I like this. It’s an opportunity for unpopular science to shed light on things we might not otherwise talk about.
The research on blue zones is all fraud or records error.
Ducks are rapacious little fuckers.
This topics are not pleasant, but they’re real science. Our understanding gets advanced, errors in thinking get corrected.
Science is one of the rare structure of knowledge which includes self correction by default. But correction and reputation don’t play nicely together. For correction to occur somebody had to be wrong. In some cases a lot of people.
Having a prize like this lets us elevate previously embarrassing findings, take the whole thing less seriously and make room for ideas outside the status quo.
I’m not sure this prize is any less important than the Nobel prize.