Post 38 (395th since the first one). What the world needs more of is a good blend of the serious and silly. Serious as in the achievements celebrated in the annual Nobel prizes. Silly, or satiric, as in the prizes that celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research.

Of the latter, Ig Nobel, Wikipedia notes, “Its aim is to ‘honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.” Example: “research on the ‘five-second rule,’ a tongue-in-cheek belief that food dropped on the floor will not become contaminated if it is picked up within five seconds.” Or: “the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches.”

What’s ignoble?

Note the play on words and spelling difference between ignoble and Ig Nobel.

A dictionary definition of ignoble: “not honorable in character or purpose,” as “ignoble feelings of intense jealousy.” Or: “being below the normal standards of human decency and dignity.” Plain enough.

For the curious, check Wikipedia on the history of the Ig Nobel Prize and the Nobel Prize.

Daybreak at Greencroft Goshen

Because of hot days even in October, we got up earlier than usual to get a walk in. Being out early paid visual dividends.

What Francis Bacon said (1561-1626)

“They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

Thank you, Francis Bacon. I’d update the language a bit, but you said it for time and eternity. Plenty to think about.

Norwegian author Jon Fosse got the Nobel Prize in literature. “for ‘innovative’ works that ‘give voice to the unsayable.'” Another to check out.

-John