New Awards To Compete With Nobel Prizes

Tsalg writes "The Nobel prizes will soon have company. Fred Kavli, a Norwegian physicist, is funding new awards in the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology. Kavli already funds several think tanks both in the U.S. and abroad, and intends the awards to help 'spread the word of science and get more students interested', as 'in many parts of the world that's a problem, from Norway to the United States...'"

Comments

The problem

[grasshoppa]

The problem isn't student's lack of interest, it's the lack of support from the government at the highest levels trickling down. Were I going to choose a major today, I would steer clear of anything having to do with programming, for fear of being sued for writing "hello world", given all the fun fun stuff our government ( US ) is doing in the patent/dmca area.

If our governments, US in particular, were to make science a priority ( real science. Not Bush science ), then we'd see interest in the student body. Not soon, but it'd happen.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

The problem isn't student's lack of interest, it's the lack of support from the government at the highest levels ...

I'd argue that lack of preparation at the lowest levels has a lot to do with it, followed by lack of appreciation on the job.

The K-12 education system is a mess. Unfortunately, it isn't broken: it's working roughly as designed. It keeps the kids warehoused and off the labor market until age 18, which keeps unemployment rate down and the labor unions happy. It keeps the teachers' union strong. It provides free babysitting, which keeps the parents happy. It even provides a smattering of education to the children of the middle class, though that's only because of a few dedicated teachers who are doing their best to subvert the system.

It isn't a matter of money: every country which outscores us on standardized tests spends less money per student than we do. In 1998, the average per student expenditure for U.S. elementary and high schools was roughly the same as the per student expenditure at Harvard (NOT the tuition, but Harvard's expenditure).

The experience of recent immigrants suggests that cultural expectations are a big part of the problem: immigrants from the Caribbean usually do significantly better in school than American blacks in the same schools. Immigrants from China and Russia usually excel in the same schools in which American students avoid education. American schools foster an anti-intellectual culture which rewards ``students'' with popularity for almost anything but academic success.

Homeschoolers are educating their children to far higher standards than any public school, and at far less cost. While American public schools are spending over $7,000 per student, most homeshcoolers are spending less than $1,000 per student. That means they are spending roughly 1/10 the money, to get far better results. One big reason they are able to do this is is that they are able to socialize their children, in contrast to the public, warehouse schools, which anti-socialize them. Homeschooled children spend every day in society, seeing how adults value and reward work and learning. It's no wonder that they learn a very different lesson than the children in the warehouse schools.

Why are young Americans choosing any field but engineering and science? A big part of it is that the public schools don't prepare them adequately for anything, but especially not for the sciences. After teaching calculus to American engineering students at a competitive state university, I can say that even American engineering students are abysmally ill-prepared in math.

Then there's the problem of the reward on the job: why would any sensible person want to go into a field which requires long hours of hard study in school, followed by longer hours of harder work on the job, and rewards it with relatively low pay? Anyone who could make a good living as an engineer could make a much better living in something like financial engineering, accounting or actuary science, and the hours would be no worse.

Third, engineering is an ``up or out'' profession: after 5 to 10 years, most engineers are unemployable, since fresh graduates are available to do the same work (so their management thinks) for less money. Engineers who don't move into management eventually get laid off, and wind up flipping burgers. Why not coast through business school and go directly into management? You wind up in the same position, with less work and higher lifetime earnings.

If you become an engineer, you will work for managers who really believe that an engineer fresh out of school is better than an experienced engineer, because he's cheaper. Your management will sooner or later follow that to the logical conclusion that the engineer in China is ten times better than you, because he's ten times cheaper.

I got an engineering degree twenty years ago, but I never worked as an engineer, and today I'm an economist. What I've written abo

Re:The problem

[szquirrel]

Homeschooled children spend every day in society, seeing how adults value and reward work and learning. It's no wonder that they learn a very different lesson than the children in the warehouse schools.

