October 13, 1999
An Ig Nobel thought: Are they going bananas?
By Carol Beggy and Beth Carney, Globe Staff, 10/13/99
The Ig Nobel Prize, a spoof awards ceremony that recognizes somewhat absurd
scientific
achievements ''that cannot or should not be reproduced,'' is a good-natured
show and a
popular one. This year, eight of the 10 winners traveled from as far away
as Japan and
Norway to pick up the prizes at Harvard. But the Colorado Board of Education
did not travel to
Cambridge. It, along with the Kansas Board of Education, was awarded an
Ig Nobel in the field of
scientific education for dropping the teaching of evolution in science
classes. Yesterday, awards
organizer Marc Abrahams got a present from the Colorado board - a fruit
basket filled with
bananas. ''All the other winners were pretty happy,'' said Abrahams, who
was ''a little puzzled.'' Are
we talking primate-evolution humor here?