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Nobel Disease

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Re: Nobel Disease

#31

Post by Denote6737 »

ciropantera wrote: post #21
yreg wrote: post #13

> Luc Montagnier co-discovered HIV in 1983 […] > During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory My understanding is that quite some researchers think that the lab leak hypothesis is possible, but unprovable at this point. I know Wikipedia treats it as some fringe hoax, but to me it seems almost religious. In the sense that the idea has…

Lab leak is one thing, "deliberately created and escaped" is a different story.

It depends on personal interpretations of "deliberately created". To wit, virology labs will deliberately breed up more virulent strains of viruses in order to study their effects.

Re: Nobel Disease

#33

Post by embedding-shape »

> an informal term for the embrace of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life. It has been argued that the effect results, in part, from a tendency for Nobel winners to feel empowered by the award to speak on topics outside their specific area of expertise

Sounds pretty much like every founder out there who strike gold once in the past now believing their genius now clearly applies to everything everywhere, including country governance, economics and sociology. It probably doesn't help that others around them are affected in similar ways and become more sycophantic because of the "award" these two types of people win.

Re: Nobel Disease

#35

Post by cyclopeanutopia »

leni536 wrote: post #28
cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's my point. Take any other award, list people who got it and had "incorrect beliefs", add an article about it and preamble it with "it is unclear whether it is an effect of the award". What purpose does it serve? Do you think there should be articles for all of those "diseases"? Nebula award disease Crossword Book award disease Turing award disease Pulitzer award disease Fields medalist disease et cetera?

The difference is notability, which is the criteria used whether a distinct Wikipedia article is warranted. There are multiple cited sources that use the "Noble disease" term, there are possibly much fewer similar publications with "Fields medalist disease". That is not to say that the theory holds water. Flat Earth theory is also notable and has a wiki page, even if blatantly wrong. There is no hyperboloid Earth the…

Ok, notability is a good argument for having such an article (although I'm not too sure about it really being notable), but the current shape is absolutely misleading.

Re: Nobel Disease

#36

Post by embedding-shape »

aswegs8 wrote: post #30
epolanski wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still belongs to strange or scientifically unsound.

[flagged]

> It's just completely outside of today's Overton window

Never heard it expressed like that, but I guess you could apply it to tons of stuff?

> Lobotomy is not scientifically unsound, as aswegs8 proves, it's just completely outside of today's Overton window.

Re: Nobel Disease

#37

Post by testdelacc1 »

cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #20
ragazzina wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is absolutely impossible to tell whether It's literally the second sentence of the article.

Yes, that's my point. Take any other award, list people who got it and had "incorrect beliefs", add an article about it and preamble it with "it is unclear whether it is an effect of the award". What purpose does it serve? Do you think there should be articles for all of those "diseases"? Nebula award disease Crossword Book award disease Turing award disease Pulitzer award disease Fields medalist disease et cetera?

The article mentions it later - journalists and laymen end up asking Nobel Prize winners their opinion on matters outside their area of expertise.

We don’t do that with Fields medal winners. Mainly because most people don’t even know what a Fields medal is. I can’t write a headline that relies on Elizabeth Moon’s or Stanislav Smirnov’s borrowed authority because the average joe doesn’t know who they are. But that definitely happened with multiple Nobel prize winners because the Nobel prize is that well known. A Nobel prize winners opinion on race science is inherently newsworthy.

You know how we know the Nobel is in a different league to these other awards? Because when you explain what a Fields Medal is to someone who hasn’t heard of it, you say “it’s the Nobel prize for math”.

And the fame of the prize leads to attention, which in the words of Milton Friedman, is “flattering but also corrupting”.

Re: Nobel Disease

#39

Post by isoprophlex »

> In his autobiography, Mullis professed a belief in astrology and wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon that he suggested might have been an extraterrestrial alien.

Absolutely wild shit whoa

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