A feud was started between Facebook and Princeton last week when a group of the prestigious university's researchers published a scholarly article suggesting that the major social network would lose 80 percent of its users by 2017.

The aforementioned Princeton researchers were trying to do original and legitimate research, making predictions based on epidemiological models that show the growth and decline of organisms. Although the use of such models applied to social networks is questionable, the model did explain the rise and demise of Myspace.

The same methodology when used on Facebook suggested the social network has already reached the peak of its popularity and has entered a decline stage. It also suggests that young people are abandoning Facebook for other social platforms.

One of Facebook's data scientists criticized the Princeton study on Thursday by sarcastically mocking the methods used to achieve the findings. Instead of refuting the math in the study, a blog post announced that "Using the same robust methodology featured in the paper, we attempted to find out more about this 'Princeton University' - and you won't believe what we found!"   

Mike Develin, the Facebook employee who made the post, showed declining graphs of Princeton's "likes" over time as well as Google Scholar queries featuring the word "Princeton." "This trend suggests that Princeton will have only half its current enrollment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all, agreeing with the previous graph of scholarly scholarliness. Based on our robust scientific analysis, future generations will only be able to imagine this now-rubble institution that once walked this earth," he concluded.

He also posted a graph showing Google Trends for "air" declining steadily, using it to conclude that there will be no air left by the year 2060. His point is that just because something is not being searched for does not mean it ceases to exist.

Develin's post has attracted more than 9355 likes by Saturday afternoon and got comments such as "well played." Actually, the smackdown also spread over to Twitter and many observers gave credit to the Facebook for having such a sense of humor.