Monday, October 04, 2010

"Father" of the Test Tube Baby and other "Awesome" Quotations

I want to distinguish my "Quote of the Day" series from what I will called a "Quotation of the Day".

The article in which this occurs is from CNN.com, and it concerns the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to the "Father of the Test Tube Bay". This isn't my main point, but using the term Father of the test tube baby is pretty ambiguous, don't you think? (It's pretty "awesome", too.)

But that's not the only gem in this paper. If you look at the sidebar, you find out that the 2009 prize went to Americans who 'solved "a major problem in biology"'. Yes, a major problem in biology is actually in quotes. Well, tomorrow somebody (hopefully Michael Berry!) will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for solving a major problem in physics, and on Monday somebody will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for solving a major problem in economics. (Strictly speaking, one can get an awarded for contributions that help lead to a solution, rather than a solution itself, but that still means that one is solving something major in the field relevant to the prize in question---even if that solution is only a piece of a solution to a larger problem.) In the article itself, this quote is followed with a more specific statement about what the 2009 Laureates in Physiology or Medicine actually did. But the ambiguous phrase was still in quotes. What the Hell? Talk about unnecessary quotations...

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