Nobel prizes: any underwhelming choices, in retrospect?

Factual Questions
21

Hi Sua,

I don’t want to hijack this thread, which I think is an interesting topic, but… :slight_smile:

I don’t live in Northern Ireland, but I follow what goes on there pretty closely. It seems to me the prize did little to help him. The minority of Unionists who support the GFA were going to support him no matter what, and it probably hurt him in the eyes of the anti-GFA Unionists (especially Paisley’s DUP) because it inextricably tied him to Hume.

I guess the biggest problem was that peace was not in hand then and is only marginally closer now so, sadly, it seems premature (in much the same way that peace prizes seem to be awarded to people often for trying to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict). As you indicated, it seems the prize is being used more as an incentive thatn as an actual acknowledgment of a person’s or group’s work to bring about peace.

All of this, of course, leaves aside the fact that Trimble was probably one of the very few peace prize recipients to ever belong to an organization dedicated to exposing “the fatal errors and doctrines” of Catholicism. :rolleyes:

22

The person who created DDT won a Nobel Prize, although at the time, DDT was considered a great boon to mankind, so it probably wasn’t such a bad call.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded for an author’s body of literature. The Pulitzer Prize is awarded for one particular work.

When William Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature one of the committee members quit in disgust.

23

Echoing BobT and javaman: the Nobel Prize for literature is bestowed upon a person, not a work.

And jb_farley: as to Eudora Welty, isn’t she still alive? If so, when did she get “screwed over”? She’s not likely to win, in any case: her stuff is brilliant, but it doesn’t have that Nobel ponderousness and palpable profundity.

Add Steinbeck and Kipling to the list that already includes Buck and Hemingway as authors whose work is definitely above average, but not really worthy of inclusion in the Nobel pantheon.

Some has-been Nobel winners whose work has faded into obscurity but is well worth digging up:[ul][li]Sigrid Undset[/li][li]Knut Hamsun[/li][li]Halldór Laxness[/li]Pär Lagerkvist [/ul]

24

Didn’t Scholes and Myers win a Nobel prize in economics for their model on pricing options risk, which led directly to the failure of their Long Term Capital Management hedge fund when Russia went belly up in September 1998, which in turn led to the near-collapse of the US financial system, saved only by a bail-out by the Federal Reserve?

25

What an outrageous tissue of lies Moonshine! It was Merton and Scholes. To be fair, their involvement in LTCM does not mean that there work on derivatives pricing isn’t valuable. Nonetheless there were certainly those in the profession who felt that the finance types were getting more and premature recognition compared to other types of economists. Last year the committee steered well away from anyone who might prove to be embarrassing in this way and went for A K Sen, whose main work has been in theoretical welfare economics.

I don’t think anyone’s posted a link: http://www.nobel.se

picmr

26

I just remembered, if we’re gonna talk about contoversial laureates, we should mention Kary Mullis, who won The Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993 for developing the PCR method.

No scientist that works with DNA will deny that PCR is indispensable to no matter what kind of DNA work you are doing, from basic genetics to forensics. It took a special kind of mind to come up with the elegant PCR procedure, but from what I groked during my time in grad school, the general consensus within the scientific community is that Mullis is kind of a wingnut.

He has mostly chosen not to discuss PCR at lectures he has been invited to. Instead, he has lectured about the downfall of the modern scientific community and how he basically wants no part of it. He is one of the few supporters of Peter Deusberg’s “HIV doesn’t cause AIDS” hypothesis, despite have no experience in or in-depth knowledge of virology. His lecture slides have often included pictures of nude women.

Also, he has apparenly written a book in which he “professes to believe in astrology, to have been rescued from a fatal accident by a person travelling in an astral plane, and to have conversed with an alien disguised as a raccoon.”

At the very least, he’s a controversial guy who has upset much of the Old Guard of the scientific community since his Prize. You can read more about him here

27

Okay, so we stipulate that he’s a loon. So? If the people who work with DNA are correct, and they would probably be the ones to know, the development of the PCR is probably legitimate grounds for an award.

Just because the guy happens to be on of science’s biggest wacko’s doesn’t mean that the work didn’t deserve the award. Hell, I say bring on more of them, they must enliven the awards ceremony somewhat, don’t you think?

28

Just to clarify things: There is no such thing as the Nobel Committee. There is the Nobel Foundation that organises the whole thing but it does not award any prizes. This is done by:

physics: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
chemistry: Ditto
physiology or medicine: The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Instutet
literature: The Swedish Academy
peace: The Norwegian Nobel committe, elected by the Norwegian Storting (parliament)

The so called Nobel prize in economics has nothing to do with Alfred Nobel and should not be mentioned in the same context.

