” After some failed attempts by the villagers, he then points out that wood floats, so if she is a witch, she must also float. When he asks, “What also floats in water?” several members of the mob unsuccessfully answer until King Arthur, who has been watching from afar, correctly replies with “a duck.”

Eventually, the trial concludes when they decide that if she weighs the same as a duck, she must be a witch. The mob runs off to burn the witch as the scene ends, leaving Sir Bedivere and King Arthur alone near the scales. Sir Bedivere, impressed with King Arthur’s answer, then asks him, “Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?” and thus the origin is complete.

One of the earliest examples of the scene being used as a meme occurs on November 13th, 2012, when Steven Goddard uses this YouTube^[1] video from 2007 in an article on his Wordpress^[2] about California preventing storm surges with taxation.

The first true meme format dates back to November 8th, 2013, seen in an upload to Quick Meme^[3] by an unknown user (featured below).

Spread

This original meme format of the quote continued to spread online in the mid-2010s, also seen featured in an article from JohnFawkes.com^[4] on November 22nd, 2016.

As the meme evolved, it spread to Reddit where users adopted the more commonly seen format/image we have in 2020, particularly within r/DankMemes, r/Memes and r/HolyGrailMemes.

Uploaded to r/DankMemes^[5] by Redditor TiitMarvel on January 23rd, 2019, we see one of the first uses on the platform of the meme, seen here.

On May 12th, 2019, the format made its way over to r/MemeEconomy^[6] when Redditor SlothySurprise posted the meme with the title, “Invest in Monty Python to be wise in the ways of profits!” The post received nearly 13,000 upvotes and 660 comments.

In late 2019 and early 2020, the meme saw an uptick in usage on Reddit^[7], seen in this post from Redditor Abruptsystem on December 3rd, 2019 (also seen below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References