Meet the Ig Nobel Prize Winners(arstechnica.com)
67 pointsby mkl4 hours ago6 comments
  • embedding-shape4 hours ago
    Some great winners this time, personal favorite:

    > IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA] Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>

    • dinfinity2 hours ago
      It's not really a surprise that less ethical people on average are richer than ethical people. Sad, but logical: they more often choose selfishly and thus amass more money.

      This is the correct direction of causation in this case, imho.

    • howunfortunate2 hours ago
      I knew immediately this was BS, sure enough, someone already beat me to it with the comment explaining why.

      Man, I'm so ashamed of my field (experimental psychology). Maybe ~60% of publications are literally worse than useless (that is, they are outright intentional lies).

      • bethekidyouwantan hour ago
        The damage done will take decades to fix if it can be fixed. No idea why anyone would even bother engaging with (experimental psychology)
        • howunfortunatean hour ago
          If you have a Ph.D. you can somewhat sort the wheat from the chaff. But it's 100% not worth it for the layman. Better to just ignore it.

          That's why, even though it's incredibly sad to see, I can hardly begrudge the current administration their "defund anything and everything using keyword search". Since they can't trust the experts, that's really about the best that can be done from their perspective.

    • VyseofArcadia3 hours ago
      This one feels like it deserves more than just an Ig Nobel.
  • mkl4 hours ago
    The official list is at https://improbable.com/ig/winners/?amp=1#ig2026 but Ars Technica has a lot more detail.
    • cfnan hour ago
      I like that so many of the winners attended the ceremony, one should never take yourself too seriously.
  • varjagan hour ago
    A paper am a coauthor of uses an Ig Nobel winning article as a reference. Because in fact it was a serious piece of research with practical implications.
  • sandworm101an hour ago
    Are they still using the little girl?

    THAT invention deserves its own ignoble category for contribution to public discord.

    This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnVNXaa5oA

  • jmclnx3 hours ago
    >The 36th ceremony took place on September 3rd in the Congress Center of Zurich, Switzerland, and was hosted by the University of Zurich and ETH Domain, with Abrahams saying that the United States had become "unsafe" for guests.

    Another loss for the US thanks to Trump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

    Also, every political speech needs a "Miss Sweetie Poo".

    • abirch2 hours ago
      The damage done will take decades to fix if it can be fixed. No idea why any other NATO nation would buy any weapons from the USA.
      • Loughla2 hours ago
        They buy our weapons because we make a shit ton of them. We're not great at a lot of things, but manufacturing weapons for mass slaughter is up towards the top of our specialties.
  • jdw64an hour ago
    [dead]