Here is the list of the 2004 winners of these lucrative but idiosyncratic awards, that are sometimes called, misleadingly, “genius grants.” No philosophers or legal scholars on the list; indeed, the only person I even recognize is Angela Belcher, who used to be a Chemistry professor here before MIT snatched her up last year. In prior years, I’ve usually had some familiarity with a half-dozen of the winners or more. Perhaps I’ve become more ignorant over time, or perhaps the awards have grown more peculiar. Hard to say…