111–120 of 149 posts
Some of his criticisms are valid - e.g. discrimination against female nominees (although perhaps not the number of same) - but for the most part it seems to be a thinly veiled complaint about the concept of prizes in general.
For me Nobel prices in Science are one of the things that work better the way they are that most alternatives. Nobel prices in peace are ridiculous. Not talking about (fake) Nobel prices of Economy that do not exist but have managed to buy themselves some recognition because the money printing of central bankers. For me this article is absurd. If you have a better way of giving to science, create your own price with…
> Not talking about (fake) Nobel prices of Economy that do not exist but have managed to buy themselves some recognition because the money printing of central bankers. Name one Nobel prize winner in economics with whom you disagree the awarding and explain your disagreement. Otherwise your comment can be dismissed as another vapid "I disagree with the economics Nobel because the economic science sometimes disagree wi…
> I must confess that if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it.[...] the Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.
> This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence.
> But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally.
> There is no reason why a man who has made a distinctive contribution to economic science should be omnicompetent on all problems of society - as the press tends to treat him till in the end he may himself be persuaded to believe.
That behavior which he describes... sounds like any Nobel Prize in Economics you know?
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[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/la...
It would be interesting to know what the prizes would be awarded for if they considered only individual efforts, no huge projects with decade long collaborations of thousands of people. The effect would likely just be that a few theoretical advances could be nominated while experiments, even those that confirm the theories in question (Higgs, or this years prize) would go unawarded.
It might end up looking like a random "employee of the month". There are thousands of individuals working on their own little puzzle piece of these large cooperations, singling out some individual contributors "down in the trenches" for an award would be a lot more disrespectful to their peers than awarding some shared head figures who implicitly represent their entire extended teams.
Or the awards would go to small discoveries that actually were made by individuals or small teams. Basically you'd see the largest and most groundbreaking discoveries go completely unawarded because they are group efforts, and since the price is directed towards the lone genius, it would be awarded for tiny discoveries.
I agree with parts of the article, that big breakthroughs are rarely these days individual efforts, and that praising only the ones at the top is misleading and potentially damaging; however, as a member of the LIGO collaboration, I think these three guys really do deserve credit for what they've driven over the past 50 (!) years, and all of the work we've been able to do over the years has only been enabled by their…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a rather narrow view. Can you imagine what went into building the gravitational wave observatories? Don't you think that's advanced the state of the art with respect to the different kinds of technology, manufacturing, and construction techniques involved? I support biomedical research. We're adopting scientific collaboration tools developed by the high energy physics community and specifically LIGO. These too…
any ancillary benefits that occur as side effects of funding a physics project, could almost certainly have been achieved, without the funding of the physics project. for example, direct investment into disease research is much more likely to have short-term impact. that's not to say ancillary discoveries with impact outside the original domain don't occur- they're just not as cost effective.
Ancillary benefits are, by definition, not the primary thrust of what research is about.
Apologies if I misunderstood your comment.
For me Nobel prices in Science are one of the things that work better the way they are that most alternatives. Nobel prices in peace are ridiculous. Not talking about (fake) Nobel prices of Economy that do not exist but have managed to buy themselves some recognition because the money printing of central bankers. For me this article is absurd. If you have a better way of giving to science, create your own price with…
Agreed. Nobel laureates in peace are basically bullshit. Look at Obama---good president, but how many drone strikes did he order, and Aung San Suu Kyi--currently accused of genocide. The Nobel laureates in science indisputably pushed forth the frontiers of human understanding. Frankly, I think the Nobel prizes in the sciences are carrying the name.
It was a "please prove you're not like Bush" prize. The election of Obama is the first time I've seen widespread parties with non-Americans celebrating the election of an American president.
Don't underestimate just how terrifying a lot of the world saw the willingness of the US to elect Bush not once but twice (now imagine how we feel about Trump).
One might argue Obama failed to live up the aspirations of giving him the price to some extent, and hope they learn from that, but that's a different issue.
> Aung San Suu Kyi--currently accused of genocide.