By definition, homeschooled children are taught at home by themselves or in small groups by a single parent or a handful of like-minded parents. Unless they spend their spare time working in a mall they aren't interacting with anywhere near the hundreds of other kids most public schoolers see on a daily basis.

As much as I'd like to believe that most homeschooled children are taught to be open-minded world travellers, the reverse is far more likely to be true. Most homeschooled children I've met are taught by parents who want to isolate them from what the parents see as harmful influences in public schools. That's not to say they're all xenophobic extremist zealots, but the majority are.

Sorry, please do go on about how bad public schools are.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

I don't know the answer to that.

I do know that Germany ``tracks'' students early. By about what would be middle school age here, the German kids' lives have been decided: either they are college material, or they're going into a trade. I think that most countries are closer to that system than to ours. Taiwan, for example, has high school entrance examinations, followed by college entrance exams. Both levels are highly competitive for the good schools.

I suspect that the U.S. practice of putting the disruptive and the incapable into the same class room with the capable and the brilliant is unique. Either way, what you're saying is that these other countries (e.g., Spain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, France, et cetera) concentrate their resources on the students who are willing and able to benefit by them.

All of those countries have their share of economic and social problems, but many of them seem to have smaller and more tractable social problems than we do. Their economic problems don't seem to be caused by poor education to the extent ours are, either. No one seems to be suggesting that Germany's persistantly high unemployment rate, for example, could be solved by mainstreaming their retarded and their disruptive students, as we do, or by combining their trade schools with their gymnasiums, as we do.

So, yes, our high public school costs may have something to do with who we serve and how we serve them, but no, we don't seem to be any better off for the extra spending, neither economically nor socially. Furthermore, homeschoolers again are showing the way: learning disabled children who are homeschooled often wind up ahead of the U.S. median, and always at lower cost than the ineffective public child-warehouses. The problem isn't how much money we spend on the U.S. public schools, but how it's spent.

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

While American public schools are spending over $7,000 per student, most homeshcoolers are spending less than $1,000 per student. That means they are spending roughly 1/10 the money, to get far better results.

These figures ignore the cost of the homeschool teacher.

If there is already somebody available in your household to teach (e.g., there is already a stay-at-home adult), then the incremental cost for homeschooling is relatively small.

However, if homeschooling requires that an adult who would otherwise be adding income to the household teach instead, that cost has to be taken into account.

For many families, K-12 homeschooling is simply not economically feasible.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

Unless they spend their spare time working in a mall they aren't interacting with anywhere near the hundreds of other kids most public schoolers see on a daily basis.

I can only think of two places where you are likely to be age tracked, and spend all your time with large groups of people your own age: the military, and prison. The age tracking isn't deliberate in those institutions, but there are some other parallels.

Socialization is what happens in society. Adults spend most of their time either at a job, working individually or in small groups, then they go home to their families. School takes kids out of society, into an artificial environment which has more in common with a prison than the real world. School prevents socialization. Remember that the Columbine killers were ``socialized'' in one of the public, warehouse schools.

The Moores (see ``When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children'') did some research (see ``School Can Wait") in the 1970s which showed that putting children into a school environment before about age 12 caused no end of pathologies. They became peer-dependent, they became alienated from their parents, they learned to hate anyone who wasn't a member of their group, and on and on.

Most homeschooled children I've met are taught by parents who want to isolate them from what the parents see as harmful influences in public schools.

What sort of irresponsible parent wouldn't? The Moores' work shows that simply sending your kids to a ``good'' school can do them harm. The fact that there are metal detectors at the door and armed guards in the halls and a lot of violence in spite of all that shouldn't worry me, I suppose? Should I get my kids a bunch of snuff movies and kiddie porn so they don't grow up ``sheltered''? Have you done that for your kids?

That's not to say they're [homeschooling parents] all xenophobic extremist zealots, but the majority are.

