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The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#121

Post by kilotaras »

VHRanger wrote: post #60
pipio21 wrote: post #54

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 have the advantage of hindsight but this quote comes from Robert E Lucas Jr, 5 years before great recession.

> macroeconomics in this original sense has succeeded: Its central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes [0]

[0] http://www.sfu.ca/~kkasa/lucas.pdf

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#122

Post by projectant »

projectant wrote: post #89

Do people not want to especially reward the small numbers of organisers for their efforts?

What's wrong with rewarding the project leaders?

Yes, being part of the team is one achievement, being leader of the team is another achievement on top of that.

Sorry there's not "participation prizes" for everybody, but there are concrete important differences between being team member and team leader, as much as some seem to want to delude themselves otherwise and give themselves the "consolation prize" of feeling good, instead of getting the result (being the PI/project lead and getting the Nobel) they wanted.

Zero sympathy for the people who would want to Nobel, now trying to diminish the achievements of those who won the Nobel, just to console themselves. Everyone knows how science works. There are teams and PIs and projects and project leaders. Instead of crying that the reality is "unfair" if the complainers actually cared enough about winning, they would have tried to position their careers in such a way that they were competitive. To pretend you were disserviced when you know how it works is disempowering your own potential to have done better, and also really disrespectful to diminish the importance of Nobel recognition, to people who contribute to winning those prizes.

TL;DR - Looking at the group complaining about not being recognized, all I see is a bunch of sore losers, inventing disempowering reasons to console themselves, instead of inventing results for themselves. Take personal responsibility, be inspired by the achievements of others, these traits will help you win.

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#123

Post by VHRanger »

kilotaras wrote: post #121
VHRanger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 have the advantage of hindsight but this quote comes from Robert E Lucas Jr, 5 years before great recession. > macroeconomics in this original sense has succeeded: Its central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes [0] [0] http://www.sfu.ca/~kkasa/lucas.pdf

Well he's still sort of right. The 2008 shock was legitimately more intense than the 1929 one and we came out of it with a "mere recession" instead of the horrors of the 1930s.

This is largely due to what the US fed did in response (the US gov. fiscal stimulus probably helped some but not on the same scale). Luckily the fed was headed by Ben Bernanke, one of the most erudite scholars of the Great Depression at the time the world economy was hanging on by a thread.

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#124

Post by VHRanger »

yyyyip wrote: post #96
apoorvkumar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I say this as someone spends a fair chunk of my time reading economics books and blogs. Them credentials!

:rolleyes: ok Apoorv, if you want credentials, here's Hayek's speech agreeing with me. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/la...

OK, and what Nobelist you think carries to much political power because of his award? Paul Krugman? Joe Stiglitz?

Matter of fact turned out to be that politicians and laymen only listen to the economics they want to hear, Nobel or not.

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#125

Post by VHRanger »

yyyyip wrote: post #83
VHRanger wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but he was trying to delegitimize the highest honor in a field of study. The economics Nobel is functionally equivalent to the Fields medal or Turing award, regardless of Alfred Nobel's original intent. The point is the poster above was trying to diminish the field of study's legitimacy. Reading between the lines of his post he was doing so because of his political leanings, not because he disagreed with any pa…

Why can't he, or I, diminishing the legitimacy of economics? If someone had made up a fake Nobel prize in psychology I would diminishing the legitimacy of that too. The field of economics is far, far less rigorous than any of the hard sciences for which Nobel prizes are awarded. The fake Nobel prize for economics is strongly disputed by much of the Nobel family, Keynes, and it makes economists act more blowhard, self…

By "books and blogs" I imagine you mean Steve Keen and evonomics rather than Economist's view and Marginal Revolution

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#126

Post by [deleted] »

JorgeGT wrote: post #112
VHRanger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think the best argument against a Nobel Prize in Economics was made, precisely, by one of its recipients, Friedrich August von Hayek, during the 1974 ceremony [1]: > 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#127

Post by Retric »

felipemnoa wrote: post #88
KGIII wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>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. I suspect that lots of us as kids had the same daydreams, self included, and I'm sure that many kids today with a love for science daydream about the same thing.

It could be a feedback loop. Kids may not dream of being a banker etc. because they don't have anything to tie it to.

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#128

Post by ams6110 »

bjourne wrote: post #58

I think that there is a similar problem in the software world when it comes to free software projects. Who created Python? Linux? Perl? Wikipedia? If your answer is Guido van Rossum, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall and Jimmy Wales you are about as wrong as the Nobel Prize committee. But sometimes there are a single guy who is responsible for a lot of the project even if that person is almost never credited, like Tom Lane…

On the other hand, would we have Python, Linux, Perl, or Wikipedia without those people? They had the vision and they made it happen. Sure many other people could have done it. But those people did do it.

It's much easier to be a contributor, than a founder/leader. The founders/leaders deserve more credit.

Re: The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science

#129

Post by dna_polymerase »

dyukqu wrote: post #41
Glyptodon wrote: post #36

I keep hoping they'll give one to SciHub.

..or to Alexandra Elbakyan; for a lifetime† achievement (in supporting hundreds of thousands of scientists/researchers around the globe). †since she has helped so many researchers, affected their lives, it shall count as well-beyond-lifetime

Or Aaron Swartz who had to die for the very same thing.
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