IG Nobel Prizes Vol 2

The Ig Nobel Prizes #2

by Marc Abrahams

The Ig Nobel Prizes make people laugh, and then make them think. homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks, the Swedish team that looked into chickens' preferences in humans, and the man who made it possible for someone to rent the entire country of Liechtenstein for corporate events. Sometimes, as in the latter case, Ig Nobel Prizes could not be awarded without the entire nation getting behind the researchers. incredulity at the way the human quest for knowledge takes us into ever more obscure areas of research.

Genres: Science, Humor, Nonfiction

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Marc Abrahams writes the 'Improbable Research' column for the Guardian and is the author of 'This Is Improbable'. He is the founding editor of the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research and founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are presented at Harvard University each year. Abrahams and the Ig have been covered by the BBC, New Scientist, Daily Mail, Times, and numerous other outlets internationally. He lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still reading this, but it's already assured a 5 star rating.

The funniest sort of dry humor prevails in this second installment of the Ig Nobel Prizes series of books. No, this book has nothing whatsoever to do with immunoglobulin A, E or any other letter. It is not affiliated in any fashion with the real Nobel prizes. The name of the award is a homophonic play on "ignoble," and these are awards given for dubious achievements in various fields of endeavor. (Think of the "Razzies" adapted for the sciences.)

For example, on page 70 one can read about the authors who received the "Ig Nobel Interdisciplinary Research Prize."

This was awarded to Stefano Ghirlanda, Liselotte Jansson, and Magnus Enquist of Stockholm University, for their "inevitable" (sic) report "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans."

Please do not think these are made up articles and invented people. (Oh come off it! You always knew scientists waste time, research funds and the gift of life itself with the best of them! Some of them might as well be playing Pogo as toying with stem cells!) The authors will give sources to verify studies such as the above-cited, focusing on poultry paragons of paltry pointlessness...or should that be paltry paragons of poultry pointlessness?

To wit, this study was published in Human Nature, vol. 13, no. 3, 2002,pp. 383-9.

Why was a study on chicken nature published in a journal dedicated to scientific studies of human nature, anyway?

Did we want to see ourselves "through a glass, poultry?" (Soz, bardolaters!)

The chickens tended to prefer attractive humans of the opposite sex. So I guess these were mostly straight chickens. If you are interested in knowing if bisexual or gay chickens are less superficial in their prima facie judgments of humans, you might want to apply for research funds yourself.

If anything, this article makes me feel slightly less bad for not being a vegetarian or a vegan and consuming chicken on a regular basis--I mean, now that I realize it's scientifically documented how superficial and shallow they actually are.

One has to admit there is a redemptive, practical side to some of these reports being singled out for Ig Nobels.

For example, I salute James F. Nolan, Thomas J. Stillwell and John P. Sands, Jr. for their "painstaking research report" on "Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis."

This was published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine in 1990.

Scoff if you must, Ig Nobel Committee, but I regard these men with veneration...certainly they are every bit as much The Liberator as Simon Bolivar.

I suppose the first book was somewhat successful, if this is the second in a projected series.

But I see only eight reviews on here, so the book doesn't seem to have made much of an impact or found a wide readership.

The summations of the scholarly articles are rather in depth, witty and interesting.

It's not Proust or Joyce. It's just entertaining non-fiction that gives you an insight into how those research dollars sometimes end up funding mindlessness. Apparently, even institutions like the NIH sometimes end up sending their scientific whiz kids to Camp Brain Dead for the summer.

You'll see it's not fiction, although you'll probably wish it were.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ig Nobel Prizes 2, Marc Abrahams, Dutton, 2004


This is another collection of what can only be described as very unique scientific research. The Ig Nobel Awards are handed out every October during an awards show at Harvard University. Presented by real Nobel Prize winners, they show just how far some people will go for knowledge.

Here are some titles of winning papers, some of appeared in real scientific journals: "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide," "Compliance With the Item Limit of the Food Supermarket Express Checkout Lane: An Informal Look," "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans," "Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture," "Patient Preference for Waxed or Unwaxed Dental Floss," and "Chicken Plucking as Measure of Tornado Wind Speed."

