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Nobel Prizes Awarded

Posted by chrisd on from the recognition-and-cash-for-smart-people dept.

imrdkl writes: "Looks like Cisco has done a deal with CNN to present a nice overview of the Nobel Prizes this year. The Science awards that have been presented so far include one for singing atoms in Physics, as well as others linked from the URL above for medicine and chemistry. It's worth noting that the physics article was already covered here on slashdot, but now it's official for all."

2 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:applicability of Nobel Prizes in the modern wor by junkgrep · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ---As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.---

    This is an extremely unfair assement of the field of economics. Just because you may not like the some of the thrust of a social science is no reason to charge it with evil motives. And I would guess from your characterization that your sense of an "economist" is a boogeyman out of the Wall Street Journal, not a brilliant and thoughtful man like Joeseph Stiglitz. Indeed, the general thrust of academic economics is almost entirely the OPPOSITE of what you describe: it's normative goals are everywhere and always to maximize things like choice and social welfare.

  2. -1, Retarded by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Both the medecine and the chemistry prizes were awarded for proprietary research done in the interests of multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Although some of it is already being used in treatments, they are not affordable to the vast majority of the people in the world,

    Balderdash. In a few years generic versions of these drugs will be available at low cost. Thats about as good as you are going to get - if you cut the money out of the commercial drug business, you won't get any drugs for rich or for poor, as the generics manufacturers simply don't spend the research dollars necessary to develop the drugs.

    As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.

    Thats odd, Milton Freidman is renowned for his award winning thesis that political freedom and economic freedom are closely related.

    The only awards that I can inequivocably agree with are the literature and peace awards. The United Nations has done a lot of good work, and it is a shame that the American government is blind to the advantages of supporting it completely.

    Yes, how could Americans not see the value in a bloated bureaucracy that is not elected and is accountable to no one? I thought there was a revolution fought over those same principles...