29

SuaSponte, Diceman, Scratch1300

I am sorry I hadn’t answered before, I totally forgot about this thread.

My critique on Oscar Arias is that what he did had no NOBLE intent, his motivations were entirely political. Nonetheless, the results of his political maneuverings were very favorable for Central America as a whole. Therefore, from a pragmatical standpoint, he could lay claim to the prize. But, from a morality point of view, it should have been given to someone more centered on the humanitarian side, rather than anyone inhabiting the corrupted spheres of political manipulation.

I am not sure what are the criteria for awarding the prizes, but I imagine that ethics are more relevant than pragmatism. Not, that I advocate such view; I lean towards the pragmatical side myself (no disregard to ethics intended, though) but, nonetheless, I consider the Nobel prices to be more of a reflection on humanity’s moral values. I conceptualize them as idealistic and romantic in nature, rather than materialistic.

Back on subject

Basically his merit resides on summoning the Central American leaders in what was dubbed The Esquipulas Summit. The purpose of such a meeting was to resolve the conflicts (social, economical, political) that, at the time, were severely affecting most countries in the area, fundamentally Nicaragua, which was deeply buried in the communist ideology and immersed in a chaotic social situation.

Costa Rica, of course, has been immune to military confrontations for the last 50 years You might have heard that right now we are the only country without a military (there is a very interesting story behind that which I will gladly post if any of you is interested).

The point I am trying to make is that Costa Rica was very selfless in taking a leadership role towards solving the conflicts afflicting the area, specially since we were the ones with least ground to gain from whatever beneficial consequences that could have stemmed from the discussions.

That, coupled with the advancements made towards the political stability of the area, were–I assume–the fundamental aspects considered by the committee in charge of handing out the awards.

Anyhow, I stick with my initial consideration that motivation and goodwill intent should govern convenience and therefore Arias didn’t deserve to win.

PD. I don’t know much about the whole Esquipulas thing. I was a kid back then and didn’t pay much attention to what was transpiring. If you are interested in learning more I can ask around and relay the information to you on a future post.
By the way,Sue, it is Señor not Senor. Thought you would like to know.

30

This is so ridiculous it sickens me.

How come Cecil hasn’t won a Nobel Price for any of his Straight Dope books?

31

Actually, MOST of the Literature choices have been rather underwhelming.

I mean, if you were to ask most scholars to name the greatest writer in the English language in the 20th century, most would tell you James Joyce. Ask for the greatest writer in the French language during the 20th century, and most would say Marcel Proust.

Neither Joyce nor Proust won a Nobel. Pearl Buck and Toni Morrison did. Need we say more?

32

Cancer is indeed caused (sometimes) by tissue irritation- oral cancers sometimes result from ill-fitting dentures, because of the chronic irritation. The reason is that cells have to proliferate to heal constant, small injuries, and all that DNA copying gives them more chances to screw up.

-Ben

33

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ankh_Too *
**

Oh, absolutely. I brought his name up under the context of controversial Laureates. He himself is controversial, but his receipt of the Prize isn’t, at least in my mind. I brought him up to make the point that even if his hypothesis on certain scientific subject turn out to be unsupported (like some interpretations of Fibiger’s work), his contribution to science is still important.

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Ben
**

Oh yeah, you’re right. Way back in my feeble mind I remember learning that at some point. All those grad school benders made me forget.

34

I’m afraid I completely disagree. Peace agreements have to be very practical and very materialistic to work, and you need politicians to work them out.

Peace is materialistic. It means kids not getting killed, regular supplies of food in the stores, and people being able to live their lives the way they want to.

35

There are bad choices even in THIS year’s Nobel’s. For example, Hideki Shirakawa does not really deserve a share of the Nobel for Chemistry. He freely admits the discovery of a process for creating conductive polymers was made by an unnamed lab assistant, who made a measurement error while weighing chemicals that lead to the happy accident of creating conductive polymers. No doubt Shirakawa did years of work refining this material, and worked hard to understand the process. But if anyone deserves the Nobel for Chemistry, it is the unknown lab assistant.

36

I’ve seen Rigoberta Menchu’s name bandied about as a poor choice. Who was Rigoberta Menchu?

37

Here are a couple of links. Haven’t read the first one completely, so I can’t say much for its veracity. The second is a Nation book review that includes some information on the controversy surrounding her Nobel prize.

http://www.indians.org/welker/menchu.htm

http://past.thenation.com/cgi-bin/framizer.cgi?url=http://past.thenation.com/issue/990208/0208granding.shtml