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| Calibration Nobel |
 Title text: We would like to once again apologize to Dr. Jones for last year's mistaken announcement. We should really have double-checked the envelope for this award in particular. |
Explanation
Nobel Prizes are normally awarded for some of the most important discoveries in various scientific disciplines. This comic suggests that there's an additional award for not publishing a mistaken discovery that arose from poorly calibrated measurement equipment. This kind of error may be exemplified by the 'faster-than-light' OPERA neutrinos, or just a more general reference to the replication crisis where a lot of results turned out to be false, because people were publishing papers without doing proper statistical analysis. The scientists being awarded for not reporting the existence of "microbes on Titan" may also be a parody of the (so far unresolved) 'possibility of life' on Venus.
The research that produces a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize is not normally just a single experiment, but a body of work with results that have been replicated, and that has had important further uses. No one is likely to receive an actual prize for spurious results. There have been mistaken research publications that have had significant impact on the wider world, such as the study published in The Lancet in 1998 that claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism; despite being exposed as a fraud, this has spurred anti-vaccine sentiment for many years. Another example might be the Fleischmann–Pons claims of room-temperature fusion.
The title text implies that last year the prize was awarded in error, meaning that the prize committee themselves were, ironically, embarrassed by giving incorrect information. "Double-checking the envelope" is probably a reference to the Best Picture announcement error at the 89th Academy Awards (Oscars). Whether Dr. Jones was awarded the prize in error (requiring an embarrassing climb-down, as soon as the mistake was detected) or should have been the recipient (losing out to some other incorrectly announced winner) is not made clear, but the resulting hurt pride in their case clearly notably persists even after perhaps a full year; the other involved party, meanwhile seems not to require any particular mention.
Dr. Adams has a history of discovering new Nobel prizes.
Transcript
- [Hairy is standing behind a lectern on a podium, holding a piece of paper and addressing the attendees in front of him. Ponytail and Cueball walk toward the podium and Cueball is waving to the audience. In the audience are Megan, another Cueball, and another Hairy sitting on chairs.]
- Hairy: This year's Nobel Prize in "Calibrating your equipment carefully and not embarrassing yourself by publishing spurious results" goes to Dr. Adams and Dr. Smith, who did not announce the discovery of microbes on Titan.
- Cueball: Thank you, thank you.
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