1999 Ig Nobel Winners!

Canadian Donut Shops by Glytch · 1999-09-30 21:58 · Score: 2

Seriously, I really must disagree with awarding Steve Penfold the award for Sociology. If you're not Canadian, you wouldn't believe the importance of donut shops here. *Especially* Tim Hortons.
Tim's is a national institution, on par with pubs in Britain.

But as for the Science Education award, they were absolutely right. :)

Re:kansas's darwin act?! by vyesue · 1999-09-30 22:03 · Score: 2

you are aware, of course, that this is the Ig Nobel Prize, we're talking about here, right?

anyone who wins one of these definitely wouldn't be considered to have been honored in any sense of the word.

Kansas, evolution, and Scientism by fable2112 · 1999-09-30 22:03 · Score: 3

OK. The idea that, right off the bat, evolution shouldn't be taught because the Bible says the world was created in 4004 BC is just batty. Especially when one stops to consider that what appears in the Bible as "day" really means "period of time," and with a few minor exceptions the order that things were "created" in is a pretty good match for evolutionary theory. I also think that the theory of evolution is the best one out there.

Now, all that said, I've got some serious problems with people who claim there is no God and then turn around and turn Science into God. Scientific rationalism can be (and these days, often is) taken much too far, in the same way that Christianity can.

I consider myself quite religious, though I am not Christian. And the replacement of the Judeo-Christian God with the "non-God" of scientific rationalism just shifts the good/evil paradigm slightly. It really doesn't change the black-and-white outlook that most people seem to have. "I'm right, and I have PROOF! Therefore, you're an immoral idiot." Isn't it time to evolve past this (so to speak)? ;)

(And before someone jumps all over me for this, I'm not trying to claim that the world was literally, actually, created by the remains of a giant cow. I do think that scientific evolution is the best *guess* we currently have as to "how we got here," but I don't want kids taught that Science is God any more than I want them forced to pray to Jesus every day.)

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"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today ... but it wasn't anybody I knew" -The Moody Blues, "Dear Diar

Re:Kansas, evolution, and Scientism by SimonK · 1999-09-30 22:51 · Score: 3

I think this whole science versus religion debate is mistaken really. The problem is that religious texts from the past tend to provide both an account of history, much of which is mythological, but some of which is almost certainly correct, and a system of ethics. Both of these are general wrapped up in a concept of "revelation", that they are the Word of God and therefore beyond any challenge.

The problem seems to emerge when the account of history is challenged, either by science showing it is impossible, or by historical research showing that they cannot have happened as detailed. To anyone who is knowledgable and honest with themselves, this means either some parts of some sacred texts are false and either are not the Word of God, or science is somehow unreliable. I have trouble relating to the latter view, so I won't even attempt to account for it.

The former is much more interesting. The very possibility the bible might be false (or even only false in parts, or essentially correct but corrupted) seems to arouse anxiety in many religious persons. This is understandable I guess, but it results in what seem to be less than honest attempts to ignore the evidence by claiming it is "just a theory" (as if any human idea could ever be anything else).

What I think is missed in this is that the veracity of particular 2000 year old writings has no real baring on the validity of a system of ethics. "Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbour" seems to be a pretty good way to live regardless of whether man evolved from apes or a particular man was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to each other for a change.

To summarise a little: Science has no take on ethics. There is no scientific way to live your life. Similarly religious views of the physical world should give way to scientific ones.
Re:Kansas, evolution, and Scientism by cje · 1999-09-30 23:07 · Score: 3

The very possibility the bible might be false (or even only false in parts, or essentially correct but corrupted) seems to arouse anxiety in many religious persons.

The problem that many folks have is that they worship the Bible instead of the God that it talks about. They are more interested in holding it to a preposterous standard of inerrancy than they are in studying its deeper meaning. This amounts to little more than idolatry. When people use their own eyes and brains to make observations of the physical world and discover that said observations conflict with what is written in the Bible, they decide that God must be wrong and worship the book instead.

The doctrine of young-Earth creationism (the "universe is 6,000 years old" folks) requires its adherents to worship a deliberately deceitful God that will sentence them to an eternity of torture for having the audacity to use the brains, creativity, curiosity, and common sense they were given. I simply fail to understand why so many people are willing to characterize their God in such a manner. It is certainly not a flattering portrayal.

"Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbour" seems to be a pretty good way to live regardless of whether man evolved from apes or a particular man was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to each other for a change.

Truer words were never spoken!

