Donald Trump, the Ig Nobel Prize, and the Dunning - Kruger Effect.

One of the many joys of living in the Princeton, NJ area is being near the Princeton Plasma Physics labs which every winter hosts the Ronald Hatcher Science on Saturday Lecture Series every winter.

I started going to it many years ago with my sons to stimulate their interest in science, way back when it was actually hosted by Ron Hatcher, a PPPL engineer, who regrettably died young, whereupon the lecture series took his name.

My sons are now both in college, and both working very hard, so they no rarely come with me any more, and because my wife is very busy with her work, I now go alone if I have time.

Ron Hatcher hosting a talk:

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The series is now hosted by a PPPL outreach scientist, Andrew Zwicker whose part time job is being the Democratic New Jersey Assemblyman from the 16th Assembly district. (Not my district by the way.) Although I personally disagree with Dr. Zwicker on many issues about science and technology - he often evokes for me of the famous Upton Sinclair adage, " "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - he is a delightful human being and scientist, a real asset to the community who takes time away from his family to host the Science on Saturday lectures 8 weekends every winter, with wit and grace.

Sometimes I go to these lectures a little strung out when I intend to challenge the speaker on some topic or another. My sons always joke with me about "Voooonnnnn Hippel," who it turns out is a very gracious man, albeit a wrong headed man, who is a famous physicist at the Woodrow Wilson of Public and International Affairs, whose lecture was fine - about nuclear arms control - although his writings on other subjects are disturbing, at least to me.

Today's lecture was by Marc Abrahams, the founder and chief administrator of the Ig Nobel Prizes, and the editor of the Journal of Improbable Research which discusses papers that inspire laughter.

While I was generally familiar with the Ig Nobel Prizes, I'd rather thought that they were generally derisive, and in these times where science is under attack by the very Government that should be supporting it (and has, historically supported it) - the United States Government - being as thin skinned as I am, I was ready to be angry at this lecture, since I had it my head that the tone of the prizes is to make people think science is an over funded waste.

I mean one can imagine someone ridiculing the idea that studying where an electron might be in an atom was a scurrilous and silly idea if one were to hear about it in isolation, but in fact, it is part of the foundation of quantum mechanics.

Instead I was delighted by the Ig Nobel lecture.

First of all, the awards are not about ridicule - all winners are given the chance to anonymously decline the "prize," though few actually do - and the purpose of the prize is well, I'll let the Ignoble Prize people describe their purpose:

...and then make them think.

The prizes are hardly derisive, but they are fun and in fact, do make you think, as was obvious from the engagement of the audience during the question and answer period following the lecture.

Abrahams is a fascinating speaker as well as a credible comedian and he walked us through some of the research winning the awards, as well as some of the acceptance speeches of the generally wonderful winner/scientists from the scientists, including:

PHYSICS PRIZE [FRANCE, SINGAPORE, USA] — Marc-Antoine Fardin, for using fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?"

ECONOMICS PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, USA] — Matthew Rockloff and Nancy Greer, for their experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble.

REFERENCE: "Never Smile at a Crocodile: Betting on Electronic Gaming Machines is Intensified by Reptile-Induced Arousal," Matthew J. Rockloff and Nancy Greer, Journal of Gambling Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, December 2010, pp. 571-81.

...and...

MEDICINE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK] — Jean-Pierre Royet, David Meunier, Nicolas Torquet, Anne-Marie Mouly, and Tao Jiang, for using advanced brain-scanning technology to measure the extent to which some people are disgusted by cheese.

REFERENCE: "The Neural Bases of Disgust for Cheese: An fMRI Study," Jean-Pierre Royet, David Meunier, Nicolas Torquet, Anne-Marie Mouly and Tao Jiang, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 10, October 2016, article 511.

The full list of winners, along with links to their papers is found here: https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/

But the high point of the lecture was a discussion, in the first few minutes of the lecture, of the 2000 winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology, Cornell Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger for their paper: "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments."

After briefly describing the paper, Abrahams...wait for it...flipped the slide to show a big picture of the Stupido in Chief Donald Trump wearing his dumbest idiot grin - the grin we have all come to know, regrettably, you know, the "real stable genius" grin.

The audience just exploded with laughter and applause, a great moment, a joyous moment.

Makes you think...

Here's the award winning paper: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999, Vol. 77, No. 6. ] 121-1134)

Apparently the paper was right, and the asshole in the White House proves it.

The Prize is usually given, by the way, by real Nobel Laureates, and there is one winner of the Ig Nobel who also won the real Nobel, the Ig Nobel for a paper on levitating a frog using the magnetic properties of water, and the Nobel for his work on Graphene, Dr. Andrew Geim at the University of Manchester.

A fun day...a delightful day.

Have a nice Sunday.