Why the prestigious Nobel prizes should be cancelled, at least for a year

1. Why the prestigious Nobel prizes should be cancelled, at least for a year We need to revise the statutes, untouched since 1974, to allow for new prizes and rectify past injustices If you ever meet someone who claims to have nearly won the Nobel Prize in mathematics, walk away: You’re dealing with a deeply delusional individual. While there isn’t, and has never been, a Nobel in mathematics, the desire to claim Nobel- worthiness is sensible, for no matter the field, it is the world’s most prestigious accolade. The annual prizes are Sweden’s most sacred holiday, bringing out royalty in the arts and sciences and a worldwide audience of millions to witness an event featuring the pomp and circumstance typically associated with the naming of a new pope. Indeed, the prizes are so important to Sweden’s national identity that the king of Sweden recently took the unprecedented step of cancelling the Nobel Prize in literature for 2018.

2. What would cause King Gustaf to take such an extraordinary step? Simply put, he did so for the same reason that Alfred Nobel founded the awards, to begin with: public relations.Chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel was once called “the merchant of death” for his arms dealership’s role in “killing more people faster than ever before.” To rehabilitate the Nobel name, Alfred created the eponymous prizes with a mission that the awards be “for the benefit of mankind.”King Gustaf wisely decided that the literature Nobel take a one-year hiatus to investigate the allegations of horrific sexual misconduct by a key member of the committee that awards the prize in literature. This “stand-down” period will hopefully also allow for a reevaluation of the process by which the prizes are awarded.While the two science prizes, in chemistry and physics, have so far not succumbed to scandal, they have had their fair share of controversy. (See Haber’s chemistry Nobel for the invention of, and later advocacy for, chemical weapons.) Still, I believe it might behove the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to take a year off as well.As an astrophysicist and an invited nominator of Nobel laureates in years past, I have studied the prize and the organization that awards them. My investigations revealed a bevvy of biases that still remain within the esteemed physics prize (my specialization). If it were to “stay the course,” I fear the prestige of the Nobel, and perhaps the public’s perception of science itself could be irreparably harmed. To win science’s top prize an individual must meet three main criteria, according to Alfred Nobel’s will. First, they must make the most important invention or discovery in physics or chemistry. Secondly, it should be made during the previous year. And the final requirement is that it benefits all of mankind. This last outcome is the most nebulous and subjective – and frequently violated. How can the degree of the worldwide beneficence of a scientific discovery be adequately judged?For example, given the enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons around the world, is nuclear fission, the winning achievement of the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to Otto Hahn, and not to his female collaborator Lise Meitner, of sufficient benefit to warrant a Nobel?And what about the lobotomy? This discovery, rewarded with the 1949 Nobel Prize in physiology, caused widespread and disastrous outcomes until it was banned a decade later. Gustav Dalen’s lighthouse regulator, awarded the prize in 1912, didn’t exactly enjoy the longevity of many subsequent prizes.Even some recent prizes have raised eyebrows. Corruption charges brought up in 2008 threatened to sully the reputation of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine after drug company AstraZeneca allegedly influenced the selection of that year’s laureate for its own gain. This points to another issue with the prize: It can misrepresent the way science is done. Science is a team sport, and no one truly goes to Stockholm alone. ARTICLE SOURCE- BS