2020 Ig Nobel Prize Winners | Hacker News Reader

2020 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

improbable.com

168 pointsxingyzt62 comments

PEACE PRIZE [INDIA, PAKISTAN] The governments of India and Pakistan, for having their diplomats surreptitiously ring each other’s doorbells in the middle of the night, and then run away before anyone had a chance to answer the door. REFERENCE: Numerous news reports.

The fun thing is, it probably brings these two countries closer to peace than war, the same way having children play together makes it easier to develop a friendship

I'm reminded of the Whisky War, where Canada and Denmark's military leave a bottle of alcohol on a disputed island every now and then as they "capture" the island.

They don't actually do that and haven't done that for many years, it's rather less friendly nowadays because oil was discovered nearby.

Sadly, that is more constructive than the actions of one of the current nominees for the real Nobel Peace Prize, which has drifted into self parody.

Nominations aren’t really to be taken seriously.

It’s a pretty wide spectrum of people who can nominate and anyone they nominate is a nominee.

Also there are no confirmed nominees.

And just say president Trump if that’s what you are referring to. He’s not Voldemort. You can say his name.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/

> Nominations aren’t really to be taken seriously.

But does the prize contribute to their citation count?

It's a funny side-effect of the HN "rule" against engaging in politics. We still talk politics, but must mention He Who Must Not Be Named obliquely.

ETA: Oh no.. it didn't work. I'm being downvoted :)

There are plenty of political discussions on HN. Many of them with no relevant technical data or discussion.

But reading people dance around the topic they really mean to be talking about is exhausting.

This is BS. I've written several comments mentioning Trump and Xi without a problem. If you're being downvoted it's because what you're saying isn't true.

You're talking about the only recent US president who didn't invade any countries?

Ignoring Yemen, Somalia, and the expansion of pre-existing wars?

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/trumps-dangero...

Yes, ignoring these since they started before 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

The ringer is a single low-ranked guy, and he tries hard to wake everybody up. The plan is to sabotage their sleep, in order to have them commit blunders during negotiations.

As each party does it we obtain a "mirrored balance of error".

Wait, so is this fairly common knowledge or expected behavior?

I thought that the Ig Nobel Prize was for discovery of the evidence of something funny/interesting/unusual, not for common knowledge...

It's not common knowledge if the rest of us didn't know.

It can be local common knowledge to one country (like a tradition/custom) while not being common to another country

I have no information about this story, my reply was an 'hypothetical proposition'.

If it is the true explanation, then the loop is looped as it seems funny and unusual to me. May I obtain some 'Ig/Ig' (Ig on Ig) prize?

On nearly every morning's dogwalk, I think the 2014 Ig Nobel BIOLOGY PRIZE is bunk.

> for carefully documenting that when dogs defecate and urinate, they prefer to align their body axis with Earth’s north-south geomagnetic field lines.

And that this study must be flawed, because my dog (n=1) does not align.

Maybe the research study area was a city with a strong North-South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_plan

Magnetic fields are not uniform at every spot. Plus, the alignment of the dog was conditional on availability if I remember correctly, meaning that if it is on a leash, it is not feeling comfortable to align.

We have no idea if mammals can sense magnetic fields.

Maybe bats. And maybe many mammals including dogs and humans.

But we don't actually know.

Which makes me sad. It should not be hard to do properly. Harder than looking at dog poop, but possible.

None of the studies done have been done properly. Many have been disproven.

However, because of the descriptive nature of this study, alternative explanations (e.g., the sun compass) could not be excluded. In a follow-up study, researchers analyzed body orientations of ruminants in localities where the geomagnetic field is disturbed by high-voltage power lines to determine how local variation in magnetic fields may affect orientation behaviour. This was done by using satellite and aerial images of herds of cattle and field observations of grazing roe deer. Body orientation of both species was random on pastures under or near power lines. Moreover, cattle exposed to various magnetic fields directly beneath or in the vicinity of power lines trending in various magnetic directions exhibited distinct patterns of alignment. The disturbing effect of the power lines on body alignment diminished with the distance from the conductors.[76]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception#In_animals

Exactly like I said, fake -

No alignment of cattle along geomagnetic field lines found https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-011-0628-7

I'm not sure what to think about Ig Nobel Prize's. They do promote science as fun and lateral thinking. But their science is often a little slim and it's almost poking fun. But that might be a factor of too many scientists not thinking laterally which is why you might need the Ig Nobel Prize.