I'm afraid that I've never met an extremist zealot who homeschooled, and I've met hundreds of homeschooling families over the years. Unless you simply mean ``parents who want to shelter their kids until they're mature enough to take care of themselves''. If that's what you mean, I'm proud to be a xenophobic extremist zealot.

Re:The problem

[NeoSkandranon]

I'm afraid that I've never met an extremist zealot who homeschooled...

Perhaps extremist zealot isn't accurate here (No doubt that depends on who you ask.) but I might guess that some percentage go in for it as much for control as other benefits. I'm glad to hear that your experience differs, as I find it depressing that parents homeschool sheerly for the control-factor, but here's what I've encountered.

At the last church I attended homeschooling had a strong following, and the parents motivations for it had at least as much to do with isolating their children from "bad" influences as it did with improving the quality of education.

Talking with the youth there (by youth i mean middle and highschool, myself being 18 or 19 at the time) I was floored from time to time by the way they responded to conversation (aside from being more or less socially inept I'd get comments like "Oh right, Metallica...I read about them in world magazine once..") or the naivete they exhibited.

---they were all bright kids, no doubt, and probably knew their stuff academically better than the average highschooler. However you could tell that they were sheltered. It wasn't a matter of waiting until the kid was mature enough to deal with something, the line of thinking was "I don't think my children should encoutner this, so instead of teaching them how to deal with things and make decisions, I'll just make sure they never see it." (As a Christian I never understood that idea, but that's another discussion I guess)

Flavour of the month?

[m50d]

I appreciate attempts to increase the popularity of science - but I wonder if the choice of categories is rather shortsighted. Are these the areas that are important long-term, or simply the trendiest parts of science at the moment? I wonder if some more traditional areas would benefit more from a new award - it's quite easy to get people excited about nanotech, less so for some other areas.

He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Shisha]

In mathematics we have Fields medals and Abel prices, which in importance, are comparable to Nobel prices and yet very few people (in general public) are aware that they even exist.

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Boing]

I think the real reason the public doesn't know about Fields or Abel is because it would be extraordinarily difficult to explain the achievements being awarded.

For example, take this Wikipedia exerpt from the entry on 1974 Fields winner Enrico Bombieri...

Bombieri's theorem is one of the major applications of the large sieve method. It improves Dirichlet's theorem on prime numbers in arithmetic progressions, by showing that by averaging over the modulus over a range, the mean error is much less than can be proved in a given case. This result can sometimes substitute for the still-unproved generalized Riemann hypothesis.

Did you get all that? No? Part of the problem is that 99.9% of people would have no clue what any of that meant, but mostly it's that there's no apparent or easily explainable relevance to things people care about.

Contrast the discovery of X-rays, or the obvious world effects of Peace Prize winners, or the Chemistry awards that let us understand and control the real world better, or the Physiology awards that help us know how the human body works. Obviously, most of the awards suffer a similar problem of being too technical for most people to understand, but you can still get their attention by explaining the practical consequences in a simple way.

is it the money

[brajesh]

it's not the money that makes nobel prize so special. $1 million or whatever cannot augment over the 100 year legacy of the coveted prize.

For a reason

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's about time. The Nobel Committee isn't living up to goals Alfred Nobel had for the prize. I read an article on the Nobel Prize and how to win it. Step 1 was live a long time, because it takes so long for your research to be recognized by the committee. IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.

Often it can take that long to truly estimate the impact of the sort of truly revolutionary discoveries that would warrant a prize. Also, because it's not awarded posthumously, it sometimes seems a race to award the prize to older scientists before they die.

But the first reason I mentioned seems the more important one. It's hard to have perspective when the research is first done, and you want to make sure it stands up and has a truly significant impact. You don't want to give it to flashy but less sound science that was the "flavor of the month."

Re:For a reason

[brontus3927]

While I understand that reasoning, from TFA: "founder Alfred Nobel once said he wanted to encourage "dreamers" who lacked funding."

