1999 Ig Nobel Winners!

SEWilco writes "The 1999 Ig Nobel winners have been announced. The PEACE winner's car flame thrower and the SCIENCE EDUCATION co-winner, the Kansas Board of Education were both /. articles. The PHYSICS co-winner, the biscuit dunking formula is my favorite. "

Comments

Kansas, evolution, and Scientism

[fable2112]

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.)

Re:Kansas, evolution, and Scientism

[SimonK]

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

[cje]

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!

Hmm, some of these aren't stupid y'know

[orac2]

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.

The Right Way(TM) to make tea

[Lucius Lucanius]

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.

Too bad about Physics

[Ledge Kindred]

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.

-=-=-=-=-