Ah~~ so that's why dogs walk many tight circles before defecating? They are finding north? :)

That's to survey the surrounding area for dangers

Makes sense, they also do that before sleeping.

Ticket closed. Dog performs according to spec. Dropped packets indicate geomagnetic flux anomalies in local area network. User advised to replace faulty ley lines.

Full-text papers for the curious.

ACOUSTICS PRIZE: [PDF](https://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/218/15/2442.full.p...)

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: [PDF](https://sci-hub.tw/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/1...)

PHYSICS PRIZE: [HTML](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65295-4)

ECONOMICS PRIZE: [HTML](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43267-7)

MANAGEMENT PRIZE: [HTML, CHINESE](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ibIkZBbnZb-menl7Xv4FAQ) [HTML, ENGLISH}(https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...)

ENTOMOLOGY PRIZE: [PDF](https://sci-hub.tw/https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/59/3/...)

MEDICINE PRIZE: [PDF, 1](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...) [PDF, 2](https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...)

MATERIALS SCIENCE PRIZE: [PDF](https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...)

"Hitman hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman who tells police" discussed on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21361849 (240 comments)

The wonders of subcontracting. It would have been even better if the 5th hitman hired the 1st hitman to create a loop.

Interestingly, that's how the monetary system flows. I give you 1'000, you keep giving it to other people, eventually back to me. if no reserve limit [1] is placed, we could end up with millions from that 1'000.

[1] https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/67/money/money-multiplier...

> NOTE: This is the second Ig Nobel Prize awarded to Alexander Lukashenko. In the year 2013, the Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Alexander Lukashenko, for making it illegal to applaud in public, AND to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.

> Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work

Now that’s some solid science!

This one deserves a special prize indeed.

Solid science though? Not solid enough to cut with it, apparently.

It was solid, but not sharply detailed.

on edit: ok it wasn't exactly solid either, but who am I to waste a line.

The paper[0] is a helluva read. The supplementary document with photos was pretty interesting.

[0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X1...

Doesn't cut the mustard

Not very solid though if they don't know what exactly the old man has eaten days and hours prior making such a knife.

I noticed one from 2019 on measuring whether banknotes transmit harmful bacteria. Doesn’t seem so weird in 2020!

2009 also had a prescient one: the bra that can convert into two face masks

Thanks. I missed the "2009" and wondered why Paul Krugman (right) was wearing his mask so incorrectly.

Times of India, the most popular english daily in India, removed Narendra Modi's name when mentioning about the Medical Education Category https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/poop...

both in print and digital.

As a person who suffers badly from misophonia (which is not limited to chewing sounds) it’s pretty fucking grimly depressing to see research on it treated this way.

You have a problem with scientists raising awareness of research into a condition which affects you?

Why?

As mentioned in the Wikipedia article about the Ig Nobel Prize,

> “the Ig Nobel Awards are veiled criticism of trivial research”

It’s not raising awareness. It’s making light of the underlying concerns and trivializing them.

Misophonia isn’t trivial to me. It’s a significant disorder that makes my life challenging.

It’s deeply upsetting that the Ig Nobel committee would view it as within the purview of their award designations.

As mentioned on Improbable Research's website:

> We collect improbable research. Real research, about anything and everything, from everywhere. Research that’s maybe good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless.

There's typically a few serious research papers included each year.

In all fairness there was a prize for research about cows caloric intake based on amount light and temperature or something like that.

It sound stupid, but this research was used by farmers to plan amount of food and condition for cows during winter.

So just because the research topic sounds funny it doesn't meant that it is useless.

