I was standing between a bald magician and a Nobel physicist with chalk on his sleeve, when a paper airplane hit me in the ear. I had been musing about how alike they were, as we were all parading on-stage to take part in this year’s Ig Nobel award ceremony. "Ig"s are awarded each year to research that can not or should not be reproduced. The awards are for a mixture of bad science, real science about bad science, and silly science.
I was one of the "Ignitaries" not because I won an award, but because the theme of the ceremony was "Duct Tape" and I had done the research that showed that duct tape should not be used on ducts. My justification for being there was to gain exposure for the work we have done on improving the efficiency of thermal distribution systems.
In the arcane jargon of science, the Ig Nobel ceremony is a "hoot" (i.e. a High-Output Outrageous Time ). The best and the brightest of at least three generations have come together to roast science in that confident self-mocking way that only a robust endeavor can allow. Good science is not silly, but good scientists can be when conditions permit, and these were highly permissible conditions.
The Harvard students supplied much of the entertainment. The music, singing, dancing and theatrics were supplied by accomplished students of the arts as well as Nobel laureates (there was even some overlap). Several times the ceremony was stopped when Sister Christine invoked a moment of science. There was even a charity auction of laureate detritus (cigar butts, junk mail, shopping lists, etc.)
My role was simple; I was to explain my research to an audience of 1200 ivy league students armed with paper airplanes and rolls of duct tape. I was to do it in a humorous and entertaining way and I was to do it in 45 seconds. A good way to explain science to a non-technical audience is to explain it as though you were explaining it to your children. My children are into Dr. Suess, so I was standing on stage as a Cat in the Hat, reciting my recent composition, "Duct Tape on Ducts?", to the tune of "Green Eggs & Ham". Speed poetry is not my usual speaking style, so I was pleased that I only blew one line.
I had another, smaller role and that was to help Nobel Chemist, William Lipscomb on and off with his clown shoes as the true laureates took part in a demonstration of the Ig Statistics prize research. This research was focussed on resolving one of the great mysteries of folklore-"The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length, and Foot Size." This piece of research, which showed a weak correlation, got the biggest rise out of the audience. This Ig award overshadowed the finding that Prozac increases the reproductive rates of clams.
Although the tone was light, the night was filled with role models. The real Nobel laureates were role models of how to do good science. (Sheldon Glashow, that professor with chalk on his sleeve, was one of mine when I was physics student) But there was also the Canadian woodsman Troy Hurtubise who has spent years perfecting and self-testing a Grizzly-proof suit.
The purpose of the Ig Nobels is more about uncovering bad science than it is about displaying good science, however. That magician I was standing next to was the Amazing (James) Randi, who aside from being an accomplished magician, is the foremost debunker of paranormal. But, by far the evenings star debunker and role model was Emily Rosa.
Emily is currently 11 years old and is the youngest person ever to have a published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association; her work methodically debunked the notion of curing disease by almost not touching the patient. Although I was surrounded by some of my own role models, I was more impressed with how this young woman would become a role model in her own right. Science needs more role models not just to create more scientists, but to inspire us all.
Emily’s work was good science, but it also won her an Ig Nobel award. Her would could not be reproduced, because the practitioners of this fine hokum are unlikely to every again cooperate in a rigorous study. Additionally, her work should not be reproduced because money and human resources are scare enough and need not be wasted.
Most people do not equate the science I know with their everyday lives, or when they do, they do so through the technology that science spawns. While watching the duct tape opera, it struck me that the miniature wireless, headsets being worn on stage, and the hundreds of lasers being used for different purposes were all pure science once. Those advances then, perhaps like a Grizzly-proof suit now, did not have an obvious future.
In the taxi back to the Boston airport I thought about how energizing that evening was, seeing not only the scientists, but the best and brightest actors, singers, musicians and engineers who made it happen. Out the window I saw a legacy of Massachusetts power politics from the Tip O’Neil era. Billions of dollars each year are being spent in what will likely be a 20 year effort, to bury some roadways. No doubt this will (eventually) improve Boston traffic, but as an investment in our future is pales with what only a small fraction of that money could do to fundamental science.
Thirty six years after he became the most famous man in the word, another one of my icons, John Glenn went back into space. (Watching the space program was what convinced me to go into science in the first place.) Landing a man on the moon gave science a spiritual and monetary boost the likes of which have not been otherwise seen in most of a century. The spin-offs from that investment still ripple through our economy. The technology that that science generated, however, gave John Glenn a very different experience. Last time he went up, he went up in a hand made "sports car". It was cranky to start, had no head room, could not go far on a tank of gas, and was hell to park (had to be towed, actually). This time he sits in the back seat of a King Cab supercharged pickup truck, with enough room in it to hold his sports car-- which is good because I worry when I see 77–year olds driving sports cars.
They say that funding for the sciences languishes because there is no constituency for it. That is not precisely true. There is a large constituency for good science but it does not usually appear until a decade after the work is done, which is far too long a time for a politician to be concerned about. It will be up to the many kinds of role models, adventurers like John Glenn and Troy Hurtubise, fundamental scientists like Sheldon Glashow and William Lipscomb and especially those like young Emily Rosa to inspire the public imagination and generate broad-based support for scientific endeavors.
Max Sherman; November 1998
Max Sherman is a staff senior scientist at the Lawernce Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the group leader of the Energy Performance of Buildings group of the Indoor Environment Department.