Research fund-raising and false explanations

The cartoon above gives what is one of the more popular views of research fund-raising. It is often seeing as a self-perpetuating attempt to keep money flowing rather than an enterprise oriented towards finding new knowledge. That is all too often true nowadays, but it was not always so. Frankly, we are a great part of the reason why it is so. And, as with so many things in the USA, one needs to go back in history to see why and how the current research “industry” developed.

Here is a typical example from a post by a science reporter:

You just can’t keep a good slime mold down. That’s one of the lessons from tonight’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

Here are a few more lessons: Fruit bats like oral sex. Swearing relieves pain. Roller-coaster rides can relieve asthma. Oil and water do mix sometimes. And the best way to figure out who gets a promotion just might be to pull names out of a hat.

This was the 20th “first annual” ceremony to honor scientific achievements that make you laugh, and then make you think. This year’s festivities at Harvard University – presented by the Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific humor magazine – were organized around a bacterial theme. Among the highlights: the world premiere of a mini-opera about the bacteria living on a woman’s front tooth, an appearance by the “Google Viral and Bacterial Advertising Team,” and a warning to the audience that the person in the next seat might be harboring bacteria (doesn’t everyone?).

[I apologize for the short post, but I am time-crunched today.]