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Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1997

[BOSTON] This year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony— to be held next week at HarvardUniversity under the appropriate title of‘The Big Bang’ — seems likely to generatemore pyrotechnics than usual, with rights tothe ‘Ig’ trademark itself being hotlycontested.

Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals ofImprobable Research (AIR), has organizedthe event for the past seven years. ButGeorge Scherr, a microbiologist andpublisher of a rival science humourmagazine, the Journal of IrreproducibleResults (JIR), has sought to gain control ofthe term ‘Ig Nobel Prize’ in an application tothe US Patent and Trademark Office.

Scherr is also suing Abrahams, a formereditor of JIR, for $4.2 million, accusing himof unfair business practices, trademarkinfringement, conspiracy to defraud,racketeering and other offences. The worldof irreproducible results has declared waron improbable research, leaving the futureof dubious science hanging in the balance.

In August, the trademark office rejectedScherr’s ownership claim for the term ‘IgNobel Prize’, but Scherr has six months toappeal against that decision. He declines todiscuss the trademark issue or hisgrievances with Abrahams other than to say:“Nature is not the proper venue for thisdiscussion. Legal disputes should beresolved in a court of law.”

Abrahams is more forthcoming,maintaining that Scherr has no legitimate

claim to the ‘Igs’. Alexander Kohn — anIsraeli physicist who co-founded JIR in 1955and then co-founded AIR (with Abrahams)in 1994, shortly before his death —presented several ‘Ignobel’ prizes in a 1968JIR article that contained perhaps the firstpublished reference to the concept. Kohnencouraged Abrahams to award such prizesat the new ceremony he started in 1991.

In The Scientist in 1996, Scherr arguedthat “neither Abrahams nor AIR were everassociated with the Ig Nobel Prize”. But thishas been challenged by Nobel laureatesRichard Roberts and Dudley Herschbach,both of whom thought they had participatedin numerous Ig ceremonies hosted by Abrahams. “Could it be that Scherr and Iinhabit parallel universes?” Roberts asked.

Abrahams is equally baffled by thelawsuit, which seeks to prevent him frompublishing any journal that (at least inScherr’s mind) is likely to be confused withJIR. Abrahams contends that the names AIRand JIR are not, as Scherr argues,“confusingly similar”.

But to further dispel any possible mis-understanding, Abrahams has printed adisclaimer in AIR stating that the magazine“is in no way associated with thatpublication [JIR] or with its publisher”.

Abrahams says he cannot understandwhy he has been charged with “conspiracy”as no one else is mentioned in the lawsuit.“Evidently I’ve conspired with myself,” hesays. He is also astounded by the huge sumthat Scherr hopes to collect, given that AIRhas only 2,000 subscribers who pay just $23annually. “Why $4.2 million? Why so low?”Abrahams jokes. “Doesn’t Scherr respect me?”

On a more serious note, he has enlistedthe help of Nobel laureates Herschbach,Roberts and William Lipscomb to launchthe “Strategic AIR Defense Fund” to supporthis legal fight.

Abrahams speculates that his sciencehumour colleague is making a serious bidfor an Ig Nobel Prize. The situation is notone Abrahams imagined three years agowhen he started his humour magazine. “Ijust want to be able to write and edit somefunny things about science and maybe dosome good along the way,” he says. “I haveno idea what Scherr wants.” Steve Nadis

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NATURE | VOL 389 | 2 OCTOBER 1997 431

Irreproducible pursues the improbable

Netanyahu bolsters opposition to dismemberment of ministry[JERUSALEM] Israel’s Prime Minister, Binya-min Netanyahu, has made it known that heopposes plans to dismantle the country’sMinistry of Science, following an outcryfrom the scientific community.

The proposal to break up the ministryand transfer most of its grant-makingauthority to a national research and develop-ment council was made to the governmentlast month by the minister of science,Michael Eitan. Eitan argued that such a re-organization would eliminate unnecessaryadministrative costs, and increase theamount of public funds available for basicand long-term research.

Eitan has subsequently admitted to thescience committee of the Knesset — Israel’sparliament — that he might have made a tactical error in proposing the dismember-ment of the ministry. He has thereforeoffered to withdraw that part of his plan. Buthe continues to advocate the establishmentof a single council to coordinate the govern-ment’s science policy.

This body would coordinate all publicly

funded support for research and develop-ment, including both the directed long-termresearch supported by the current ministryand the applied research funded by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce andother ministries.

Eitan suggested that administrative workassociated with grants should be carried outby the industry ministry, and that a ministerof science should continue to bear responsi-bility for government science policy, butworking from the prime minister’s officerather than heading his or her own ministry.

Eitan claimed that the finance ministryhad promised that, if the reorganization programme was adopted, his ministry’sentire budget — some US$220 million —would be made available for basic and long-term research grants. More than half of thescience ministry’s budget is at present spenton administration and other research andeducation programmes.

But his proposals generated a protestfrom most of Israel’s scientists. A petitionopposing the plan collected the signatures of

more than 700 scientists at all seven Israeliresearch universities. Three former minis-ters of science voiced objections, as did thedeputy minister of defence, Silvan Shalom,who is due to take over the science ministrynext summer, under a rotation arrangementwith Eitan (see Nature 388, 221; 1997).

“Decentralizing authority over sciencecan harm science, especially in the long run,”argues Professor Arie Admon of the Tech-nion, the Israel Institute of Technology.Without an interested party such as a gov-ernment ministry to fight for the sciencebudget, he says, funding will inevitablydecrease in the long run. Admon also claimsthat the science ministry has been highly successful in planning and coordinatingresearch among Israel’s universities.

Netanyahu’s opposition to the dismem-berment of the science ministry wasannounced by his science adviser, IsraelHanukoglu. Criticism has also come fromthe Knesset’s science committee and fromthe former minister of science Ze’evBinyamin Begin. Haim Watzman