Science?

The Ig Nobel ceremony came to Oxford on Friday. I opted to spend time with friends instead of attending a farcical and often unamusing circus. I spent time getting my palm read and getting tips from Will Smith in Hitch. He used some very classy lines, must remember to use them on SPOS!! It is a reasonably decent romcom, with some funny scenes but like most romcoms gets extremely mushy and corny towards the end. Not recommended for cynics and those without prior experience in watching romcoms.

I was told that I would live till 80 which meant all my aspirations to greatness have been shattered. Ever since I read that Alexander and a few other famous men died young aged 33, I have always hoped that I shall do so as well, but it was not my destiny.

Anyway, I have watched the Ig Nobel ceremony held at Harvard last year and like most other American things I slowly came to dislike it. You can watch the ceremony here.
My main concern about the Ig Nobel is that it recgonises bad science and slowly it appears to award prizes in direct proportion to vulgarity.

I appreciate a minority of the awards given. For example, Peace Prize to person who invented karaoke, thus teaching people to tolerate each other or the letter published in Nature about people's perception of politicians.

If you read the organisers argument for the Ig, he says that it is a prize recgonising :
1.Firstness - I have rarely come across prizes given to people who do things second.
2. It is neither good or bad, or commendable but is something which cannot or should not be repeated - If you do something which cannot or should not be repeated or remade or used again what is the point of doing it.

Lots of people work on identifying cell proteins which most people will not work on again, but that doesn't mean it is useless. Science must be first and foremost useful.

If the Ig was started and is run with the aim of encouraging and igniting interest in Science, Medicine and Technology it cannot and in my opinion SHOULD NOT be done by highlighting useless science.
I have always wondered how children are interested in pursuing science if they believe that medicine is about investigating the angle of the penis in the vagina during sexual intercourse by using MRI!!!

I think people believe that making fun of science might help in demystifying it and popularising it. I dont believe that is true, science is made interesting by demystifying nature and explaining the rationality of natural phenomenon. I disbelieve the notion that the Ig makes uninterested people suddenly curious about science.

I must admit that some of the science applauded is good science and all is published,but if the aim of doing that is to popularise science and recgonise that everyone has done something, then you must explain the science behind it.
It is interesting to know that herrings communicate by farting, just because a lot of us are curious to know how dolphins communicate, do dogs have their own languages etc. but I am not interested in knowing about belly button lint, or for that matter praising someone who has sat down and researched 70 things that have irritated him.

Here is the list of winners and I leave you to make up your own mind. Just remember that the person who won by investigating homosexual necrophiliac ducks was getting paid to do it!!

The aim of research is the discovery of the equations which subsist between the elements of phenomena.

Mach, Ernst (1838 - 1916) Austrian physicist and philosopher