Unit 33
Ig Nobel Prize
Some people covet it, others flee from it. Some laugh with it, others laugh at it. Many praise it, a few criticize it, others are just confused. And many people are madly in love with it. It is the Ig Nobel Prize.
We've been awarding Ig Nobel Prizes since 1991. Each year, ten Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded. The selection criterion is simple. The prizes are for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced." Examine that phrase carefully. It covers a lot of ground. It says nothing about whether a thing is good or bad.
After something has been discovered or created, no one can later become the first to have made that discovery or creation. The "firstness" cannot be repeated. Thus, Don Featherstone (Ig Nobel Art Prize, 1996), the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, clearly qualifies under the "cannot be repeated" phrase. Similarly, Anders Barheim and Hogne Sandvik (Ig Nobel Biology Prize, 1996), who discovered that sour cream stimulates the appetite of leeches, but that garlic often kills them, clearly qualify under the "cannot be repeated" phrase.
Jacques Benveniste (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, 1991 and 1998) discovered that water molecules remember things and that the memories can be transmitted over telephone lines; Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita (Ig Nobel Psychology Prize, 1995) made their achievement in training pigeons to distinguish between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet...
I raise this matter of good or bad, because the world in general seems to enjoy classifying things as being either one or the other. The Ig Nobel Prizes aside, most prizes, in most places, are clearly meant to honor the goodness or badness of the receivers. Olympic medals go to very good athletes. Worst-dressed prizes go to badly dressed celebrities. Nobel Prizes go to scientists, writers, and others who excel. These prizes, and most others, are meant to honor the extremes of humanity -- those whose achievements should be seen as very good or very bad. The Ig Nobel Prize isn't like that. The Ig honors the great confusion in which most of us exist much of the time. Life is confusing. Good and bad get all mixed up. Yin can be hard to distinguish from yang.
Most people go through life without ever being awarded a great prize to acknowledge that, yes, they have done something. That's why we award Ig Nobel Prizes. If you win one, it means that you have done some thing. What that thing is may be hard to explain. Whether your achievement is for the public good or had may be difficult or even painful to explain. But the fact is, you did it, and have been recognized for doing it. |