Guess what. I have the same fucking condition and I'm delighted. It's gotten so bad that I don't eat in cafeterias, don't eat with my roommates and very very rarely in restauranrs. I'm still delighted to see that someone actually notices and that so many people have now been exposed to its existence.

Same boat, it drives me bonkers even imagining the scenario. And its not only chewing food sounds but some other mouth sounds. Also certain inflection of speech that make some wet pauses between sentences. There had been few podcasts I dropped due to sounds the host/guest were making. And their expensive microphones that pickup every sound do not help :(

But as I grew older I got the more I managed my emotions better. The more I focus on the sound the more it drives me up the wall. So learning to pay less attention and not actively looking for the sounds is something I am always working on.

I can eat out, as long as person(s) with me doesn't chew loudly. I can tune out other tables.

Its bit sad that this is seen as a goofy research. Misophonia is not life ending but definitely can affect your life, especially if left alone can probably decrease life quality.

Its strange that Mysophobia - fear of germs or dirt - is something people are treating like a 'normal' disorder. Its as idiosyncratic to fear every single germ as to be agitated by arbitrary sound(s).

Thanks OP, I needed that. After all the depressing stuff in my life these past few months, it was nice to feel amused enough to genuinely laugh out loud.

> MEDICAL EDUCATION PRIZE ... Bolsonaro, Johnson, Modi, Trump, Putin, et al. for using the Covid-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.

We shouldn't consider this result news nor funny. The pattern has been happening with the environment for decades.

I suggest we should use it as motivation for scientists and doctors to learn leadership skills, recognizing that humans don't just respond to facts and figures. Like it or not, we respond to stories, images, community, personality, and so on. We aren't likely going to lead Trump to learn science so if we want science in our leadership, we'll have to take the initiative.

The pandemic is pretty big news.

The environment is not an immediate effect.

> The environment is not an immediate effect.

Every Day 10,000 People Die Due To Air Pollution From Fossil Fuels: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/03/10/every-da...

WHO reveals 7 million die from pollution each year in latest global air quality figures: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

The prize is a bit of pop culture anti-intellectualism bullshit.

I've used one of the famous former winners ("Psychoacoustics of a chilling sound") with relation to work. Solid paper studying real phenomenon.

What? In what way is the prize anti-intellectual? They're celebrating real science being done in fringe or curious areas. Aren't most/all of their winners "solid papers studying real phenomena"?

Anti-intellectual? I don't think it's meant to be taken seriously as a statement about science. It's just a bit of fun.

While we are here, do not forget the new Toohey Awards. https://tooheys.org/

> You may consider The Toohey Award something similar to the Ig Nobel Prize. The public may safely disregard any article ever written, present-and-future, by a Toohey Award winner. [1]

There is absolutely no discrediting of scientists related to the Ig Nobel prize. Its stated aim being to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." [2]

The Tooheys is an attempt at discrediting individual journalist. There is absolutely no spiritual relationship between the two.

[1] https://tooheys.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

I don't think this year's "Medical Education Prize" is achieving anything like that, though - it's pushing a bunch of narratives that everyone's expected to believe despite having an extremely weak foundation in reality, in an area where the very concept of prioritizing scientific evidence over politics has been twisted into a partisan political tool so throughly I'm not sure there's any way back, never mind the evidence itself.

Or, do forget them? This award seems much more mean-spirited. It smells like the sort of thing someone makes when they're complaining about "cancel culture" in bad faith.

> Zoe Schiffer has been awarded the Toohey Award for irresponsible journalism for her hit piece.

> She wins a 'Yellow Pen' and loses her credibility.

"Loses her credibility" is a very strong claim to try to make with any sort of objectivity. Personally, I read the source article that sparked the nomination, and I can't see what the issue is. As a queer person, I'm happy the article exists to raise attention to this sort of company culture.

The fact that the awards are named after a caricature of bad journalism 100 years ago in an Ayn Rand novel I think suggests a lot about the thinking behind the awards.

Since there's no indication of any nominations, process or criteria other than one particular journalist being singled out for one particular long form piece criticising one particular startup company, my only question is which person working for that company thought that making a website to snipe at the journalist would actually be a good idea?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com