--
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground

Hmm, some of these aren't stupid y'know by orac2 · 1999-09-30 22:08 · Score: 3

Awarding the Ig-noble to the tea-dunker and the tea-spout mathematician was unfair, given that the Ig-noble is really for worthless or inane stuff. Both are reasonably knotty problems; I remember when people though of research into foams in the same way (what could be more trivial than froth?) - but it lead to significant theoretical and practical advances in solid state physics and beyond. The possible commercial benefits of making a biscuit that doesn't collaspe into goop at the bottom of your mug is obvious and the non-drip tea spout is a piece of interesting and non-trivial math as I'm sure anyone who's tried to model fluids can testify. It may look not look very weighty now but who knows - Riemann's non-euclidian geometry was totally useless for anything for generations, until Einstein built Relativity on top of it.

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"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who

Re:Hmm, some of these aren't stupid y'know by Jburkholder · 1999-09-30 22:46 · Score: 2

Yeah, wasn't there a story a long while ago where someone decided to study coffee rings because they thought it odd the way that stains from the bottom of coffee cups dried. Seem to recall that they actually discovered some interesting phenomena that was not previously described.
Re:Hmm, some of these aren't stupid y'know by Ledge+Kindred · 1999-09-30 23:27 · Score: 2

From the IgNobel page:

WHY: The Igs are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people's interest in science.

So you see, it doesn't mean they think it's stupid. Just something incredibly weird.

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My mom's going to kick you in the face!

Prize for Medicine by Imabug · 1999-09-30 22:13 · Score: 2

The prize awarded for medicine was just way too funny. A rotating table to facilitate with childbirth here.

imabug

--
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"

Re:Prize for Medicine by SEWilco · 1999-09-30 22:42 · Score: 2

I think the patent should have been issued. It is a method which may help childbirth and I think it would work. The patent law forbids a patent for a solution which is obvious to an expert, but it does not forbid a patent for something which is obviously impractical to an expert.
On the other hand, that patent might apply to the maternity ward on a rotating space station...which has been obvious to experts for decades.

Reality Check. by Hermetic · 1999-09-30 22:19 · Score: 2

I think we all need to step back and take alook at the big picture here. The Ig Nobel's serve a very good purpose: They highlight the fact that there are people that are actually getting paid to do this sort of research! That is my kind of job! Person: "So, What do you do?" Hermetic: "I dunk biscuits, quite precisely, mind you, and determine what precentage of dunking produces the best taste." Person: "Are you hiring?" I find it amazing that any woman would think that the rotating birth accelerator is a good idea. Did you look at that thing? "Sweetie, I know it hurts, but I think if we strap you in and spin you around really, really fast that kid'll come shooting out of there in no time fast!" Please, Please don't let these people breed.

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Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.

Don't want a car flamethrower... by whitroth · 1999-09-30 22:35 · Score: 2

In fact, I'd like an EMP gun to waste the electronics of the next idiot whose car alarm goes off as I walk by it in a supermarket parking lot, or the second time that night at 0-dark-thirty, because they've got the sensitivity set to, "a pigeon shat on my car!!!"

Instead, I have a *far* more useful device (copyright m. roth-whitworth, 1995-99): a rocket launcher for the front of your car to take out the morons who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but who insist on permanently attaching their cell phone to their ear, and driving their SUVs (Stupid lUser Vehicles) *badly* in the left lane.... Now what makes *my* rocket device unique is that it uses a vertical-wedge shaped charge.
The advantage of this is that it not only takes out the idiot in front of you, but
1) it splits their vehicle in half up the middle, so that it doesn't get in your way as you keep on driving, and
2) depending on the lane you're in, the two halves of the vehicle formerly in front of you (VFiFoY) take out the jerks on either or both sides of you, who, seeing the removal of the idiot, would otherwise attempt to cut in front of you.

See? *Far* more useful, eliminating two or three pollutants from the shallow end of the gene pool for the price of one! Besides, it would make a nice boom!

mark "now, about the FCC-legal white noise generator on cellphone frequencies..."

Re:Don't want a car flamethrower... by Otto · 1999-09-30 22:49 · Score: 2

In fact, I'd like an EMP gun to waste the electronics of the next idiot whose car alarm goes off as I walk by it in a supermarket parking lot, or the second time that night at 0-dark-thirty, because they've got the sensitivity set to, "a pigeon shat on my car!!!"

I've been considering mounting an EMP gun in my trunk, aiming backwards mind you, and seeing how it affects cars behind me on the road. I can see enormous practical benefit from this. Cop trying to pull you over for speeding? Just fire off a few bursts of EMP, that'll fix his wagon... :-)

Anyway, if anyone has a spec to build one of these devices, post a link, mmm-kay?

