Comment by embedding-shape
1 day 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>
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.
Is it? Wealth is used as a proxy for virtue, and has been for a long time. "Nobility" has two meanings, after all. Why the same word, if not the same root sentiment? Unless one definition was originally meant sarcastically.
Is it?
This guy is pretty influential in at least half the globe.
You're countering logic rooted in psychology and economics with etymology and linguistics?
How does "ancient people consider the wealthy virtuous" cancel out "selfish people tend to make more money"?
It definitely benefits those with power to have it being considered such. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
Wait, what does nobility mean other than aristocracy?
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This one feels like it deserves more than just an Ig Nobel.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567241
Far more or far less? The study is so profoundly flawed that it should be in a hall of shame, along with whatever journal published it.
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).
Are you impugning the good name of the Ig Noble awards? For shame!
The damage done will take decades to fix if it can be fixed. No idea why anyone would even bother engaging with (experimental psychology)
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.
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