Other winners include a man from Ontario who developed and personally tested a suit that is impervious to grizzly bears; the inventor of karaoke; the entire nation of Liechtenstein, which can be rented for conventions, weddings and other gatherings; a pair of Japanese researchers who invented a computer-based dog-to-human language translation device; the inventors of tamagotchi; a man who investigated why shower curtains billow inwards, and the inventors of Spam and Beano.

The only "requirement" for anyone to win an Ig Nobel award is that the research makes a person laugh, then think. This hilarious book certainly accomplishes that. It can be picked up and read starting at any point, and read anywhere, and shows that science can be funny.

[Scott Benowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title implies, this book is Marc Abrahams sequel to "The Ignoble Prizes," which he'd published in 2002.
Beginning in 1991, the mathematician and software engineer Marc Abrahams began to issue annual awards for pointless, preposterous and counterproductive experiments and projects that various scientists work on each year as well as for pointless, preposterous and counterproductive science or pseudoscience articles that have been published in various newspapers, magazines and journals each year.
Marc Abrahams and his colleagues issue the annual Ignoble Prizes in a humorous ceremony which they hold on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. The Ignoble prizes usually make people wonder why some people even think of spending time working on experiments or projects which all basic common sense will indicate are notably pointless, preposterous or counterproductive. The annual Ignoble prizes that Marc Abrahams and his colleagues award also often make people wonder how proposals which describe pointless, preposterous or counterproductive experiments or projects get approved, and why some universities or some government agencies in some countries opt to fund experiments or projects which are blatantly obviously purposeless. Marc Abrahams annual Ignoble prizes also make people wonder why the editors of some newspapers, magazines and journals opt to publish some articles which are either sloppily written, articles which describe pointless experiments and articles which are about pseudoscience topics.
"The Ignoble Prizes" is the second book which Marc Abrahams has published in which he lists the winners of this humorous annual award for each of the various categories that he and his colleagues issue the award for.
And similar to the first book in this series, "The Ignoble Prizes," if you are in the mood to read something that will make you laugh, I can easily assure you that "The Ignoble Prizes 2: An All New Collection of the World's Unlikeliest Research" will accomplish this goal.

[Micah]

a thoroughly enjoyable summary of some of the quirkiest science ever attempted.

[Mark A.]

""

[William Beesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Falls into the enjoyable bathroom reader canon.
The Ig Nobel "Ignoble" prizes are a parody of the Nobel prizes perpetuated by several Harvard associations. The Iggies are awarded to a variety of scientist and laypeople for goofball ideas, goofball studies, and other oddities here and there.
A couple of past winners: Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr. for coining Murphy law, Daisuke Inoue for inventing Karaoke, (the Japanese are well represented winners of many Ig Nobel Prizes)and Steven Stack for his study on the effect of country music on suicide.
To me the funniest chapter was Collector's Choice. It documented the work of Dr. Arvid Vatle of Stord Norway for carefully collecting, classifying, and contemplating which kinds of containers his patients chose when submitting urine & stool samples. Patients would use their own receptacle and bring it in to the doctor rather than being put on the spot at the doctor's office.
The examples are adventures in the crazy crap people use when they are in a pinch for a container. Matchboxes and peanut butter jars for the poop. Pickle jars, tomato puree cans, Coca Cola bottles, perfume bottles and strangest of all a stick of roll on deodorant with the little roller ball removed for the pee.

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ignobel prizes are a parody of the Nobel prizes, awarded to researchers whose work makes us laugh first, and perhaps ponder the world a little differently second. The book is a nice sampler, one we kept as a bathroom reader for a while, that mixes humor and interesting science facts. A few of the memorable awards:

* One award went to a Scandanavian scientist who recorded the first documented case of male homosexual necrophiliac duck rape. Seriously.
* They also awarded an ignobel to the inventor of BEANO, a product that allows you to eat all the, ahem, flatulence-causing food you want without stinkin' up the joint.
* A few of the ignobel awards go to people in a mocking way, such as scientists who propegate young Earth creationist ideas or other similar sillyness. Usually these people are unwilling to accept the ignobel awards. So much the sadder for us.

It's a fine book, but probably not worth buying. Definitely worth a perusal if you find it somewhere, though.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those "have sitting around books" that you can pop in and out of over a few weeks when you have the time. The research described is interesting, but I can't remember any of the scientific studies described at this point, save the duck romancing a dead duck.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

funny bit still somehow boring.

[Amanda Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting and really funny.

[G. Branden · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's what you would expect; breezy and amusing.