The Ig Nobels are a reminder that Jonathan Swift was wrong about reason. Without research driven by curiosity, there would be far fewer breakthroughs
In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift mocked the assumption that the scientific revolution had transformed European culture for the better. The satirical novel, published in 1726, has its eponymous hero stumbling upon “the Academy” in the fictional city of Lagado, and pokes fun at the idea that a scientific temperament could be useful. Swift describes pointless experiments to extract sunbeams from cucumbers and to build houses from the roof downwards. His book is laced with sardonic wit. But unorthodox, even absurd, thinking is necessary for science to progress.
That point has been underlined by this week’s winners of the Ig Nobel prize, established in 1991 by an American magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research. One of the honoured investigations this year was by Robin Radcliffe, of Cornell University, who looked at whether it was safer to transport an anesthetised rhinoceros upside down airborne or lying on its side on a sledge. Prof Radcliffe showed animals’ health would not be jeopardised by being hung by their legs beneath a helicopter, a technique becoming more popular in African conservation.
