《英语流行话题阅读:语境识词3500》Unit 33 诺贝尔奖

　　Unit 33

Ig Nobel Prize

Some people covet 1 it, others flee from it. Some laugh with it,  others laugh at it. Many praise it, a few criticize it, others are  just confused. And many people are madly in love with it. It is the Ig  Nobel Prize.

We've been awarding Ig Nobel Prizes since 1991. Each year, ten  Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded. The selection criterion is simple. The  prizes are for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."  Examine that phrase carefully. It covers a lot of ground. It says  nothing about whether a thing is good or bad.

After something has been discovered or created, no one can  later become the first to have made that discovery or creation. The  "firstness" cannot be repeated. Thus, Don Featherstone (Ig Nobel Art  Prize, 1996), the creator of the plastic pink flamingo 2, clearly  qualifies under the "cannot be repeated" phrase. Similarly, Anders  Barheim and Hogne Sandvik (Ig Nobel Biology Prize, 1996), who  discovered that sour cream stimulates 3 the appetite of leeches 4, but  that garlic often kills them, clearly qualify under the "cannot be  repeated" phrase.

Jacques Benveniste (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, 1991 and 1998)  discovered that water molecules 5 remember things and that the memories  can be transmitted over telephone lines; Shigeru Watanabe, Junko  Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita (Ig Nobel Psychology 6 Prize, 1995) made  their achievement in training pigeons to distinguish between the  paintings of Picasso and those of Monet...

I raise this matter of good or bad, because the world in  general seems to enjoy classifying things as being either one or the  other. The Ig Nobel Prizes aside, most prizes, in most places, are  clearly meant to honor the goodness or badness of the receivers.  Olympic medals go to very good athletes. Worst-dressed prizes go to  badly dressed celebrities 7. Nobel Prizes go to scientists, writers, and  others who excel. These prizes, and most others, are meant to honor  the extremes of humanity -- those whose achievements should be seen as  very good or very bad. The Ig Nobel Prize isn't like that. The Ig  honors the great confusion in which most of us exist much of the time.  Life is confusing. Good and bad get all mixed up. Yin can be hard to  distinguish from yang.

Most people go through life without ever being awarded a great  prize to acknowledge that, yes, they have done something. That's why  we award Ig Nobel Prizes. If you win one, it means that you have done  some thing. What that thing is may be hard to explain. Whether your  achievement is for the public good or had may be difficult or even  painful to explain. But the fact is, you did it, and have been  recognized for doing it.