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--
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Re:Don't want a car flamethrower... by Doug+Loss · 1999-10-01 00:21 · Score: 2

What I've wanted for quite a while is a pneumatic dart gun for the front of my car that can fire suction-cup-tipped darts about 20 cm. long with flame-orange flags attached with the word "asshole!" on them. The suction cups would of course be coated with superglue. If enough of us used these, we would have a community-based system of rating driving quality and traffic courteousness.

Now as for the cell-phones, is there any way we can increase the brain-cancer-causing aspects of them?

Doug Loss

Re:kansas's darwin act?! by Jburkholder · 1999-09-30 22:41 · Score: 2

Hmm, I hope you are just kidding and do realise that these are not the official Nobel prize thingies, but the ng Nobel. In case you missed it:

WHAT: The annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony honors individuals whose achievements
"cannot or should not be reproduced." Ten prizes are given to people who have done
remarkably goofy things -- some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise. At the
ceremony, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. The Prizes are physically handed to the winners by genuinely bemused
genuine Nobel Laureates.

Re:Kansas Science Award by Jburkholder · 1999-09-30 22:47 · Score: 2

"I'm trying really hard to see this issue from your point of view, but I just can't seem to get my head shoved quite that far up my ass!"

Re:Teapot spouts by BugMaster+ChuckyD · 1999-09-30 22:50 · Score: 2

Do you have a link for the tea specs? I couldn't find it on the ig-noble page and a search on the british standards web site didn't come up with it.

Re:Pasteur's work by TurkishGeek · 1999-09-30 22:57 · Score: 2

Hasdi, the reference to Pasteur does not mention the spontaneous generation theory. As you pointed out, it was debunked for good; and has no scientific basis whatsoever. The poster who referenced Pasteur mentions Pasteur's discovery of germs as the reason of diseases-one of the most valuable contributions of science to mankind, perhaps. A discussion of the spontaneous generation theory is, IMHO, irrelevant here. And I don't think spontaneous generation has ever been taken seriously by anyone in scientific circles, anyway.

--
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog

The Right Way(TM) to make tea by Lucius+Lucanius · 1999-09-30 23:15 · Score: 3

The process that takes place during tea making is known as "leaching", familiar to students of chemical engineering. Leaching involves the extraction of soluble chemicals from a solid or porous object by subjecting it to a current of liquid solvent. The design of leaching equipment is both complex and well studied, and involves optimization using methods such as cross-current and counter current flow (to extract as much as possible by trying to increase the concentration gradient and effective factors such as temperature, pressure, etc.)

I normally follow the following unique procedure -

1) Mix 1/2 cup water and milk

2) Bring it to a boil

3) Dunk in the tea leaves (real ones, not the stupid teabag thingie), turn off the heat, keep covered

4) Let it sit for 2-3 minutes

5) Filter using an appropriate mechanism

6) Add your preferred amount of sugar

This was described to me by a guy from India, and it comes out quite strong and flavorful. It, however, is not the l33t connoisseur's methodology, which normally involves boiling water and adding the tea leaves, then waiting for a longer period of time (5-6 mins).

Note - Use actual tea instead of tea bags (preferably stuff you can find in ethnic stores). Also, let the water run for a while from the faucet - the initial body of water tends to be staler and less oxygenated.

An alternative method is as follows:

1) pour desired liquid(s) in said cup and place in a microwave oven.

2) Nuke till it boils (2:38 mins on my 900 Watt Sharp Carousel)

3) Add the tea

4) Wait till it's done.

Historical footnote - Legend has it that tea was invented accidentally when tea leaves drifted into a Chinese emperor's hot water (which always made me wonder why he was drinking hot water and in a place likely to allow leaves to fall in). Just found this -

http://www.aromas.com.au/AllTea.html

There are as many legends surrounding the origins of tea
drinking as there are for coffee. The most popular tells of the
Chinese Emperor, Shen Nung, in 2,737 BC. He was boiling
his drinking water under a tree, Camellia sinensis, when
some leaves fell into the pot. The emperor was so delighted
with the brew that he began to cultivate the plant. Although
it is thought the plant originated in India, the earliest
recorded evidence of its cultivation comes from China in the 4th century. At
that time, however, the leaves were not brewed as a drink but made into
cakes and boiled with rice, spices or nuts. Later the dried leaves were
powdered and whipped into hot water, rather like cocoa. The infusion of tea
leaves in boiling water which we know today did not become fashionable until
the Ming Dynasty, from 1368 to 1644.

Oddly, I couldn't find the British standards institute way of making tea. A search for tea only gives this page :
http://www.bsi.org.uk/bsi/products/standards/dev elopment/committees/consumer.xhtml

It does have the wise committee's email addr. Just don't slashdot them asking for tea recipes. :)

I hereby place the step-by-step tea making code included in this document under the GPL (which can be obtained by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA)

L.