At the heart of the issue, there are two (partially) conflicting goals at work. One is to promote sound science, and the other is to generate enthusiasm in order to create a new generation of scientists. There reason they conflict is because most science isn't considered very "exciting" I'd like to see a prize set up more like the Grammy's. The most groundbreaking, innovative, or outright interesting research in a certain field in the last year. Plenty of glitz, some celebrities (Will Smith, George Lucas, and Steven Speilberg have made fortunes off of science-fiction, one would think they'd be happy to promote the science aspect), TV coverage. Follow up with the Nikeoldeon/Lego model and have another award where kids select winners. Sure you don't get as in-depth when kids are involved, but getting them interested at a young age and keeping them interested is essential.

but why is science so unpopular?

[Gothmolly]

It doesn't matter what I write, since I'm bitchslapped down to -1 and nobody will read it. But I have a Slashdot account, so I'll post.
The crucial question that I see is: why are students NOT attracted to the sciences more? I look around and see moral and scientific relativism, where something is right if you need it enough, or want it to be true. If this is the world children find themselves in, why WOULD they study a field which claims that the world is deterministic (down to the resolution of our ability to measure), that things ARE true or false, good or bad?

Re:but why is science so unpopular?

[JhohannaVH]

I think I have a good answer for you, Molly, and no, it's not the money. It's the courts and our intolerant society. Just look at what is going on in Kansas and Georgia and Texas. We have *got* to do something about the Conservative Christian (right or left, I don't give a fsck about your political orientation... it takes all kinds to stick your head in the sand) constantly trying to subvert what Science has PROVED to be fact.

Now, that being said.. One can say that Darwinian Theory is still a theory. Not a single person has 'evolved' anything of substance... just look at these arguments, brain cells haven't evolved! BUT - many other creatures have evolved, and we do so evolve - it's just usually medically corrected - in the event of a sixth finger/toe, or something like that, they call it a malformity. But how do we prove the regularly evolving cellular species, plant species and animal species that have been documented in the past 125 years since The Origin of Species was published? Oh yeah... that's what Intelligent Design is for.

Don't even get me started on physics/astronomy/nanotech/whatever. My point is, our children are NOT being taught sciences in school. They are being taught theocracy, they are being taught lies, and they are deceived. But this has always been the case!!! This has not changed since the 1970s/80s since I went to school. Probably hasn't changed in 60 years. PLEASE!! My history teacher tried to teach us that the Chinese won the Vietnam War, and I graduated in 1991!!

Go ahead, blame Bush, you know you want to. But you are WRONG. Since when do School Board Administrators talk to Congress for their lesson plans? The NEA is just one big fscking Mob Front for whatever their agenda is this month. Last time I checked, legislatures do not set our local school lesson plans. They don't force our students to carry 8 credits of arts, but only 4 of science and 2 of math! These policies are not set by our national government, but by our state and local legislatures. It's time that the blame start being laid at the appropriate feet of those responsible. Your Governer, State Legislature and City Council administer the schools, not the US Government. Tell me about it... I live in California, the crappiest school admin in the country.

Again, all of that said... The No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to help with all of this. HOWEVER, it uses the carrot and stick (not SCHtick) approach. In order to receive the federal funds, the schools have to pass the standardized tests with an 800 or better, and California cannot do that. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/education/4292821/detai l.html I don't know what is so hard about educating children to a basic level, but that's just BS. only 21% of the schools pass, and of them, they are middle and elementary schools!! This is where our problem lies, people. Teachers unwilling or untrained to teach. Goes back to the ye olde compensation issue. Compensate them appropriately, we might see some results. Now, I'm not saying that the NCLB Act is not flawed or implemented well, it's not. But, it was a measure taken to try to mitigate some of these issues. And it's not working because the schools don't want it to.

The entire US School System needs to be overhauled... and it all starts with each of us, in our local communities. NOT with President Bush. Just remember that!!

Personally, I'm just shipping my kids to Japan for education!