Two things: She is not generally "accused of genocide". There is a real argument to be made that she should not stay quiet, and that she is not doing enough, and there is the fear that this might be because she might even agree with the violence or have an antipathy for muslims, but to my knowledge there is no clear evidence about why she has remained quiet on the matter and certainly nothing to imply that she has personally been involved in making decisions on the matter. Of course that doesn't prove she is innocent either, but it's a bit early to start throwing around accusations she is part responsible for genocide.
Secondly, the price was awarded a long time ago. When it was awarded, she deserved it. Maybe she's changed. The price is very specifically not awarded for "lifetime good behavior" unless that is specifically the reasoning used by the committee, but generally for specific acts or specific service set out when it is awarded.
There might be an argument that it'd be better to hand it out posthumously so a persons whole life could be considered, but AFAIK the terms of the Nobel Prizes specifically prevent posthumous awards other than in special circumstances (which generally have been treated as if the award is decided before the Nobel Committee is aware that the nominee has died), not least because part of the intent is to encourage people to continue to do good.
This has famously "backfired" on the committees in the sense that for example Gandhi was nominated several times, and lost out in part because of concerns that were relevant at the time (e.g. in 1947 diary notes from the committee chairman shows that concerns over the Indian-Pakistani conflict were raised as objections for giving it to him at that time), and where the committee appears to have expected there'd be a better time to award it.
By the time of his death, and certainly for many years afterwards, an award would have been relatively uncontroversial, but the it was too late. Gandhi was nominated again in 1948, died right before the end of the nomination window, the committee considered it, since there were some degree of openings in the rules given the timing. But instead the committee decided not to award the prize at all that year saying "there was no suitable living candidate" - given that Gandhi was the only prominent nominee in 1948 that was dead when the decision was made it was a very clear message, but the committee did not believe they could award it to him posthumously.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Moral revulsion" seems reasonable to feel at Kissinger's win. Obama's is meaningless, even if you believe he did contribute materially to international peace (he didn't) he hadn't done so yet, with less than a year in office. Giving it to the EU is just farce, in the same sense as "corporations are people." The EU is the result of the process the prize is supposed to encourage. It should be going to the people respo…
The efforts of the EU (and other things, of course) have helped the major powers in Europe avoid war for over half a century now, a rarity in European history. Why wouldn't that be worth recognising? I mean hell, on this page we have people complaining that the prize "only goes to three people when thousands were involved", and here you're complaining that "a group of people are awarded instead of a few individual".…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps look at it another way - assigning a Nobel peace prize is a way of putting wider attention onto someone, and maybe works as a soft pressure to keep them behaving a little? For half a year or so after you get awarded a peace prize, your profile in the world is a lot higher than normal, perhaps giving you a bit more of a nudge in the right direction. Also, Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 , 26…
Maybe we should only award Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.
I visited Sweden once, during the Nobel Prize award ceremony. I loved how the ceremony was broadcast on TV, and the scientists, who are famous in their own field, walk the red carpet and are given the (literally) royal treatment for their visit. I loved the clips where they show the award winners and family visiting places in Sweden - a bit like the background clips they show during the Olympics. For this brief time,…
When I was a young child, I used to daydream about winning a Nobel. I didn't daydream about winning an Emmy or a Grammy, but I did dream of winning a Nobel. (And Formula 1 championship races, but that's not important right now.) Do kids today daydream of getting a Nobel? Science was a Pretty Big Deal when I was young. We were just getting started with space exploration and splitting the atom was pretty new. We kids t…
It's always important.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might end up looking like a random "employee of the month". There are thousands of individuals working on their own little puzzle piece of these large cooperations, singling out some individual contributors "down in the trenches" for an award would be a lot more disrespectful to their peers than awarding some shared head figures who implicitly represent their entire extended teams.
I was thinking that the prizes would go to smaller individual discoveries, rather than to the major ground breaking discoveries. I.e. either the prize would be basically for theoretical physics, in which case Higgs could get the prize (and no one involved in confirming it would be awarded). This would basically leave experimental physics out of the question because these huge experiments obviously always involve huge…