Re:Is it just me or... by drox · 1999-09-30 23:26 · Score: 2

...do these guys seem just a bit too preoccupied with tea and coffee?

That would be impossible. The importance of tea and coffee approaches infinity.

"Everybody knows that".

Too bad about Physics by Ledge+Kindred · 1999-09-30 23:29 · Score: 3

I guess Japan has to wait until next year for its IgNobel prize in physics for attempting to see what adding seven times the normal amount of Uranium to a purification process would do.

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My mom's going to kick you in the face!

Medical science by fable2112 · 1999-09-30 23:58 · Score: 2

*sigh* That's as good an example as any of what I'm talking about, and an area where it is much more dangerous. There are a lot of people who have quite a lot invested in the belief that modern medical technology is the Savior of Us All. Effective alternatives to surgery and a lifetime of drugs for certain diseases are being ignored and/or derided as "New Age Fluff" or "just a placebo" in the name of "modern medical science." People are being put on drugs with horrible side effects that don't actually fix the problem they're supposed to, and paying through the nose for the priviledge, because some doctor said so. THIS is what I mean by treating Science as God.

Scientists are no more immune from having an agenda than "men of God" are, and "scientific findings" have this interesting way of backing up popular public beliefs, or alternatively of not really seeing the light of day. Phrenology, anyone?

--
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today ... but it wasn't anybody I knew" -The Moody Blues, "Dear Diar

Re:Science as God? by fable2112 · 1999-10-01 00:13 · Score: 2

With a signature file like that, you really need to know the answer? ;)

Well, here's a good example: Most school scientific experiments don't deserve the name "experiment". Generally, if you didn't get X for a result (X being whatever's in the teacher's guide), then YOU did something wrong. And the kids who rack up good grades in science classes and win science fairs confine themselves to this type of "experiment" for the most part. There's a built in "right" and "wrong" answer. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these principles need to be taught, but can we please not call them "experiments" when the conclusion is so predetermined?

And here's another one: The nice doctor and the nice psychologist know exactly what's wrong with you. And they're going to make it all better. Now take your Ritalin, Johny! (Alternatively, take your Zoloft, Jenny!) They're the experts, so they obviously know what's best for you.

History teachers that make fun of the mythology of other cultures and tell their students how "stupid" and "backward" and "savage" a culture that "believed that stuff" had to be are another excellent example. "WE are intelligent, modern people. We're above all that!" Apparently, some friends of mine had history teachers treat Christianity the same way, much to the ire of several parents.

--
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today ... but it wasn't anybody I knew" -The Moody Blues, "Dear Diar

Forget the flamethrower! by Trick · 1999-10-01 05:14 · Score: 2

Who needs a flamethrowing car alarm? Check out the last winner -- the centrifugal birthing table.

Mount one of those bad boys on top of your car, strap a mother-to-be-any-minute on it, and walk away. I guarantee your car won't get stolen, and any thief brave enough to come within an arm's reach of Mama is going to *wish* it was just a flamethrower.

Then's there's the potential for using it as a projectile weapon, but I'd think the accuracy would be pretty bad, and it'd take ninth months to reload.

Re:Pasteur's work by Guy+Harris · 1999-10-01 05:40 · Score: 2

Coming from a religious camp, if I live in a country where religion is taught in school (and I do), and my goverment suddenly that mandate that school children no longer need to believe in God, I would freak out the same way as they do.

I don't particularly care whether people would be bothered by the government disallowing public schools to require that people believe in some religion; I refuse to consider it proper for any government to enforce adherence to any religion, or even to religion in general, in its institutions.

Besides, plenty of religious people seem to manage to reconcile a belief in their religion with a belief that an evolutionary model for the generation and development of life on earth is the best model we have so far; teaching evolution is inequivalent to teaching atheism, no matter what some folks might think.

Why is the spontenous generation theory is sooo important? It supports the idea that humans are not created but evolved from bacteria spontenously created out of thin air.

And who has hypothesized that "humans ... evolved from bacteria spontaneously created out of thin air"? I am unaware that any of the current hypotheses for the appearance of life on earth posit that bacteria were "spontaneously created out of thin air".

(In addition, even if you do posit that some diety or dieties somehow put the first forms of life on earth, that doesn't mean that said life forms couldn't have evolved into other life forms.

A lot of the problem some religious people seem to have with evolution appears to be that they believe it implies that there must be no god or gods; as far as I can tell, it is possible to be religious and believe that evolution is the best explanation for the way live exists on earth now and apparently existed in the past, just as it's possible for nonbelievers like me.)

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