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mngmt never mentioned children's entertainers. They simply said that they like to find humour in science and implied that they may have dallied with an inverte

mngmt never mentioned children's entertainers. They simply said that they like to find humour in science and implied that they may have dallied with an inverted rhino. I will tend myself as a counter example to your "everyone expects ..." comment. I don't expect a seat car belt to be funny nor a scientist to be a sitcom comedian. I do like to see a sense of humour flourish sometimes.

pvaldes 5y ago
Personally I think that telling children that zoology equals to playing with rhinos in airplanes and making scientists appear as a happy Capitan America in the jungle is lying profoundly to them. Even worse; IgNobel prizes and their cherry-picked examples are perpetuating the infamous myth of "scientists are crazy people (so we should do the opposite that they say?)". In the real life the zoologists that study rhinos in the wild live in permanent warfare against poachers and the organized crime nets connected to them. People that export rhino horns or lion teeth for big money and will not hesitate to shoot a witness. Many directors of African national parks need to be escorted by the army 24 hours a day against people that want they dead. All while cleaning baby rhino s*t and doing thousands of boring things as important (if not more) as finding a Hollywoodesque "Jurassic Park like" way to move a rhino by air. There is not a lot of humor into seeing a species wanish in front of your very eyes. Maybe we need to improve our focus in the problem. This is a drama, not a Disney comedy. If the ig-Nobel price people want a really big laugh, I would suggest to give the prize to the African scientists that work in this circumstances without even having the benefit of returning to a first world country several months a year. I can't think in a superior level of craziness.
- mngnt 5y ago
  Being serious and having a sense of humour is not mutually exclusive. The rhino example: the reason this research was done is exactly what you mention, saving the species. It says so in the article: >The wild black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) faces a serious threat from poachers in southern Africa, along with agriculture development encroaching on its turf. This is leading to too much inbreeding. So African governments have taken to occasionally relocating the rhinos to different geographical regions to mix things up a bit. The problem is that transport by truck is difficult if not impossible, given the rugged terrain, so the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) has resorted to transporting the rhinos aerially. This involves sedating the ungulates (from a safe distance) with a potent opioid and then suspending the drugged rhinos by their feet under the helicopter for as long as 30 minutes. Robin Radcliffe (Cornell University) and his co-authors noted that nobody had studied the physiological effects of this practice on the rhinos. If you look at the list, all the research that was awarded has practical applications. All of this can be used to further our knowledge of the world, to give insight into how things work. And this is what a curious mind should strive for. To look into things like no one else has done before. I think the scientists are people like you and me. In fact, knowing a few, I know this for a fact. They have a sense of humour, a drive to explore the world with knowledge and a healthy ability to mix the two.

pvaldes 5y ago

Personally I think that telling children that zoology equals to playing with rhinos in airplanes and making scientists appear as a happy Capitan America in the jungle is lying profoundly to them. Even worse; IgNobel prizes and their cherry-picked examples are perpetuating the infamous myth of "scientists are crazy people (so we should do the opposite that they say?)". In the real life the zoologists that study rhinos in the wild live in permanent warfare against poachers and the organized crime nets connected to them. People that export rhino horns or lion teeth for big money and will not hesitate to shoot a witness. Many directors of African national parks need to be escorted by the army 24 hours a day against people that want they dead. All while cleaning baby rhino s*t and doing thousands of boring things as important (if not more) as finding a Hollywoodesque "Jurassic Park like" way to move a rhino by air. There is not a lot of humor into seeing a species wanish in front of your very eyes. Maybe we need to improve our focus in the problem. This is a drama, not a Disney comedy. If the ig-Nobel price people want a really big laugh, I would suggest to give the prize to the African scientists that work in this circumstances without even having the benefit of returning to a first world country several months a year. I can't think in a superior level of craziness.

mngnt 5y ago
Being serious and having a sense of humour is not mutually exclusive. The rhino example: the reason this research was done is exactly what you mention, saving the species. It says so in the article: >The wild black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) faces a serious threat from poachers in southern Africa, along with agriculture development encroaching on its turf. This is leading to too much inbreeding. So African governments have taken to occasionally relocating the rhinos to different geographical regions to mix things up a bit. The problem is that transport by truck is difficult if not impossible, given the rugged terrain, so the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) has resorted to transporting the rhinos aerially. This involves sedating the ungulates (from a safe distance) with a potent opioid and then suspending the drugged rhinos by their feet under the helicopter for as long as 30 minutes. Robin Radcliffe (Cornell University) and his co-authors noted that nobody had studied the physiological effects of this practice on the rhinos. If you look at the list, all the research that was awarded has practical applications. All of this can be used to further our knowledge of the world, to give insight into how things work. And this is what a curious mind should strive for. To look into things like no one else has done before. I think the scientists are people like you and me. In fact, knowing a few, I know this for a fact. They have a sense of humour, a drive to explore the world with knowledge and a healthy ability to mix the two.