The Incorrect Biological Hypothesis by Aiden H. '28

A couple of week’s ago, MIT’s film/cinema club LSC⁠01 Lecture Series Committee hosted a pre-screening of the new hit rom-com “The Love Hypothesis” in 26-100⁠02 The largest lecture hall on campus. for free! I didn’t go (oops!), but I did watch the movie the night it came out on Prime Video.⁠03 The worst streaming service. Off to a bad start... If you don’t know, the movie follows the fake-dating, enemies-to-lovers romance between a biology PhD student, Olive, and a biology post-doc, Adam.

I think the reason it was chosen as one of MIT’s exclusive pre-screenings is because the movie is very science- and academia-focused. What a mistake! Showing a movie so deeply embedded in scientific practice to a group of scientists is a sure-fire way for the absolute most criticism. And oh my god were there so many errors. Most people talking about the movie are obviously not focused on correct biological practices and instead on the over-six-foot-totally-jacked-genius professor, but trust that I am holding the fort down. To get this off my chest, here is everything (that I can remember) that The Love Hypothesis gets wrong about biology/academia:

1. Olive’s Dorm

Early in the movie, Olive is shown to have a very traditional, undergraduate-style dorm room. This is wrong for many reasons. Mostly that if Olive were to live in an undergraduate dorm, she would be an RA and would therefore have a much larger dorm with its own bathroom and kitchenette. However, most likely, Olive would have lived in a graduate dorm, which almost universally have apartment-style housing instead of individual dorm rooms.

Eventually, Olive does move out with her friends into an off-campus house, which is more realistic.

2. Lab Bathroom

A key scene at the beginning of the movie involves the two main characters meeting in what Adam calls his “lab bathroom”. This is not a thing. First, it is ridiculous to assume that any university has enough funding to have a full bathroom that is out of commission just to have extra lab sinks. Second, this is a total safety hazard to have an extraneous, publicly accessible location with exposure to any biologicals or chemicals. Like, you have to have gloves and all the safety signs and things. Third, most biologicals Adam would be using can’t be poured down a normal sink drain either, but in specialized lab sinks that are specifically hooked to different sewer lines so as to not create mass exposure to random things.

3. That’s not how a Post-Doc works

One of the key differences between the book and the movie is that, in the book, Adam is a professor in the biology department, while in the movie he is only a post-doc. The reasoning behind this was to lessen the severity of the power-gap between the characters and reduce stigma. Unfortunately, they forgot to fix every other detail that involves the differences in power between a post-doc and professor.

Essentially, the movie just treats Adam as a professor, and calls him a post-doc. He has his own office and laboratory and PhD students (fully not a thing, only professors have this–post-docs work in labs under professors instead). Also, he himself applies and renews his own grants, when again post-docs work under labs where the professor is the main point for funding. He also is the keynote speaker at a large biology conference later in the film (not as hard for a post-doc, but to be the keynote speaker as a post-doc is crazy, when there are full professors with large labs and decades of experience over you that they didn’t pick?).

And, most importantly, no post-doc is that hot. Sorry, but if you’re a post-doc, you probably work ~10 hrs/day, 5-6 days a week. When are you getting jacked? Not during lab babe, sorry :(

4. Classes

For most of the movie, Olive is a PhD candidate as opposed to a PhD student. This assumes her primary focus is her research and dissertation and not the Master-level classes and thesis required of early-PhD students.

Yet, Olive and all of her friends are consistently seen in lectures (which also lowkey have early undergrad-level biology being explained, like the MAP-Kinase pathway). Sure, candidates can take one or two classes, but they have absolutely no reason to except pure interest, and most candidates are interested in their own research instead of learning a new subject. In fact, instead of being in class, Olive should be teaching one, which leads us to…

5. Not a TA

Graduate students are typically either required or very very very much want to TA undergraduate classes, as they provide stipends that count towards your probably already-low pay as a full-time PhD. But yet again, Olive and any of her friends having to leave lab to teach is not mentioned.

This wouldn’t be that big of a deal considering it would have no impact on the plot, BUT Olive is shown teaching a class for…middle schoolers? When she would have the time or requirement to do this, I don’t know. Also it was a chemistry lab, so like what?

6. Mice

Olive works on blood biomarkers to detect pancreatic cancer (we’ll get to this later). As a result, she works on mice. And, in true fashion, she breaks absolutely every safety rule with mice protocols??

Most importantly, the mice are kept in the normal lab on her regular lab bench. This is, of course, not allowed. Mice terminals/rooms are required to be in separate rooms away from the traditional lab to protect the people, the mice, and the other chemicals and biologicals in the lab. Yet every time we see Olive with her mice, they’re just on the bench with other people around running other experiments.

7. PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). 

Gloves and a lab coat are required to be worn when touching almost anything in a lab, regardless of the lab’s safety level. Even more importantly, gloves and lab coats must be removed when leaving lab so that you don’t contaminate the outside world with anything from the lab.

But dur-de-dur, none of these full-grown professors, post-docs, and PhD students follow this rule. There are full scenes where they are walking around in the hallways of the biology building with lab coats and gloves. Danger danger!

8. Working Alone

It is known that Olive consistently works alone in the lab on weekends instead of going out and partying (cause she’s not like other girls etc etc.). This isn’t totally uncommon, but it is strange, and typically requires special permission from the PI since it is a safety issue to have people in the lab alone.

9. Transferring to Harvard?

A large plot point throughout the movie is Olive trying to get a research position at a lab at Harvard university. This is capital-S strange. People in the movie treat this as “yay you’re getting this super cool opportunity”, which would make sense if she was a research assistant or even post-doc. But as a student, this means fully transferring programs, having to apply to Harvard, and do all that, which normally means you’re having a really negative experience in your current program and are willing to burn a bridge with your current PI over it. They do not acknowledge this.

10. Olive = Elizabeth Holmes

Olive works on bio-blood markers as an early detection metric for pancreatic cancer. This is theoretically cool, but someone already did it, honey: Elizabeth Holmes.

This is an actual field of study and it is valid, but I can’t help but see a blonde White woman talking about her idea to use blood to test for disease and immediately hear Elizabeth Holmes’ voice.