Why nanotechnology?

[geneing]

I wonder why Kavli chose nanotech as an award field. It is hot these days, but will it be important in a decade or two.

When Nobel picked physics, chemistry, physiology&medicine, literature and peace he got it mostly right. These are fundamental areas which will be important for a long time. Although, chemistry prize is often given these days to work related to biology and I can't remember many fundametal discoveries were made lately.

Re:Why nanotechnology?

[k98sven]

Although, chemistry prize is often given these days to work related to biology and I can't remember many fundametal discoveries were made lately.

That has less to do with the prize and more to do with what's going on in chemistry nowadays. It's simply that more things are going on in biochemistry than in the more 'conventional' fields of chemistry.

Biochemistry is to chemistry now a bit like quantum physics was to physics in the 30's. A vast new field to be explored, with lots of new ground to break.

No, fundamental discoveries in 'traditional' chemistry don't come around much anymore. That's because our understanding of fundamental chemistry is sound.

Few chemists believe there is anything in chemistry which cannot be explained by quantum mechanics (which isn't really a seperate dicipline when you get into basic chemistry). While QM isn't the final 'theory of everything' the physicists dream about, it probably is the final theory as far as chemistry is concerned.
(In the same way Newtonian mechanics was the 'final theory' of the mechanics of everyday objects)

Re:Where?

[abigor]

He was looking east when he said it, though.

Re:I think someone is bitter....

[grasshoppa]

Try smiling! When you smile, the whole world smiles with you!

I hate this attitude. Just because I choose to see the realities of our world doesn't mean I'm not an optimist. I choose to see the realities because I want to do something to improve them.

Kids want to be rich, be famous, and get laid. Scientists, by and large, lack a reputation for at least two of those.

Hate to break it to ya, sparky, but kids want what adults want: To feel important. Be that getting good grades, have social status, what have you. They want to feel like they are doing something important, not just spinning their wheels. Much like adults.

Science, by the current administration, is seen as a political tool and little more. It's may not be the reality of the situation, but that's the perception ( tho I suspect it *is* the reality. That's really irrelevant tho ). Whether this is something new with this admin, or if it's been on going, I don't know.

Woo hoo!

[mbrother]

Astrophyics rarely if ever wins the Nobel prize (X-ray and Neutrino astronomy did win a couple of years ago, but before that there are just a few instances involving astronomical tests of relativity). There's a lot of good work going on that would be better publicized and understood by the public with a regular high-profile prize.

The problem... Salary

[xplenumx]

Despite popular belief, the problem of not being able to entice students to science is neither student interest nor government funding - it's salary.

After graduating with a bachleors in biochemistry, I worked for two years at a research institution as a technician making ~$20,000 per year. I then attended graduate school and made ~$18,000 per year. After five years I worked as a post-doc at an academic instituation and made ~$25,000 per year (The NIH recently increased the post-doc salary to $36,000 for a first year post-doc up to $46,000 for a fifth year post-doc). Now, as an assistant professor (which lasts for about 5 years at which point you're reviewed for tenure), I make ~$80,000 per year.

Contrast this with my wife and friends. Two years after graduating from college with an economics degree, my wife made over $80,000 per year. Each of my five friends with business degrees were making over $100,000 per year within four years after graduation. Of my biochemistry peers, those that chose a career outside of research (medicine excluded) did significantly better than those who either worked in science or continued on for their advanced degree. Of my peers with who I obtained a doctorate degree, those who joined industry are doing slightly better (on average ~$100,000 for those without post-docs, ~$120,000 who did) than those who stayed in academic, while those that left science are either doing much better (consulting and writing), or much worse (school teacher).

So, not only do those who presue science achieve a far, far less salary than those who do not, but they're also deeply hurt by all of the income they didn't make during their training. Why do scientists have such big egos? Because we have nothing else.

So, tell me - why should students join science? I'm a scientist, I love science, and I absolutely love my research - but I'd be lying if I said that I don't get frustrated by making far less than my friends while working much, much longer hours. It's not an issue money - it's an issue of compensation. We have advanced degree, we expand the economy, we save lives, and we work incredibly hard - please compensate us appropriately.

Re:Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[mbkennel]

Thanks to Russell, you do not need to even understand what the formulas mean or anything of the kind, as long as your mathematical syntax is flawless. This for some reason gives free regin to teachers to hammer the syntax into students without them, us, ever knowing what it means.
We become, quite literally, educated fools

Thanks to modern mathematics, it is mathematically proven that mathematics is NOT just syntax and logic.

There are many deep and fundamental concepts in mathematics. Syntax is the necessary assistant to express them.

Since the concepts are especially subtle and abstract in mathematics, you need complicated syntax.

Do you think that research math professors have no intuitive idea about the concepts? Suppose they don't: then where do all the new ideas come from?

Any attempt to pick apart what they are saying results in fierce opposition as if you are trying to slay their holy cow.

I have a guess as to what could be happening: you really aren't getting what the professors are trying to tell you, and you're annoyingly self-righteous about it.

Yes, you do have to rely on other people's solutions in mathematics because the sum progress of the smartest people of civilization for hundreds of years is going to be more than your own.

Mathematics is centrally about the inter-relationships between abstract concepts.

There are other aspects at work: that some of the reasons behind mathematical definitions don't become apparent until more knowledge.

In 9th grade you may hear and see about sines and cosines and have to remember all sorts of useless identites. What's the point of sin and cos? Why radians?

It becomes much more apparent when you know calculus and differential equations, when they are elementary solutions to x'' + x = 0 and how the formulas and series expansions only work in radians.

In college level mathematics the same thing happens---there may not be obvious reasons for "why" things are the way they are until you know some serious analysis---how the 19th century systematized and rigorized (and found mistakes) in previous, more 'intuitively' discovered mathematics. Abstract algebra and topology aren't easy to swallow in one gulp either.

scientific prizes

[Antonymous Flower]

Rewarding scientists isn't a bad thing. However, the prize isn't a million bucks and a golden locket. The prize is discovery. To make progress towards a higher level of understanding is invaluable. When one man comes closer to understanding himself through scientific discovery, the global community prospers. The significance of the nobel prize isn't the golden locket, but rather a point in the direction of understanding. A recognition of truth.

Most kids don't ask the questions that lead to discovery. You could blame that on the schools, but realize that public schools simply aren't for that type of thing. Public schools are for the sake of economic growth. When the economy grows more opportunities for scientific advancements are possible (believe it or not.)

Science isn't popular among youth because there are so many pleasures abound, and few opportunities to ask "what is going on here?" All they hear concerning academics is "do your homework." It's just something that "has to be done." Mathematics, easily the most astounding acheivement of human intellect, is taught merely algorithmically. Students are taught only to learn procedure, rather than to discover.

Schools can suck everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

There are good schools as well as crap schools in the US, just as there are good schools as well as crap schools in India.

I attended high school in Boston. It was very hard, but the "A.P." tests everybody took seemed pretty lame. I then went across the river to MIT. It was very hard too -- but I was astonished that the standard freshman sequence (8.01, 8.02, 18.03 etc) was basically remedial. Luckily you could test out of it all so you could instead dive in and be over your head right away! A lot of students did this -- so they must also had attended good high schools. Most of them of course had been to high school in the USA.

And I have stayed in the US because there are lots of smart, interesting people here (many foreign or of foreign origin) and lots of freedom to do interesting things.

"Success" really is a combination of opportunity, skill, and drive....and lots of luck. If some people are motivated by a prize, well, that's good for all of us isn't it? Were the efforts of the various X-prize contestants debased by the impetus of a prize?

(Believe me I know what I'm talking about when I say there are crap schools in India! But on the other hand, if I had not moved to Boston, could I have gotten into an IIT? I don't know!)